An incarnational understanding of spirituality affirms that Christ is our spirituality. It is his life, death, and resurrection that make us acceptable to God. We cannot love God with our whole heart, soul, and mind. But Christ can and has. We cannot love our neighbors as ourselves. But Christ can and has. -Robert E. Webber, Common...Read More
The constant reminder of time revolving around the life of Christ . . . will serve to break down those unhealthy distinctions we make between the secular and the sacred, causing us to realize that all time belongs to the Lord who has created it, redeemed it, and will consummate it in his coming. In...Read More
Mere memorialism is as much a departure from the early church as is transubstantiation. Leaving both transubstantiation and memorialism behind, we should seek to understand what seems to be the historical view of the presence of Christ in the sacrament. -Robert E. Webber, Common Roots: The Original Call to an Ancient-Future Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan,...Read More
The basic structure of early worship revolved around Word and sacrament. . . . By Word and sacrament God has made known his plan of redemption. The Word proclaims it and the sacrament reenacts it and both Word and sacrament, by the power of the Holy Spirit, bring us the grace of God, the benefits...Read More
We should . . . recapture the conviction of the early church that the corporate action of worship is a rehearsal of God’s plan of redemption. Worship sets forth the gospel. It proclaims the entire faith of the church. -Robert E. Webber, Common Roots: The Original Call to an Ancient-Future Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009),...Read More
Pentecost Sunday ends the extraordinary season that began on the first Sunday of Advent. In approximately six months the church has been carried through all the saving events of God—his incarnation, manifestation to the world, life, death, resurrection, and ascension as well as the coming of the Holy Spirit. All these crucial events form faith...Read More
The climax of worship is the Eucharist, for the symbols of bread and wine are the material objects that in a mysterious manner are connected with the broken body and shed blood of Jesus Christ, through whom [one] worships the Father. For this reason the early church had a high view of the symbols of...Read More
Worship is a rehearsal of who God is and what he has done, and gives expression to the relationship that exists between God and his people. The focus of content in a sermon alone, or . . . worship [that] centers around a single aspect of God or a theme, misses the point of worship...Read More
The reformers Luther and Calvin did not wish to break from the early church, but to reform the church of their day to make it truly evangelical and historic. Both agreed that the church of the first five hundred years had succeeded in maintaining the essential substance of New Testament Christianity. . . . A...Read More
In the history of the church lies untold treasures of theological thought, devotional literature, and guidelines for nearly every issue that Christians face today. My interest is to help us recapture this history and to be so judged by it and challenged because of it that we will turn from our modernizations to the practice...Read More
