Resurrection

Introduction:

            The Resurrection of Jesus is of primary important to the Christian faith. “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless …we are of all to be pitied”

            Frank Morrision, an English advocate of the 20th Century wanted to write a book on the last phase of Jesus in order to strip it of its overgrows and primitive beliefs and dogmatic suppositious! At the end of the ten years study he wrote a completely different book titled “who moved the stone”. The first chapter in that book is titled “The book that refused to be written”

Invitation for the Kingdom of God

Introduction:            All of us will be excited if we are invited for a meal with the President. The Prime Minister or any Royal dignitary and we make sure that we are there in our best attire. We dare not refuse that invitation. We know that did not deserve to get that invitation but since we have been called to make it point to attend. The parable that we are going to look at is about a similar royal weeding feast.

Kingdom of Faith

 Introduction:

            The Centrality of the idea of the Kingdom of God (or in Mathew, the Kingdom of Heaven) in the teaching of Jesus is  all beyond question: ‘The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand’ (Mark 1:15); But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you (Luke 11:20); ‘……the Kingdom of God is in the midst of you (Luke 17:21);…… know that when you see these things talking place, you know that the Kingdom of God is near’ (Luke 21:31). The kingly rule of God is certainly present in the person of the King-Messiah; but it will be fully manifested only at the end of time.

Priesthood of all believers

Introduction:     

The ministry of Jesus presupposes the royal priesthood to which all Christians are called as the redeemed of Jesus.  In other religions the priest is a person appointed to stand between God and men, to maintain satisfactory relations between them.  In the Hindu priesthood, for example, this intermediary action consists in keeping the traditions of the right way of approaching the deity, giving advice when he is offended, and doing what is needed to reconcile the offender.  In Christ, the one true High Priest, the fragments of truth here, as in the Jewish priestly and sacrificial system, are gathered together and fulfilled.  He offered, once and for all, the sacrifice, not of animals but of himself.  Jesus is the true representative of mankind before God.  His earthly ministry did not end on the cross but continued in his Body the Church to which he gives himself through the Holy Spirit. .  We will explore here the priesthood of all believers of Christ.

Marks of the Church

(One, Holy, Universal (Catholic), Apostolic)

Introduction:

            Among the articles of Christian faith, ‘the Church’ has a peculiar status.  Unlike the doctrines of God, Christ, Trinity, creation, fall, redemption, it was not specifically thematized in the patristic period, nor did it become the subject of controversy. The biblical images of the church have stimulated theological reflection on the church throughout the history of tradition, yet they did not serve as a basis for a systematic doctrine of the church.  In fact, there was no such systematic doctrine during the patristic and medieval periods. Only when some questions began to be raised about the church in the Middle Ages did systematic treatises on this topic first appear. Since the Reformation the nature of the church has been a matter more of confessional conflict than of doctrinal consensus. 

Meaning and nature of the church

Meaning:

            The English word ‘church’ is derived from the Greek adjective kuriake, which means ‘belonging to the Lord.’  The word in its most comprehensive meaning signifies the whole body of the faithful, whether in heaven or on earth, who have been or shall be spiritually united to Christ as their Savior (Eph.1:22; 3:10, 21; 5:23-25, 27, 32; Col. 1:18, 24).

Therefore, in its primary sense, the church is the worshipping assembly called forth by God.

Human nature and the Image of God

Introduction:     

The classic formulation of theological anthropology was largely based on the story of the creation and fall of Adam in Gen.1-3.  The focus was on Adam, who was understood in a double way.  On the one hand, he was taken to be the historically first individual human being.  On the other hand, he was taken to be the scriptural ideal type or paradigm of ‘human nature’ as such (after all, the Hebrew word from which ‘Adam’ comes is the generic term for mankind).  The view of human nature generated by this story has two major themes: (1) a picture of the place that human nature has in the structure of cosmos God created, and (2) a picture of humankind’s unique capacity for communion with God-what has traditionally been called the imago Dei (Image of God).  We will attempt to explore these two themes in brief: