Hebrews

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig F. Koester
Keyword(s):  
Christian Theology ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Classical Rhetoric ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
God's Will ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Epistle To The Hebrews ◽  
New Directions ◽  
The One ◽  
The Way

One of early Christianity's most carefully crafted sermons, Epistle to the Hebrewsaddresses listeners who have experienced the elation of conversion and the heat of hostility, but who now must confront the formidable task of remaining faithful in a society that rejects their commitments. The letter probes into the one of most profound questions of faith: If it is God's will that believers be crowned with glory and honor, why are the faithful subject to suffering and shame? Through the stories of Abraham and Sarah, Moses, and Rahab, whose faith enabled them to overcome severe trials and conflicts, and through the story of Jesus himself, whose sufferings opened the way to God's presence for all, the sermon confirms the foundations of the Christian faith. In a magisterial introduction, Koester presents a compelling portrait of the early Christian community and examines the debates that have surrounded Epistle to the Hebrews for two millennia. Drawing on his knowledge of classical rhetoric, he clarifies the book's arguments and discusses the use of evocative language and imagery to appeal to its audience's minds, emotions, and will. Providing an authoritative, accessible discussion of the book's high priestly Christology, this landmark commentary charts new directions for the interpretation of Epistle to the Hebrews and its influence on Christian theology and worship.

scholarly journals Reinventing Ukraine: Ukrainian National and Supra-National Identity in Contemporary Polish Opinion-Making Press

2016 ◽  
pp. 141-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olha Tkachenko
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Wide Audience ◽  
New Directions ◽  
The One ◽  
External Actors ◽  
To Receive ◽  
Identity Problems ◽  
Ukrainian Society ◽  
The Way

Reinventing Ukraine: Ukrainian National and Supra-National Identity in Contemporary Polish Opinion-Making PressUkraine in XXI century has been experiencing new social and political changes which resulted into shifts of the national identity. It has left resonance not only within Ukrainian society but abroad as well. Historical events such as Orange revolution or Euromaidan provided new directions for reconsidering Ukrainian identity by the external actors. The image of Ukraine has been created abroad with the help of mass media, which enable the wide audience to receive information about particular events and make own conclusions. Information, presented in the opinion-making press worth better for deliberating the issue of identity. Thus, this paper seeks to investigate how Polish intellectuals present Ukraine in contemporary Polish opinion-making press. This research on the one hand provides understanding of Ukrainian identity problems, and gives possibility to examine positive and negative aspects of the way identity has been expressed. On the other hand, it demonstrates the way public opinion-makers in Poland perceive, construct and reconstruct identity of Ukraine, Ukrainian nation and present them to their society. The article seeks to investigate what attributes of Ukrainian identity were crucial for Polish media. What factors, historical events, cultural and political features, myth and symbols were important for deliberating Ukraine in Polish opinion-making press. Ponowne odkrycie Ukrainy: Ukraińska narodowa i ponadnarodowa tożsamość we współczesnej polskiej prasie opiniotwórczejW XXI wieku Ukraina przeżywa nowe zmiany społeczne i polityczne, które prowadzą do zmian tożsamości narodowej. To spowodowało rezonans nie tylko w społeczeństwie ukraińskim, ale również za granicą. Najnowsze wydarzenia historyczne, takie jak Pomarańczowa Rewolucja czy Euromajdan, na nowo ożywiły wśród podmiotów zewnętrznych dyskusję o ukraińskiej tożsamości. Zewnętrzny wizerunek Ukrainy kształtują środki masowego przekazu, które dostarczają szerokiej publiczności informacji o wydarzeniach historycznych. Informacje prezentowane w prasie opiniotwórczej są istotnym źródłem dla rozważań nad kwestiami tożsamości w ogóle. Artykuł ma na celu zbadanie, jak polscy intelektualiści przedstawiają Ukrainę we współczesnej polskiej prasie. Badanie umożliwi zrozumienie problemów ukraińskiej tożsamości, będzie także prezentacją pozytywnych i negatywnych jej aspektów. Zarazem jednak unaoczni, w jaki sposób polskie środowiska opiniotwórcze postrzegają, konstruują i rekonstruują tożsamość Ukrainy i narodu ukraińskiego i jak przedstawiają te kwestie społeczeństwu. Staram się jednocześnie wyjaśnić, jakie atrybuty ukraińskiej tożsamości – wydarzenia historyczne, cechy kulturowe i polityczne, mity i symbole – były istotne dla rozważań nad Ukrainą w polskiej prasie opiniotwórczej.

scholarly journals Fulfillment in Continuity: The Orthodox Christian Theology of Biblical Israel

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-236
Author(s):  
Demetrios E. Tonias
Keyword(s):  
Christian Theology ◽  
Current Understanding ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Orthodox Theology ◽  
The Church

Abstract Concentrating on the Orthodox theology of biblical Israel within the context of fulfillment theology, the argument is that the early Church envisioned itself as the continuation of Israel of the Jewish Bible rather than its replacement. In the author’s view, the current understanding of the distinction between replacement and fulfillment theology, the early Christian theological conception of the Church as Israel, and the ways in which both contemporaneous pagans and Jews viewed the nascent Christian faith support this assertion.

