![]() ![]() ![]() What are sacraments? Following John Calvin, the Reformed tradition has ever affirmed that sacraments “bear the same office”–the same duty, role, or function–as the Word proclaimed, “namely, to offer and set forth Christ to us, and in him the treasures of heavenly grace” (Institutes, 4:14.17) That is the only authentic gospel” (Lesslie Newbigin, Missionary Theologian: A Reader, Eerdmans, 2006, 144-145). … Christ’s message, the original gospel, was about the coming of the kingdom of God, that is to say, God’s kingly rule over the whole of creation and the whole of humankind. What is ‘evangelism’? “Evangelism,” says missionary theologian Lesslie Newbigin, “is the telling of good news.” It is not “some kind of technique by means of which people are persuaded to change their minds and think like us.” To evangelize, he explains, is to “be so deeply and intimately involved in the secular concerns of neighborhood that it becomes clear to everyone that no one or nothing is outside the range of God’s love in Jesus. Neither can the Story be told without reference to meals: the garden’s food for Adam and Eve at the oaks of Mamre, a meal for three in Egypt, a lamb is slain, a meal shared, and the angel of death passes over manna Ruth and Boaz five loaves, two fish a rabbi, his disciples, a Passover at Pentecost, many “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers.” Week by week, the Lord’s Table, a communion table, is set with all that food. ![]() The Story cannot be told without reference to water: The waters of creation, the flood, the Red Sea, water from the rock, Jesus in the Jordan, the pool of Bethsaida, a basin for washing feet, bloody water from Jesus’ side, “the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne.” No, the story cannot be told without water, and all that water issues forth from a life-giving font, the baptismal font. ![]()
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