Identity
By Nathan Longfield
IdentityApr 23, 2021
Interview Episode 4: Rev. Stephen Shaffer
In Identity's return - Rev. Stephen Shaffer and I discuss his upcoming book - a year long family devotional “Our Only Comfort” based off the Heidelberg Catechism.
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Special Episode 1 - Beloved Child of God
This episode is a recording of a sermon offered on 1 John 3: 1-3.
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Doctrine 4: Communicable and Incommunicable Attributes
In this episode we explore communicable and incommunicable attributes of God
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Quotes:
“God, as God, does not replicate what we, as humans suffer. . . [But in the incarnation], God chooses to make the experience of his human nature fully his own.” - Paul Gavrilyuk in J. Todd Billings, “Undying Love,” First Things, accessed October 7, 2017, https://www.firstthings.com/article/2014/12/undying-love.
J. Todd Billings article - https://www.firstthings.com/article/2014/12/undying-love
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Interview 3: With Music Teacher Melissa Johnson
In this episode we hear from Melissa Johnson, teacher of band and music at Sycamore School in Indianapolis, IN about how her identity as a child of God impacts, influences, and leads her in her teaching.
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Doctrine 3: The Trinity
In this episode we explore the doctrine of the Trinity.
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Quotes:
“We worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity, neither blending their persons nor dividing their essence. For the person of the Father is a distinct person, the person of the Son is another, and that of the Holy Spirit still another. But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, their glory equal, their majesty coeternal.” - Athanasian Creed in Faith Alive Christian Resources, Christian Reformed Church in North America, and Reformed Church in America, Our Faith: Ecumenical Creeds, Reformed Confessions, and Other Resources (Grand Rapids, MI: Faith Alive Christian Resources, 2013), 17.
First John Calvin reference: Calvin, Institutes, 1.13.3.
“a person distinct from the Father who is nevertheless identified also as God.” - Michael Horton, The Christian Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 275.
“There is one God, eternal, unchangeable, infinite, almighty, and the source of all good,” and that “God is one essence in three persons, eternally distinct by incommunicable properties: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, distinct, yet one, not divided, fused, or mixed together.” Belgic Article 1; 8 in Our Faith, 26; 31.; See also Heidelberg Catechism Q & A 24, 25 and the Belhar Confession in Ibid., 76; 145.
“especially useful when the truth is to be asserted against false accusers,” - Calvin, Institutes 1.13.4.
“God is one. Father, Son, and Spirit are three. God’s unity is not a unity of separable parts but of distinguishable persons.” -Thomas C. Oden, Classic Christianity: A Systematic Theology (New York: HarperOne, 2009), 109.
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Interview 2 with Dr. Steve McMullen
In this episode we hear from Dr. Steve McMullen, professor of Economics at Hope College about how his identity as a child of God impacts, influences, and leads him in his studies.
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Steve's website: https://stevenmcmullen.com
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Doctrine 2: Scripture
In this episode we dive into the inspiration and authority of scripture and why we can engage scripture with confidence and trust in the Spirit.
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Quotes:
"If we, then, are not our own [cf. 1 Cor. 6:19] but the Lord's, it is clear what error we must flee, and whither we must direct all the acts of our life.
We are not our own: let not our reason nor our will, therefore, sway our plans and deeds. We are not our own: let us therefore not set it as our goal to seek what is expedient for us according to the flesh. We are not our own: in so far as we can, lets us therefore forget ourselves and all that is ours.
Conversely, we are God's: let his wisdom and will therfore rule all our actions. We are God's: let all the parts of our life accordingly strive toward him as our only lawful goal [Rom. 14:8; cf 1 Cor. 6:19]. O, how much has that man profited who, having been taught that he is nothis own, has taken away dominion and rule from his own reason that he may yield it to God! For , as consulting our self-interest is the pestilence that most effectively leads to our destruction, so the sole haven of salvation is to be wise in nothing and to will nothing through ourselves but to follow the leading of the Lord alone." John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.7.1.
“the Holy Spirit testifies in our hearts that [the books of the Bible] are from God, and also because they prove themselves to be from God.” - Belgic Confession Article 5 in Faith Alive Christian Resources, Christian Reformed Church in North America, and Reformed Church in America, Our Faith: Ecumenical Creeds, Reformed Confessions, and Other Resources (Grand Rapids, MI: Faith Alive Christian Resources, 2013), 28.
“We confess that this Word of God was not sent nor delivered “by human will,” but that men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God as Peter says." - Belgic Confession Article 5 in Our Faith.
""If God truly became man, he must have accepted all the consequences of the historical condition — which includes living in a particular time, place and culture. It would hardly be consistent for him to do violence to the way in which his own history was told and recorded in that culture by the people of that age. He did not arbitrarily change their way of thinking and writing by giving them a crash course on modern historiography, so that they could write a textbook about him that would satisfy the curiosity of today’s historians." - Roch A. Kereszty, Jesus Christ: Fundamentals of Christology (New York: Alba House, 1991), 23.
Find my Senses of Scripture paper here
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Interview 1 - A conversation with Lucas Dykstra
The first interview episode with Lucas Dykstra
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Website he mentioned: https://naturenearby.org
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Doctrine 1: Revelation & Sources of Authority
The first doctrine episode explores General and Special Revelation and the Sources of Authority in Christian Tradition of Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and experience.
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Quotes:
“We receive all these books and these only as holy and canonical, for the regulating, founding, and establishing of our faith.” - Belgic Confession, Article 5 in Faith Alive Christian Resources, Christian Reformed Church in North America, and Reformed Church in America, Our Faith: Ecumenical Creeds, Reformed Confessions, and Other Resources (Grand Rapids, MI: Faith Alive Christian Resources, 2013), 28.
Calvin on: “the human urge to worship something,” - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1536 Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995), 1.3.2.
“this absolute and supreme being, the ultimate and most profound, this ‘thing in itself’,[sic] has nothing to do with God.” - Karl Barth, “Dogmatics in Outline,” in Practice of Theology, ed. Colin E. Gunton, Stephen R. Holmes, and Murray Rae (London: Hymns Ancient & Modern Ltd, 2001), 274.
“so Scripture, gathering up the otherwise confused knowledge of God in our minds, having dispersed our dullness, clearly shows us the true God.” - Calvin, Institutes, 1.6.1.
“the Holy Spirit testifies in our hearts that [the books of the Bible] are from God, and also because they prove themselves to be from God.” - Belgic Confession Article 5 in Our Faith, 28.
“summary of the received teachings of the Christian church . . . a summary of the church’s confession about the basic story of the Christian faith, as informed by the Bible.” - J. Todd Billings, The Word of God for the People of God: An Entryway to the Theological Interpretation of Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2010), 17.
"It’s like a mosaic that has many tiny pieces of different colors. If one properly discerns the patterns in Scripture, then the pieces of the mosaic will fit together to form a beautiful portrait of a king (Christ). But it is possible to sever the proper connections between the pieces of the mosaic, leaving one with a portrait of a dog or a fox. By distorting the inherent pattern (the rule of faith) that holds scripture together, false (Gnostic) interpretations of Scripture miss what Scripture itself points to: Jesus Christ, as witnessed to by the Old and New Testaments. . . . Irenaeus realizes that Scripture is simply too large and complicated a book for one to proceed in without a sense of the narrative pattern that one will find within." - J. Todd Billings, The Word of God for the People of God: An Entryway to the Theological Interpretation of Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2010), 17.
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Identity
In Identity's first episode I introduce the podcast and I'm joined by Rev. Alex Arthurs to discuss baptismal identity.
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