“Distinct but Not Separate”: Historical Research in the Study of Jesus and Christian Faith

Horizons ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-141
Author(s):  
William M. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
The Other ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The One ◽  
Human Family ◽  
The Way

“Distinct but not separate” is a venerable formula whose origins go back to the Council of Chalcedon's confession of 451 that Jesus' humanity and divinity are each distinct realities, yet at the same time united in the one person of the Savior himself. Jesus' singular personhood (= “not separate”) protected the New Testament insight that God really united himself with all humans in their historical and earthly condition through the deeds and words of Jesus himself. God's utterly personal oneness with Jesus was the way in which God became adoptively one with the whole human family and world. But this could only be a true union between God and humans if neither was swallowed up in the other, or reduced to the other. Union (we might say communion as well) presupposes oneness and difference. And so Chalcedon speaks of Jesus' divinity and humanity as remaining distinct. By our adoption in grace through Jesus (Rm 8:14–17) we ourselves are not pantheistically swallowed up in God, but retain our distinctiveness as humans as well.

A Symposiastic Background to James?

2011 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter-Ben Smit
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Common Life ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The Common ◽  
Epistle Of James ◽  
The Way

The Epistle of James is not commonly seen in relation to early Christian common meals. At the same time, the work is preoccupied with the common life of an early Christian community, which in turn was, generally speaking, closely related to the way in which it celebrated its meals. In other words, ethics, ecclesiology, and etiquette were closely related. Based on this consideration, this essay attempts to relate aspects of the epistle to symposiastic conventions as they were known in the first-century Mediterranean world.

scholarly journals Fulfilment in Matthew

2007 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 301-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
FP Viljoen
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Jewish Scriptures ◽  
As If ◽  
The Way

Matthew extensively explored the motif that Jesus was the fulfilment of the Old Testament hopes. In this article investigation is done on the way Matthew employs this motif. The expression of fulfilment of Scripture had an important function in early Christian circles. The Christian faith had to be legitimatized by reference to the Jewish Scriptures. What happened to Jesus and the rise of the Christian church were to be identified as the fulfilment of the promises of the Old Testament. For today’s reader it seems as if Matthew sometimes draws awkward links between Old Testament citations and their fulfilment in Jesus. However, when his hermeneutical method is being mirrored against contemporary interpretative methods, it becomes clear that Matthew used the fulfilment motif in a then acceptable way to strategically and persuasively place Jesus’  ministry within the unfolding plan of God.

scholarly journals Divine Logos in the Heart of Boethius’s Path Toward Summum Bonum

2014 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 39
Author(s):  
Agnieszka KIJEWSKA
Keyword(s):  
Christian Faith ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Summum Bonum ◽  
The One ◽  
The Way

This paper presents an outline of the way Boethius conceived the human path to the Supreme Good (Summum bonum). In order to achieve this goal one has first to specify the way he construed this Supreme Good, and this discussion is naturally related to the much-discussed problem concerning the Christian identity of Boethius: was he indeed a Christian? does his Consolation, from which any overt allusions to Christian faith are absent, provide us with any clue as to whether the Supreme Good of Boethius can be identified with the God of the Gospel? In the course of the analysis we propound a hypothesis that the message that Boethius puts forward through the means of his Consolation and the utterances he puts in the mouth of his dame Philosophy are not far removed from the advice offered by Fulgentius to Proba. She, too, was encouraged to acknowledge her own weakness and lack of sufficiency, to be contrite, and to have humble trust in wisdom and guidance of God, who is the best of all doctors. Is dame Philosophy’s message not very similar? did not Alcuin, who regarded himself as a faithful «disciple» of Boethius, share a conception of philosophy as being the «teacher of virtues» and wisdom, as the one who leads man along the path of wisdom towards the divine light?

