When the Faith "Once for All Delivered" . . . Isn't Delivered

Wes Bredenhof (Yinkahdinay) posted this link to a short essay from the Banner (the official publication of the Christian Reformed Church).  Rev. Bredenhof was saddened upon reading it, as was I.  The provocative essay is entitled "Relics of a Bygone Era" and recounts the difficult task of a son and daughter packing up the earthly remains from their recently deceased father, which included the father's Reformed books, personal teaching notes, and favorite cassette sermon tapes (Relics of a Bygone Era).  The author writes,

Dad had been a staunch defender of a somewhat cramped version of Calvinism formed by his upbringing in the Gereformeerde Kerk in the Netherlands. Early on, his parents had put the kibosh on his aspirations to ministry; unless he had a distinct call from the Lord, he had a duty to help his father run the farm. But disappointment did not snuff out his enthusiasm for the cause of John Calvin. He read commentaries and wrote essays that he read at men’s society meetings. Dad eloquently argued points of doctrine, articulating and defending each letter of TULIP. He collected cassette tapes of sermons by Dutch dominees and those Christian Reformed ministers who shared his passion. In retirement he pored over black-bound tomes and cobbled together sermons, reading them to the captive audience in a nearby retirement home. He had become a preacher after all.

The essay concludes with the following lament:  Continue at Kim Riddlebarger

The Power is not in Joseph’s Pants

Near to the end of his life, Martin Luther lamented the fact that many people were growing tired of the Gospel and going back to the religious bondage of what they knew before the Reformation. This included pilgrimage (traveling to far off places in Europe) to see the relics of the Church in order to gain indulgences (which provide time off in purgatory after death). 

The Roman Catholic Church boasted of having (amongst other things) pieces of the original cross of Christ, milk from the breasts of the virgin Mary as well as Joseph’s old pants… Wittenburg itself had an amazing assortment of these religious relics which were sanctioned by the Church to convey days, weeks, months, years, centuries and even millennia of time off in the place of purging, just by viewing them, the time being measured by the value and importance placed upon the relic. Continue Reading>>>

Real Enough? — Relics, Gopher Wood, and the Sufficiency of Scripture

Evangelical Christians observing the veneration of relics by Catholics are rightly horrified by the practice, but may be wrongly satisfied that nothing like this marks evangelical piety.

This temptation should be checked by the realization that many evangelicals fall prey to similar modes of thinking. Consider the attention given in recent days to the claim that remnants of Noah’s ark had been found on Mount Ararat in Turkey. A team from “Noah’s Ark Ministries International,” based in Korea, claimed that wood found on the mountain came from Noah’s ark — with a certainty of “99.9 percent.” Read the rest HERE