Mary Magdalene, from despair to hope renewed

Recognition dawns with the speaking of her name.  But is it merely slow recognition, or does the power of his spoken word cause an effectual change which commences with the identifying and possession of personal knowledge of the risen Lord?  The recognition of not only the man Jesus, but the resurrected messiah, Jesus Christ.  Hope is renewed by knowledge of the risen savior, not the recollection of a martyred leader.

A hard road

For those who stand in covenant with God, pragmatism in faith, piety and practice is idolatry, it becomes a demand for glory in this present, evil age.  It demands the trappings of habitation, rather than the provisions of a pilgrim.

A two way street and Hermeneutics the crossing guard

” For those who believe that God meets us in personal address in and through the Scriptures, biblical language cannot be reduced to symbolized expressions of pious experience. This means that while it is certainly true that particular biblical metaphors for God will have different meanings for different groups in different times and places- sometimes liberating, sometimes jarring, sometimes reinforcing negative stereotypes- we must never forget that the traffic runs in the other direction too. What if our own presuppositions are governed by the will to power as well? After all, ‘Christendom’ has employed a variety of strategies, including democratic egalitarianism, in its will to power. Christian theology already has its own hermeneutics of suspicion in its account of the noetic effects of sin as suppressing the truth in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18). This is done by all of us, regardless of how validated we feel in our own ideology.”

Michael S. Horton

Pilgrims or Homesteaders

Pilgrims, a living temple being built up in Christ, those who shall neither worship in Samaria nor Jerusalem but in spirit and truth. This is the church, in many ways existing in a reconstituted ethical sphere as people of the tabernacle. What I mean by this is that the church is a people on a pilgrimage, a people united by covenant with God and one another and following as God leads them through and out of the wilderness (this present evil age). I find it very interesting that the ethical environment in which the church identifies herself is more akin to the mosaic and pre-temple era’s in Israel rather than period of the kings. It is quite a radical departure from a theocratic monarchy to a theocracy in truth.

I have begun to find this topic very interesting and hope to further explore the ethical nature of the church and her existence in this present evil age and how it seems that our particular view of eschatology, be it ammillenialism, postmillenialism, etc, is actually the offspring which is birthed by our Pauline, or general eschatology.

The Evolution of Michael Jackson

Proof that things are not getting better but much worse, sorry postmillenialists. This just creeps me out.