Communion…now this is good…

by The RevNo Comments
My son and I were worshipping together on Sunday and being the first Sunday of the month we partook in Communion. As the elements came to us, he smiled at me and we had the following conversation:Ethan: Do I get some of that?Me: No son. We need to make sure that you truly follow Jesus by faith and that you believe that he is your Lord and that he has forgiven you.Ethan: I do Dad.Me: Well, you have to get up with Pastor Doug and tell everyone that you do.Ethan: By myself?Me: Yep.Ethan: I’m not ready for that Dad, but I can’t wait!Amazing! This ties the whole thing together for me. We have confused the sacraments. For believing children communion is the place for the public proclamation of their faith. For the new convert it’s baptism.Can you imagine what that day will be like when he stands before the world and proclaims his faith in the risen Messiah and claims...
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Baptism 2 — It’s importance now…

by The RevNo Comments
Today’s culture is adrfit. There is no longer an oppressive meta-narrative keeping everyone in check. Everything changes, and everything changes fast. If you have to wait more than a couple of minutes for your fast food you get upset. If the lines at the self-checkout are long you can’t understand why they don’t have more. People change their relationships almost as often as they do their underwear.Yeah, it’s a different world. The change that has taken place has left many disillusioned, frustrated, and wondering if there is anything left that matters, that will be what it says it will be.Many of the college students that I work with are looking for stability. They are desirous that somethign will deliver. They can see through all the bull crap that’s out there and so they are cynical. Who can blame them? Every week it sems that another “holy” man has turned out to be a pedophile or morally degenerate in some way....
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Baptism 1

by The RevNo Comments
I am on vacation in beautiful North Myrtle Beach, SC. Today is the last day. We leave tonight for Louisville and then on to Evansville. I will miss the beach!!I have begun emailing with a close friend about Baptism. So, I thought I would begin my thoughts here. This first post is rough and raw. It’s the baseline argument for infant baptism. It’s not as nuanced as I would like, but, that will come later, maybe. The point of the following posts hopefully will be to show it’s importance in our culture.The basic argument from my perspective runs like this: God is a covenantal God and works out his will through the work of covenants. The ultimate covenant being that of the new covenant in the person of Jesus. The sign of the covenant began with Abraham as that of circumcision. This was the marker of God’s covenant people and was applied to male infants at eight days old. In Christ...
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Communion 2…

by The RevNo Comments
My friend Tim challenged me to go deeper with this. So, I have been thinking about it for the last few days and meditating some more about why Communion is so significant right now in our time and place.I keep going back to mystery and transcendence. So much of our world today is “real” there is no imagination. There is no mystery. Our movies leave nothing to the imagination when it comes to sex, violence, or anything…really. Neither do sports. I was struck by this when I heard a caller on the local sports station talk about his experience as a boy going to his first Tiger game. He said that when he would watch a game on TV it was black and white. He had to imagine the grass being green, the colors of the uniforms, and the color of the stadium. He said that when he walked through the tunnel to enter his seats for the first time...
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Communion…I think it’s a big deal…

by The RevNo Comments
As I begin to write this I am feeling a bit like I am walking on sacred ground. In the Protestant tradition we only have two sacraments: communion and baptism. I have been thinking a great deal about the role of both. As I mentioned before communion is on the top of my mind because I just finished reading a book about it by Robert Letham. It was fantastic!First, what I am not going to do. I am not going to argue for the merits of the Reformed version (read Calvin’s) of communion. I will leave that to the places where it has been dealt with in full. If you want to know the differences between Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed understandings check out Letham’s text or the Westminster Confession of Faith.So, what’s the big deal? We take communion once a month in our church and it’s a nice ceremony with saltine crumbs and a thimble of grape juice. This is...
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