Web curations (20 Mar)

 

#freestuff

A selection of free resources in the week leading up to Easter:

(highly recommended – music by a very creative Christian. My favourite is “Farther Along” from his Love & War album)

 

#talkingchristians

Egyptian Idol – Ben Witherington comes across some ancient Egyptian relics. Gives a bit of “flesh” to the numerous gods that Egypt worshipped during the events the book of Exodus recounts. I was helped by his brief riposte against the criticism that the Hebrew God is just borrowed from other ancient religions at the time:

Of the many failings of the whole Zeitgeist approach to ancient religions, one of the worst ones is the etymological fallacy— the this must have come from this which must have come from this notion. There does appear to have been during the reign of Akenaten the worship of the solar disk, and this was perhaps a form of henotheism, but it was certainly nothing like Biblical monotheism. For one thing, the solar disk was not a personal deity unlike Yahweh or Jesus. For another thing, the Hebrew worship of the solar disk as a sort of exclusive deity post-dates Hebrew monotheism. One could just as well argue that Abraham was the source of Akenaten’s tendencies in that direction as argue the reverse, but probably in neither case would you be historically accurate. Religious history is messy just like regular history, and the worship of one God by Jews happened independently of Egyptian religion, indeed, before they ever came in contact with Egyptian religion probably.

 

Atonement – intrigue and sadness – Ben Pakula looks back on the teaching he received as an 11 year-old Jewish boy, and unpacks Leviticus 16:30 in light of his identity as a follower of Jesus Messiah.

Anglican church in NZ moves towards blessing same-sex unions –  From the article:

“There’s an almost irresistible momentum towards blessings for same-sex couples in church, and for the ordination of folk in those relationships.  That much is clear after the fourth and final of the Hermeneutic Hui, which wrapped up at Auckland’s Holy Trinity Cathedral mid-afternoon yesterday.”

The Anglican church in New Zealand looks to be headed towards blessing same-sex unions. Take note though of Wally Behan’s detailed response at the bottom of the article.

 

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“It is not faith that saves, but faith in Jesus Christ… It is not, strictly speaking, even faith in Christ that saves, but Christ that saves through faith. The saving power resides exclusively, not in the act of faith or the attitude of faith or in the nature of faith, but in the object of faith.”  – B. B. Warfield, quoted by Sinclair Ferguson in  In Christ Alone  (Lake Mary, FL: Reformation Trust Publishing, 2007), 43