@RevEricBurrowsStone@deacon.social cover
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RevEricBurrowsStone

@[email protected]

Husband of a wonderful woman! Father of two sweet kids! #reformed #pastor with #anglican sensibilities. Also a #coffee nerd, #beer enthusiast, aspiring #scholar (#Bible + #liturgy & #missiology), lover of the outdoors. Studied #Philosophy at Pontifical College Josephinum & #Theology at Palmer Theological Seminary (M.Div.). Member of the Evangelical Theological Society (http://etsjets.org) and the Evangelical Missiological Society (http://emsweb.org). #Fediverse #theologidons

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@RevEricBurrowsStone@deacon.social avatar RevEricBurrowsStone , to random

While I genuinely enjoy using Linux, I just cannot make a full switch to exclusively using that OS. One of the primary tools I utilize for both sermon prep and academic work is Logos Bible Software, which doesn’t have full functionality on Linux (no matter what work arounds I have tried). I wish Logos would offer a Linux version, but I don’t foresee that ever happening. And so I remain on a mainstream OS.

@RevEricBurrowsStone@deacon.social avatar RevEricBurrowsStone , to random

You don't often hear Thomas Aquinas quoted in a sermon. There is the oft cited idea that he is too dry and scholastic. Well, here is a spectacular quote - right from his Summa Theologiae - that will preach doxologically:

“Christ, by suffering out of love and obedience, presented to God something greater than was required to compensate for the offense of the whole human race. First, because of the greatness of the love on account of which he suffered. Second, on account of the worth of his life… for it was the life of God and of a man. …. And therefore Christ’s suffering not only was sufficient but was an excess repayment for the sins of the human race, [as we read in] 1 John 2:2 “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world”.”

(Adapted from: F. C. Bauerschmidt, "The Essential Summa Theologiae," 2nd Ed., 335.)

@RevEricBurrowsStone@deacon.social avatar RevEricBurrowsStone , to random

“Worship is the submission of all of our nature to God.” - William Temple (1881-1944)

@RevEricBurrowsStone@deacon.social avatar RevEricBurrowsStone , to random

A joyous Feast of All Saints!

“The saint is the apology for the Christian religion. He is holy, however, because he allows Christ to live in him and it is in Christ that he "glories".”

  • Hans Urs von Balthasar, “The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics,” Vol. 5.
@RevEricBurrowsStone@deacon.social avatar RevEricBurrowsStone , to random

For whoever needs to see this right now

@RevEricBurrowsStone@deacon.social avatar RevEricBurrowsStone , to random

I am willing to go put on a limb and prognosticate that church historians are going to look back upon this event as one of the single most important events in 21st century Christianity.

https://gafcon.org/communique-updates/the-future-has-arrived/?fbclid=IwdGRjcANd0qJleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHtD4cEBSunijHOO4GXYnqBsvIf9kzYN2Ls8B4ocM8qJF8OUVn20jIGOZiuQn_aem_HfwarxJSo6P4eAZ56UBJMQ

@RevEricBurrowsStone@deacon.social avatar RevEricBurrowsStone , to random

“Peter washed away his fault with his tears; he poured water from his eyes and baptized his conscience.”

  • St. Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 229p.4.
@RevEricBurrowsStone@deacon.social avatar RevEricBurrowsStone , to random

“[The Eucharist] embodies the actual presence of the grace it represents; and this grace is the very life of the Lord Jesus Christ himself."

  • John Nevin, The Mystical Presence (1867)

THAT is good (or better yet, faithful) Reformational sacramental theology (as opposed to the shallow memorialist theology that has infected too many Protestant churches)! That is theology that has meat to it and invites us to come, truly experience the Lord, and be utterly transformed as we encounter him. It is theology for the whole person and the whole of life, not just the life of the mind.

@theologidons

@RevEricBurrowsStone@deacon.social avatar RevEricBurrowsStone , to random

Celebratory desert for the Feast of St. Michael and all the Holy Angels!

(Blackberries with honey and cardamom, homemade whipped cream, over top angel food cake.)

@RevEricBurrowsStone@deacon.social avatar RevEricBurrowsStone , to random

From this morning’s readings:
“O Lord, there is none like you to help, between the mighty and the weak. Help us, O Lord our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this multitude. O Lord, you are our God; let not man prevail against you.” (2 Chronicles 14:11, ESV)

This is a prayer the Church needs to relearn in every age. God’s people need to continually rediscover that the Church has no other sure source of defense because “there is none like [the Lord] to help.” That is a hard lesson for us to embrace when so many of us are seeking government-backed dominance.

@RevEricBurrowsStone@deacon.social avatar RevEricBurrowsStone , to random

Brothers and sisters in Christ,

I’ve seen a lot of tactless stuff being posted by people on both sides of the political spectrum regarding the murder of Carlie Kirk.

Let’s take a moment to stop…

Let’s take a moment to stop spinning the narrative. Let’s take a moment to let our hearts break because a fellow human’s life was snuffed out so coldly. Let’s take a moment to weep and pray for a wife and children who had their father ripped from out of their lives. Let’s mourn the sinful brutality and violence of our culture. Let’s pray… really pray for our world as well as our complicity in it’s structures of sin and violence. And let’s confess the hardness of our own hearts.

We too often reflect our secular culture with it’s Machiavellian calculations and numbness to sin, when we are instead called to have hearts that look like our Lord’s. He didn’t calculate, he didn’t numb himself to our world’s brokenness; rather he took it in and wept over it (Lk. 19:41) and he also invites us to join him in weeping and praying over this broken world (Lk. 23:28-29).

So let’s pause to weep and pray. That is what Jesus would have done in this moment, and it is what he calls us to do.

In the love of Christ,
Rev. Eric Burrows-Stone