Salvogesis

John 7:37-38: On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” We went to  Sanctuaire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes . They have healing water in a spring there under the church that you can walk right up to. The story of the healing spring and the cathedral goes a little like this: Bernadette Soubirous, a 14-year-old peasant girl, on 11 February 1858 saw a vision of Mary, the mother of Jesus and was told to go and drink water from a spring which was to appear inside the grotto and wash herself with it. She did and she kept going there and by mid-July had seen Mary 18 times. She was also told to tell the priests to build a chapel at the grotto site. They did. The Cathedral was built over the spring and people – like us - still visit today.  God is a God of miracles even today. There is a whole community...

Today, as well as All Hallows Eve eve, it is also Reformation Day Eve. The Reformation is acknowledged to have started on 31 October 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, in what is now Germany.   When Covid-19 struck the world – at least when the panic and the initial measures were taken, when they started closing borders and not allowing people outside, we were in Germany. Germany was our first stop in our planned trip. We were hoping to see Denmark and other places but most of Europe was closed before we would have a chance but one place that we were able to see before the great lockdown was Mainz in Germany. (Here are some pictures of our time in Mainz) Do we know what is an important artifact relating to the Reformation that is in Mainz? It is something that actually came into being sometime between 1450 and 1454, a few years before the Reformation: The Gutenberg Bible! (show pictures)   Acts 17:11-12: Now the Berean...

As last Sunday was Pentecost, We are going to look at Acts 2 today. Acts is a neat book. Did you know that it is the only history (book) in the NT? Did you know that the books Acts and Luke were written by the same author and these books actually comprise more than 30% of the NT.   Acts always reminds me of a play. Maybe it’s the name (Act 2, scene 1). But particularly in the first part, Acts reminds me of a Shakespearian play. Anyone remember studying Shakespeare in school?   Here’s quiz for you. Who can name the play these quotes are from: 1.     ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen lend me your ears;’ 2.     “To be or not to be, that is the question” 3.     “Romeo, Romeo, where art thou Romeo”?   Shakespeare wrote very dramatic plays and some of the tragedies are pretty tragic like Hamlet. Remember, his ‘to be or not to be’ speech where, of course, he is either pretending to be insane or actually goes insane while ...

B.   What is implied by being altogether a Christian? “What more than this, can be implied in the being a Christian altogether?” Three things: the love of God, the love of one’s neighbour, and faith. One has to love God with every ounce of emotion and action. One must “love the Lord your God with all they heart, and with all they soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.” One must love all people, friends and enemies, and we must do so with such sincerity that we love them as much as we do ourselves. We must have faith in God. We must have more than a belief in God. We must have a faith in Christ that even ‘purifies the heart’. Only then according to Wesley are we altogether a Christian. This second list is not disconnected from the first. The attributes of the ‘almost a Christian’ are a subset of the ‘altogether a Christian’. Wesley acknowledges that even in his less affluent and less self-focussed times, that this is a difficult teaching. He lets us know as well...

A. What is implied by being almost a Christian? Wesley’s description of the ‘almost Christian’ includes three traits, the first of which is ‘heathen honesty’. Immediately one is drawn into his discussion, for one does not necessarily in our contemporary society equate heathens and honesty whereas Wesley describes them as more honest than many people even in the churches these days. Heathen honesty encompasses refraining from the following acts: being unjust, taking from one’s neighbour, oppressing the poor or the rich, defrauding anyone at all and – insofar as possible – owing anyone anything. The common heathen also acknowledges truth and justice and does not think highly of liars. They can also expect love and assistance from each other: they will feed the hungry and clothe the naked and give away all that they don’t need. One may engage in all these elements of ‘heathen honesty’ and still be only ‘almost a Christian’. The second trait that defines the ‘almost Christian’ is a for...

Review of John Wesley's 'The Almost Christian' Preached at St. Mary’s Oxford, before the University, on July 25, 1741. Sermon 2 by John Wesley launches into his discussion of what defines a Christian from the base of Acts 26:28 : 'Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian' The primary metaphor that Wesley uses to unite the discussion is a description of one whom he defines as the ‘almost Christian’. This is a wonderful vehicle for the discussion; as he compares her/him to the ‘altogether Christian,’ it demands that the hearer/reader pay more attention than if Wesley had merely launched into a discourse of faith versus works. Most readers/listeners, I would imagine, at some point during the description of the ‘almost Christian’ would have cause to ask, as Wesley articulates “Is it possible that any man living should go so far as this, and, nevertheless, be only almost a Christian? What more than this, can be implied in the being a Christian altogether? ” (Outl...

The BC municipal elections are today, October 20th, and I encourage all of you, if you haven't already, to vote after you have already been spending some time in prayer, fasting, and study to determine which candidates you should support. Make a good choice. Today in the text,we are also encouraged to make a good choice. We are encouraged to learn, know, and remember who is the ONLY Messiah. Some questions for us today: Who is the Messiah? (Jesus) Messiah is a Hebrew word, what is the Greek equivalent? (Christ) What is the Messiah/Christ? What does it mean? What does he do? (Anointed One/King/Political and Military Leader) This is important. Acts 1:8: " But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." Do we know what and where these places are? Jerusalem was the capital of the united kingdoms of Israel...

Acts 2 is quite a dramatic chapter in the Bible and parts of it read like a suspense-filled thriller movie. Acts 2 speaks about an appearance of the Holy Spirit after Jesus has returned from the dead. It shows the power and authority of God to all who are present. The signs in this chapter show that Jesus is King; Jesus is God and as Peter speaks to them, the people realize that Jesus is the Christ and they understand, Verse 36, that they have killed the Christ, the one they have been waiting for to save them. They have killed him. These people now standing in front of Peter are like repentant children in front of the school principal, realizing that they’ve done something terribly wrong. They realize that Jesus is the Christ and they realize that they’ve killed him. We’ve killed him and now Jesus is back from the dead. If we didn’t know the ending and for those present who don’t, it could be like a 1970s horror movie. You wrongfully kill someone and they come back from the dead to s...

I have a friend of mine, Cory, who is a hunter. Every once and a while, he would get a deer or a moose and would give us some great venison sausages or steaks or something – it was nice. Well, one day when we were in our early twenties, Cory meets me for coffee and he is really excited; he tells me that he has won the goat lottery. Great …you won a goat?’ I ask. ‘No.’ He then explains what he means to me. You see there are only so many mountain goats so hunters buy raffle tickets and the winners are allowed to hunt for goats and this year Cory won so he invites me to go with him. Now back then Cory and I were both a little bit out of shape and the thing about mountain goats is that mountain goats tend to like to live at the top of… mountains; so away we go up to the top of the mountain and we are really starting to feel it. It is tough work. It is a bit of a hike. We are tired. We are exhausted actually but I tell you that the view from the summit is just beautiful. One of t...