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A Baptism in Baptism: Version 2

John the Baptist is an important figure in all four gospels. Mark begins with John’s baptisms, Luke with the events of his birth, and John weaves him into the prologue of the incarnation as one sent from God. One thing that the New Testament does NOT begin with,...
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Finding Covenant in a Lost World: A Fairytale

Once upon a time in a far away land, people made covenants. They were very happy with their covenants and everyone understood them. These covenants were so powerful in their message and work that the great God of the land, Yahweh he was called by those who knew...
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A Baptism in Confusion: 3 Baptisms in Mark 1:2-13

In our last episode, we introduced the bare bones essence of water baptism as an ancient covenant ratification act saturated with typical death imagery and corresponding OT interests in ordeal (the divinely ordained safe passage through the maws of death, representing divine election and/or divine decrees of innocence). ...
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A Baptism in Baptism

So you read the whole Old Testament. You read it several times. Having immersed yourself in the literature that your Bible, by its basic structure, seems to promise as the precursor to the rest, you finally turn to the New Testament. This is how it always goes isn’t...
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A Crash Course in Covenant Cutting: The Types

Covenant is a Genre based on the concept that the Holy is actively involved in the affairs of Man, Holding Men to their oaths. Men call upon the gods to bless or curse them in keeping with promises made concerning general or specific expressions of loyalty to another....
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A Crash Course in Covenant Cutting: The Structures

Okay, so let’s get one thing straight; covenant is a genre. In fact, covenant is a genre with several sub-genres. (I’ll discuss sub-genres in another post.) This means that covenant has recognizable forms that developed in history through human interaction and communication in particular places among particular people.[1]...
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Putting a Ring on It: The Holy Spirit, Baptism & Covenant

Joseph Bonham, M.A. is today’s guest blogger. Joseph has his own blog called the Biblical Bean, linked below. In addition to a Bachelors in Biblical Studies, he holds a master of arts from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Biblical Languages / Hebrew Bible. ·He has agreed to address a question I...
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Freeze! This is the Covenant!

We’ve been discussing some important points about Covenant both in Scripture and in the ancient world. So, if you’ve been following my string of posts on Covenant, here are our facts so far: God didn’t invent covenant, he used it because it was a valuable tool for communicating...
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