Covenantal Worship

Worship is central to the Christian life. But how should the church order its worship to honor God and enrich his people? Gore assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the Puritan regulative principle of worship in light of biblical teaching, the Westminster Standards and Directory, and Calvin's view, with special attention to adiaphora. Gore submits this work, the product of twenty years of research, reflection, worship, and dialogue, ...not as the final word on the regulation of worship, but as a modest attempt to further the discussion. An excellent work....will both stimulate thought and help resolve some current controversies over worship. There is a good balance of appreciation and criticism of the Puritan heritage....A formulation that needs to be considered in our circles. --William S. Barker

Covenantal Rights is a groundbreaking work of political theory: a comprehensive, philosophically sophisticated attempt to bring insights from the Jewish political tradition into current political and legal debates about rights and to bring rights discourse more fully into Jewish thought. David Novak pursues these aims by presenting a theory of rights founded on the covenant between God and the Jewish people as that covenant is constituted by Scripture and the rabbinic tradition. In doing so, he presents a powerful challenge to prevailing liberal and conservative positions on rights and duties and opens a new chapter in contemporary Jewish political thinking. For Novak, "covenantal rights" are rooted in God's primary rights as creator of the universe and as the elector of a particular community whose members relate to this God as their sovereign. The subsequent rights of individuals and communities flow from God's covenantal promises, which function as irrevocable entitlements. This presents a sharp contrast to the liberal tradition, in which rights flow above all from individuals. It also challenges the conservative idea that duties can take precedence over rights, since Novak argues that there are no covenantal duties that are not backed by correlative rights. Novak explains carefully and clearly how this theory of covenantal rights fits into Jewish tradition and applies to the relationships among God, the covenanted community, and individuals. This work is a profound and provocative contribution to contemporary religious and political theory.

In this book Ralph Smith delves deeper into the discussion at the intersection of covenant and trinitarian theology that he began with 'Paradox and Truth.' Though many Reformed theologians have recognized an agreement between the Father and the Son for the salvation of the human race, few have explored the vast theological possibilities of an eternal covenant that involves all three persons of the Trinity. Instead, covenantal soteriology has focused on the so-called covenant of works between God and Adam, which turns out to be problematic both biblically and theologically. Smith places the eternal covenant in the position it deserves - the keystone of biblical and systematic theology - with profound consequences for the Christian worldview.

The Lord's Service is a description and defense of covenant renewal worship.

This harvest of articles drawn from William Johnson Everett's career of teaching and research on four continents and in a variety of institutions shows the breadth, depth, and diversity of his interests. Like spotlights in the wider field of Christian social ethics, they illuminate the key threads that have held together an emerging tapestry of thought woven around the powerful concept of covenant. Whether lifting up concepts of covenant, federalism, and corporation, the "oikos" of work, family, and faith, the public nature and mission of the church, or the ethical meaning of journey metaphors, his rich and artful style leads us into thinking more deeply about the way our lives are joined in a "covenantal imagination" about a more just and sustainable world.

In the development of Covenant Works I follow neither the way of the seventeenth-century Federal Theology, nor the way of nineteenth-century Critical Theology, nor the way of twentieth-century Federal Vision, nor the way of a compromise. Covenant Works lays open the Scriptures' biblical structure. The author integrates the covenant, Christology, the trinity, the kingdom, the church, and historical linearity into the Scriptures to reveal its architectonic unity.

Today, many of us have lost our appreciation of the beauty of covenant theology and covenant community, and this has had dire consequences for us, resulting in misunderstandings of theology and individualism and isolationism in the church. Author Sarah Ivill believes that a key solution to this problem is a robust understanding of covenant theology, which will deepen our knowledge of Scripture and enable us to truly serve our sisters by pointing them to Christ. In The Covenantal Life , the author clearly and concisely sets forth the beauty of covenant theology and covenant community and encourages us to learn sound doctrine so that we can think biblically about the circumstances in our lives—and then help our sisters in Christ to do so as well.

The baptism of Jesus by John the Baptizer is one of the theologically richest narratives in the Gospels, touching the transition from the old to the new covenant, the doctrines of water and Holy Spirit baptism, and the doctrine of the Trinity, to name only the most significant of topics. In The Baptism of Jesus the Christ, Ralph Allan Smith addresses each of these areas, aiming in particular to respond to James D. G. Dunn's view that Jesus' baptism and the gift of the Spirit are fundamentally distinct events, to revive John Calvin's view of the baptism of Jesus as central to understanding Christian baptism, and to suggest directions for re-thinking the doctrine of God's attributes in the light of the fully personal interaction of Father, Son, and Spirit reflected in the baptismal narrative.