Praxis and Theology in Recent Debates

1986 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 529-550
Author(s):  
A. K. Min
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
The Other ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Preceding Discussion ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One ◽  
Theology Of Liberation

One Of the many challenges of the theology of liberation of Latin America (TL or LT) has been to rethink the relation between theory (theology) and praxis. A debate, which has been going on for over a century among philosophers and social thinkers since Hegel and Marx has finally hit the serene shores of Christian theology. Are theory and praxis two co-equal dimensions of human existence, or is the one derivative from the other? Is Christian faith primarily a matter of theory, belief and truth, or is it primarily a matter of praxis, action and justice? Is theology only a reflection on faith or a reflection in faith as well? What is the relation between theology and contemporary historical praxis? Does theology have to remain ‘external’ to that praxis in order to preserve its critical objectivity, or is participation of theology in that praxis the very condition of its objectivity? Is the prior commitment of theology— so much insisted on by TL — to the praxis of liberation detrimental or necessary to the integrity of theology? In this essay I propose to deal with these issues in the context of recent debates between Schubert Ogden and the Vatican on the one hand and TL on the other. I shall first review Ogden's and the Vatican's critique of TL, then present the position of TL, and finally evaluate both TL and its critics and reconstruct a theory of the relation between theology and praxis in light of the preceding discussion.

Does Copernicus Help? Reflections for a Christian Theology of Religions

1977 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. J. Lipner
Keyword(s):  
Belief Systems ◽  
The Other ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Important Distinction ◽  
Theology Of Religions ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Religious Perspectives ◽  
The One

I want to consider in this paper a question that is looming large in the theology of most world religions, not least in the Christian tradition. The following discussion will be confined to the Christian standpoint, though I hope mutatis mutandis the main points will be seen to apply to other religious perspectives as well. Specifically then, this question can be ex–pressed in two ways. We may ask, (i) in the context of the contemporary dialogue situation, how is the committed Christian to regard the adherents of non–Christian religions? and (ii) what status do these alien belief–systems have with respect to the Christian faith–response? Both forms of the issue are often discussed it seems to me without due attention being given to an important distinction between them. So, at the outset, it will be useful to make one or two observations about this. First of all, it is inevitable, I think, that an evaluational factor is implied by both formulations. We are pondering a basically Christian assessment of religious traditions that are non–Christian, and any solution suggested which eventually eliminates a one-sided overall perspective will apparently put us in a dilemma. For, on the one hand, a Christian theology of religions will be expected to produce a Christian (and therefore evaluational) result; on the other hand, a finally nonevaluational solution seems unable to be called a Christian view of things at all. In the event of such a ‘neutral theology’ as the latter resulting (by no means a purely speculative question as we shall see), is the dilemma that becomes apparent a genuine one, or can it be resolved by a more stringent analysis of the relevant issues?

scholarly journals Officership in the Salvation Army : a Case Study in Clericalisation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Harold Ivor Winston Hill
Keyword(s):  
Historical Review ◽  
Salvation Army ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Christian Mission ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Power And Control ◽  
Radical Reformation ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

<p>This thesis attempts an historical review and analysis of Salvation Army ministry in terms of the tension between function and status, between the view that members of the church differ only in that they have distinct roles, and the tradition that some enjoy a particular status, some ontological character, by virtue of their ordination to one of those roles in particular. This dichotomy developed early in the life of the Church and can be traced throughout its history. Jesus and his community appear to have valued equality in contrast to the priestly hierarchies of received religion. There were varieties of function within the early Christian community, but perhaps not at first of status. Over the first two or three centuries the Church developed such distinctions, between those "ordained" to "orders" and the "laity", as it accommodated to Roman society and to traditional religious expectations, and developed structures to defend its doctrinal integrity. While most renewal movements in the Church from Montanism onwards have involved a degree of lay reaction against this institutionalisation, clericalism has always regained the ascendancy. The Christian Mission, originating in 1865 and becoming The Salvation Army in 1878, began as a "lay" movement and was not intended to become a "Church". By the death of its Founder in 1912 however it had in practice become a denominational church in all but name and its officers had in effect become clergy. At the same time it continued to maintain the theory that it was not a church. The first three chapters explore this development, and the ambiguity that this uncertainty built into its understanding of ministry. In the Army's second century it began to become more theologically aware and the tension between the incompatible poles of its self-understanding led to prolonged debate. This debate is followed firstly through published articles and correspondence mainly from the period 1960-2000, and then in the official statements produced by the organisation. Separate chapters attend to the way in which this polarity was expressed in discussion of the roles of women and of auxiliary officers and soldiers of the Army. The culmination of this period of exploration came with the setting up of an International Commission on Officership and subsequent adjustments to the Army's regulations. The conclusion argued however that these changes have not addressed the underlying tensions in the movement's ecclesiology, between the "radical reformation" roots of its theology and the hierarchical shape of its ecclesiology, and attempts to explore future possibilities for the Army's theology of ministry. In retrospect it may be seen that The Salvation Army recapitulates in microcosm the historical and sociological processes of the Church as a whole, its history illustrating the way in which pragmatic measures become entrenched dogma, while charismatic revivals and alternative communities are reabsorbed into the structures of power and control.</p>

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