So finally the Heidelberg Catechism reaches the end of the Apostles’ Creed. (That’s “finally” if you’ve been with me since 2013 when I started blogging on the Catechism, including this section.) They’ve been at it line by line, sometimes word by word, since question 26. Now it is Question 58, and they address the concluding […]
Advent 3–Reading Isaiah (cont.)
Reading through Isaiah in Advent provides some breathtaking moments. Yes, there is also some thick slogging: any number of passages are filled with ancient history and unfamiliar names. But scattered throughout the book’s 66 chapters are some of the most beautiful, inspiring, hope-filled moments in all of Scripture. Some of them are familiar as can be. Handel’s […]
Resurrection of the Body: This Is Not Your Culture’s Afterlife
Our culture goes two opposite directions on life after death. Both are a long way from Christian faith and hope. On the one hand we have sentimental universalism. It can be the soft-focus flowers and clouds of greeting card theology, trying to comfort the grieving. It can be stories of near death experiences in the […]
What Do You Hope For? Three Promises In Christ’s Resurrection
Years ago, when I was a pastor, I stood with a family who had lost a loved one — a husband, father, and grandfather. His widow, whom I’d not previously met, was overwhelmed. She hardly spoke in the week I saw her, so wracked she was by the pain of grief. It is hardly surprising. […]