The Hebrew Pascha was instituted ‘for a memorial’ (Exodus 12:14; 13:9); and (as we observed earlier) by this ‘sacramental’ means the nation is carried back to, and caught up into, God’s redeeming action. Likewise, at the Table of remembrance, the Church does not simply reflect (as a mental exercise) upon the Cross of Calvary, but relives the accomplished redemption, is taken back to the Upper Room and the Hill, shares in that saving work which it knows as a present reality—because its Author is the living One in the midst of His ransomed people. And this present consciousness of the living Christ at His Table is a foretaste of and prelude to a richer fellowship in His Kingdom; for in the Upper Room He added to ‘Adieu’ the note of ‘Au revoir’ in His promise that His people would gather at His table in the final Kingdom (Matthew 26:29; Mark 14:25; Luke 22:29, 30; John 6:54).

Ralph Martin

“Idolatry means “the worship of an idol or of a deity represented by an idol, usually as an image’ The visible forms of worship may become an end in themselves; in that sense the liturgy may become an idol or image.When the liturgy becomes the concrete reality of divine mystery, the form itself is deemed sacred. The formal structures then become objects of reverence and worship rather than symbols serving to facilitate the meeting of God with his people. The ancient Hebrews were especially susceptible to this type of idolatry. For example, King Saul assumed the liturgy of sacrifice was sufficient to ensure victory over the Philistine armies, apart from proper attitudes of the heart and priestly officiating (1 Sam. 13:8ff). For Saul, the ritual of sacrifice was akin to stroking a rabbit’s foot. This presumption in equating the performance of liturgy with the worship of God reached its height during the days of Isaiah the prophet. God’s prophet decried the mockery and let it be known that the Holy One of Israel would not accept the substitution of form for true worship. “The multitude of your sacrifices—what are they to me?” says the LORD.... “I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling -of my courts? Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—I cannot bear your evil assemblies. Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts my soul hates. They have become a burden to me;... When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen.” (Isa. 1:11-15) “

Andrew E. Hill, Enter His Courts With Praise! (Eastbourne: Kingsway Publications, 1998), 52–53.

https://youtu.be/vhfAZ8ycS0U hope y’all enjoy as this topic came up kinda recently.

Happy Father’s Day y’all

The promise here is that the Lord will raise up the one who is sick. The idea of the sick being raised up makes sense, as those who are sick are often lying down. However, the same word is also used frequently in the New Testament to speak of the resurrection. We can be certain that the Lord will hear the prayer of faith as the elders anoint with oil in the name of the Lord. He may answer that prayer immediately or gradually, with a foretaste of the ultimate healing, or he may answer it through the resurrection.23 Therefore, “the prayer of faith is not a prayer that insists that healing must be immediate but a prayer that commits the sick one to God knowing that his will is best and that he can be trusted to ‘raise up’ the sick whether it be immediately by a miracle of healing or ultimately at the return of the Lord.… Although the passage indicates that the sick may expect to be healed, there is no guarantee that the healing will be immediate.”24
Jonathan Black

A “passionate logician,” Knox fused reason with intense emotion.⁠2 His preaching bore what James McEwen called the “remarkable power of impressing upon other minds” the fervency of the gospel. He was driven by a “single-minded, lifelong, and incorruptible devotion to what he believed to be his duty.”⁠3 Tireless in his mission, he famously declared, “Give me Scotland or I die.”⁠4
JD King about John Knox

This has been good so far , but it is a very long read .

Chapter 2: “Understanding the Deity of Christ”
Definition : “
The unique, eternal Son, truly God in nature and status, humbled himself to become a man, Jesus Christ, in order to die on the cross and rise from the dead for the redemption of human beings.”

Chapter 4

John R. W. Stott: “Nobody can call himself a Christian who does not worship Jesus. To worship him, if he is not God, is idolatry; to withhold worship from him, if he is, is apostasy.”

https://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/20_arguments-gods-existence.htm was reading this today some may find these helpful.

Closely related to the Jesus-Paul question is the modern problem of the relationship between the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith. The exploitation of this perceived discrepancy by publicity-seeking scholars reached unprecedented proportions in the 1980s and 1990s. There has been a ceaseless flow of print and talk about the unreliability of the New Testament witness concerning Jesus. Never in the history of Christianity has there been such a widespread attack on the church’s faith in Jesus as divine Messiah and risen Lord. Many leaders in the mainline churches have joined in this campaign to persuade their own members to give up their supposedly outdated, unenlightened trust in the Scriptures and the historic creeds. These texts are, it is suggested, to be supplanted by the work of the scholars of the Jesus Seminar as well as many others who have their own quarrels with the church.53

Few outside academia would know that the incongruities so frequently cited today as proof of the Bible’s unreliability were noted many centuries ago by such figures as Origen and Calvin. It seems more than a little disingenuous for skeptical scholars of today to act as though they were the originators of newly minted insights made possible only by their supposed discoveries and intellectual fearlessness.54 It cannot be emphasized too strongly that those writers who seek to reduce and diminish the figure of Jesus are creating a Jesus to suit their own preferences just as surely as Thomas Jefferson did when he took scissors and paste to the Gospels.

The key to Jesus is now, as it has always been, his crucifixion and resurrection. Nothing at all is known from first-century extrabiblical sources about Jesus as a historical figure. The New Testament is the only witness we have. Any modern reconstruction of the “historical Jesus,” therefore, is certain to be a product of the cultural environment that produced it, whereas the Jesus proclaimed as Lord in the New Testament comes closer than any other figure known to human history to being universal, transcending time and historical location, belonging to all cultures and all people everywhere and forever. That is a big claim, but Christians need not be ashamed to stand by it. This proclamation of Jesus as Lord, as we hope to make clear in chapter 1, arose not out of Jesus’ ministry, which after all can be compared to the ministry of other holy men, but out of the unique apostolic kerygma (proclamation) of the crucified and risen One.

As Luke Timothy Johnson writes:

Christian faith has never — either at the start or now — been based on historical reconstructions of Jesus, even though Christian faith has always involved some historical claims concerning Jesus. Rather, Christian faith (then and now) is based on religious claims concerning the present power of Jesus. . . . Christian faith is not directed toward a human construction about the past; that would be a form of idolatry. Authentic Christian faith is a response to the living God, whom Christians declare is powerfully at work among them through the resurrected Jesus.55
Fleming Rutledge

Howard C. Kee makes the point that meaning can be determined only by looking at the social context of words. For example, by being sensitive to social and cultural factors, we can see that Matthew uses the term “righteousness” as “a quality of behavior … demanded by God and to be fulfilled by his faithful servants,” while Paul, in a different framework, uses it as an action where God sets things right.

James H. Railey, Jr. Benny C. Aker