It is Firday

Well today is Friday, and my last day of classes for this semester. (internal celebration). So this will be short as I have to study for one last Greek Vocab test of the semester. But my thought for today is from John 3, where Nicodemus comes to Jesus.


You Must Be Born Again

3 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named hNicodemus, ia ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to Jesus1 jby night and said to him, k“Rabbi, lwe know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do munless God is with him.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is nborn oagain1 he cannot psee the kingdom of God.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born qof water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 rThat which is born of the flesh is sflesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.1 7 tDo not marvel that I said to you, ‘You1 must be born uagain.’ 8 vThe wind1 blows wwhere it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

9 Nicodemus said to him, x“How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel yand yet you do not understand these things? 11 Truly, truly, I say to you, zwe speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but zyou1 do not receive our testimony. 12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 aNo one has bascended into heaven except che who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.1 14 And das Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man ebe lifted up, 15 that whoever believes fin him gmay have eternal life.1

For God So Loved the World

16 “For hGod so loved ithe world,1 jthat he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not kperish but have eternal life. 17 For lGod did not send his Son into the world mto condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 nWhoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not obelieved in the name of the only Son of God. 19 pAnd this is the judgment: qthe light has come into the world, and rpeople loved the darkness rather than the light because stheir works were evil. 20 tFor everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, ulest his works should be exposed. 21 But whoever vdoes what is true wcomes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

Taken from http://biblia.com/books/esv/Jn2.21 

What I have been working on...

  The following is one of the reasons I have not posted in a while, it is a subsection of a larger work on the History of Worship from the New Testament until Today. I am working on this for a class in Church History specifically the sections covering the New Testament and the Church Fathers. Let me know what you all think and maybe I will find time to publish the rest later.

 

The New Testament – Acts of the Apostles - 100A.D .

Many have debated over the centuries about when the Church of Jesus Christ began. Some hold that the church began with the incarnation of Christ, others hold that the church began with Christ’s declaration to Peter, and others that the church started at the day of Pentecost, with many variations in between. Regardless of what view you hold, we can say that at the latest the church was in existence at the day of Pentecost, and it is here that we will begin our historical look at how the Christian Church has worshiped.

Old Testament Connections

            To begin we first must realize that, as Schaff explains, during the apostolic age “Christianity here appears still in intimate union with the Old Testament economy.[1] It comes forth from the bosom of Judaism, and for a long time clothes itself in the forms of that religion.”[2] Indeed, upon viewing the roll of the apostolic church in Acts 2, we find that the church is made up primarily of Jews, with the core group having followed Christ during His earthly ministry. The book of Acts records that throughout the early days of the church, beyond meeting in houses, the church would also meet at the temple or synagogue.[3] There runs a risk of fallacy though if you view Christianity as only a division of Judaism because Christianity from its earliest days represented a paradigm shift from the Jewish center of the Temple to Christianity is centered upon the eternal living center of Christ.[4] Still Christianity maintains roots to its Jewish heritage such as the idea of monotheism that was unique facet of Jewish belief and Christianity and would not be found in any other religion until Muhammad founded Islam in approximately 622 A.D.

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[1] The disposition or regulation of the parts or functions of any organic whole; an organized system or method. “Economy | Define Economy at Dictionary.com”, n.d., http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/economy.

[2] Philip Schaff, History of the Apostolic Church: With a General Introduction to Church History (New York: Scribner, 1854), 187.

[3] An example is Acts 3 – 4.

[4] See Schaff, History of the Apostolic Church, 546.

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