October 23, 2024

The 2025 stewardship campaign began this past Sunday and will run through November 17th!

This campaign season gives us a chance to deeply consider our response to God’s call for us. How will we give what has been given to us to minister to a hurting world in need of deep and abiding welcome?

How will the Holy Spirit guide us, now and in the coming year? Want to know more about the Christian tradition of the Holy Spirit? Wonderful! What follows in this and in upcoming Hump Day Messages is exactly that! We hope you enjoy!

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A Recap of the Nicene Creedoffered by Dick Fichter, parishioner with support from Rev. Dina

In our earlier commentaries we looked at the Nicene Creed in detail with respect to specific aspects of the Creed from a historical perspective to gain a better understanding and appreciation of the Creed. The Nicene Creed is a Christian statement of faith that is the only ecumenical creed because it is accepted as authoritative by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, Episcopal, and other major Protestant churches. The Apostles’ and Athanasian creeds are accepted by some but not all of these churches. (Britannica)   What is Faith and in Particular Christian Faith? As usual, I looked for the definition of faith in the Episcopal Glossary of Terms and was surprised to see there was none. I then turned to Definitions from Oxford Languages which defines faith as the complete trust or confidence in someone or something. This inquiry also noted the question and opinion as follows: What did Jesus mean by faith? The closest that the Bible comes to offering an exact definition is Hebrews 11:1 – “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” From this particular passage, we see that the central feature of faith is confidence or trust. In the Bible, the object of faith is God and his promise. Having degrees in chemistry and law, I tend to look at things empirically and for precedent to find the answer to my questions. I knew before starting that this was not possible for questions about religion and philosophy. However, this approach has in fact strengthened my faith as an integral part of the answer to my questions. Faith is a decision to be made by each individual and as such requires tolerance and respect for each person’s decision on faith which may not be the same as ours. Another Look at the Tripartite Nicene Creed  This time when I looked at the Nicene Creed it immediately struck me as being obviously tripartite. The first part states belief in one God and deals with God the Almighty who is maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. [Note in particular the use of the word, maker, that is, one who makes something.] The second part describes the belief in one Lord, Jesus Christ who is eternally begotten of the Father, …. begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. [Note the use of begotten as contrasted with the use of maker as used above. When you make something, you make it out of something that is not yourself. I make hats, for example. Begotten is the past participle of beget which is defined as (typically of a man, sometimes of a man and a woman) bring (a child) into existence by the process of reproduction. It is of the same substance.  Without this unity of one being with the Father, the description of salvation which follows in the second part would be meaningless. There would be no Christianity as a religion. The third part describes and concludes with the belief in the Holy Spirit as worshipped with the Father and Son, baptism for the forgiveness of sins, the apostolic church, the resurrection of the dead and the world to come. Next time: Pneumatology. bringing

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God Loves You. No Exceptions.