The Holy Spirit is the Third Person of the Trinity (Art. 11, Belgic Confession). He is omnipresent and uncreated, among other divine attributes. He is the sanctifier of God’s people and the sustainer of life. He works with every Christian by leading them to the Word of God and preparing them for Christ. As Calvin states, the Holy Spirit is the bond of our union with Christ by faith (Calvin, Institutes, 3.1). The Holy Spirit also teaches the Church to preserve the unity of the Body of Christ. His role is not passive, but active regarding what He does in God’s people. …

Talking about God has been a divisive topic in modern culture. While for some people, God is just a force rather than a person, others do not distinguish between the creator and the creation. From a biblical and Christian perspective, God is not an idea, concept, religion, or a philosophical system. He, instead, is an underived and powerful spiritual person who has always existed from before time. Because of this, there are some necessary aspects one should know about God. God Has Revealed to Humanity The knowledge about God is not something human beings need to discover, but to receive. God …

The Shawshank Redemption is about the experiences Andy had in prison when he was falsely convicted of murdering his wife and her lover. One theme portrayed in the movie is the role of hope in the lives of human beings. This film explores a series of motifs that help us understand better the process of restoration in the practice of providing pastoral care to Christians, even though this is a secular film. One of the thought-provoking quotes of the movie is when Andy states, “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things.” It is this hope that leads …

When Christianity began expanding to other lands outside of Jerusalem, at the beginning, there were religious practices of the Early Church that linked Christianity to Jewish traditions. As time passed by, many cultures adopted Christianity, and those practices disappeared, giving birth to a local gospel. Places like Europe and North America later developed their “own” Christianity, and when missionaries from these places went abroad in a missional field such as Asia or Africa, not only they shared the Gospel but also their culture, customs, and worldviews. An example of this process, Father Vincent J. Donovan in Christianity Rediscovered shares significant insights about …

Authors Richard Bauckham in Bible and Mission and Leslie Newbigin in The Open Secret discuss the concept of mission and how it should be understood correctly by Christians today. While Bauckham initially explains the idea of metanarrative and universalist cultures, and how overemphasizing them challenges the way Christians do mission today; Newbigin, instead, associates missions with the very ministry of Jesus and his baptism by John the Baptist. Both authors agree that mission is God’s work as he uses mission as a means of not only proclaiming the Gospel but also bringing justice to the entire world. Bauckham writes: This …

The Cosmos and the Creator: An Introduction to the Theology of Creation by David Fergusson, London: SPCK, 1998. Pp. 115. $23.99 softcover. The Cosmos and the Creator: An Introduction to the Theology of Creation is a collection of four essays based on the Cunningham Lectures given by Scottish theologian and Professor David A.S. Fergusson at the University of Edinburgh in 1996. Every chapter of the book represents an essay. In this book, Fergusson discusses the Christian doctrine of creation based on the failure of modern theoretical approaches to offer an adequate understanding of the God-world relation. In that regard he rightly states, “the …