“You don’t know whether any of your ancestors prayed for you, but wouldn’t it have been glorious if they had? So apply the golden rule, and pray for your descendants” (From To You and Your Children, p. 200).
Have 'Em Delivered
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Theology That Bites Back
Don’t want to spoil the party – just want to transcend it. The New Covenant isn’t about having godly descendants or outbreeding the godless. These are good things but they are the Church in defense mode. The New Covenant is about plundering other people’s descendants with the Gospel, smashing through the tribal boundaries Christ came to transcend (so turning Him into just another tribal boundary is seriously misguided). The New Covenant is Jesus. People don’t need another Covenant. People need Jesus. We can understand Jesus better through studying the Old Covenant’s types. But we should not be replacing Him with… Read more »
Mike,
It’s about both. “To you and your children .. and to those who are far off.”
A hearty amen to plundering other people’s descendent’s with the Gospel, though!
–Eric
Amen!
I often reflect on the degree to which – within God’s sovereign choice of course – my faith is the result of some of my ancestors’ prayers, loving me when they didn’t yet know me, their faith in Him resulting in faith in me.
But in today’s anti-culture, ancestors are the unenlightened whose wisdom and experience mean nothing, and descendants are merely those upon whose backs we lay the debt for our narcissistic demands for security and comfort.
Eric, thanks for the amen, but I would point out once again that using Acts 2:39 to support paedosacraments is terrible exegesis. These words were spoken to the last generation of the Circumcision. If they refused to believe they would be wiped out, including their children, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children.” (Luke 23:28). and also those far off, the Jews and proselytes throughout the empire, who, after rejecting Christ, celebrated the Passover to point of offering 3 million lambs each year. During the final Passover, the city was besieged, trapping… Read more »