The following is an extract from a sermon I preached this past Sunday at St. John’s Presbyterian Church in Scarborough. The service made use of some of the liturgical resources prepared conjointly by the Presbyterian Church in Canada and the Christian Reformed Church to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. It is not a scholarly treatment, nor does it exhaustively treat the complex and often ambiguous legacy of the Reformation. Rather, it simply attempts to acquaint people with the person of Martin Luther and some of the early developments associated with the beginning of the Reformation in Germany. Continue reading 95 at 500
Category Archives: Reflections
Robert Jenson: Servant of the Church, Evangelical and Catholic
September 5 marked the passing of the Lutheran theologian Robert Jenson. Widely regarded as the leading American theologian of his generation, and perhaps, as some maintain, the greatest American theologian since Jonathan Edwards, Jenson was a leading influence in advocating for a theological renewal of the church that was, at one and the same time, profoundly evangelical and catholic. Continue reading Robert Jenson: Servant of the Church, Evangelical and Catholic
Newbigin on the Challenge of Preaching Christ Today
In the 18th Joseph Smith Memorial Lecture delivered at Overdale College in Birmingham, England in 1979, published as a pamphlet under the title “Preaching Christ Today”, Lesslie Newbigin suggested that the crucial issue facing preachers today is discerning the proper relationship between Law and Gospel. (Interestingly, this was also a pressing concern for Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his seminarians in the mid-30s.) Continue reading Newbigin on the Challenge of Preaching Christ Today
Some Delectable Morsels on Preaching from Robert Farrar Capon
In addition to teaching two theology courses at Tyndale Seminary in the upcoming fall semester, I am also going to be teaching the “Basics of Preaching” course at Wycliffe College at the University of Toronto. In preparation for my foray into the homiletics classroom, I’ve been revisiting many of the preaching books I’ve read over the years. One such book is The Foolishness of Preaching: Proclaiming the Gospel against the Wisdom of the World by the late Episcopalian priest Robert Farrar Capon. Continue reading Some Delectable Morsels on Preaching from Robert Farrar Capon
A Revealing Wardrobe
A Guest Post by Phil Reinders
This is the seventeenth in a series of posts engaging with the sermons in Leaps of Faith: Sermons from the Edge. This post is a reflection upon a sermon entitled “The Clothes Make the Man” (pp. 57-65). The Scriptural text for the sermon was Colossians 3:12-17. Continue reading A Revealing Wardrobe
Thoughtfully Following through the Waters
A Guest Post by Kevin Livingston
This is the sixteenth in a series of posts engaging with the sermons in Leaps of Faith: Sermons from the Edge. This post is a reflection upon a baptismal sermon entitled “Thoughtfully Following through the Waters” (pp. 145-153). The Scriptural text for the sermon was Exodus 14:1-31. Continue reading Thoughtfully Following through the Waters