Caspar Olevianus, A Firm Foundation, Question 116 (translated by Lyle D. Bierma)

Q. What is the third benefit? [of the ascension of Christ]

A. Christ took the flesh and blood that He had assumed from us up into heaven as a guarantee of our ascension. He also sent down to us a further guarantee, which He received not from us but from the Father, namely the Holy Spirit. This He did in order that the Spirit might live in our bodies and souls, be an indissoluble bond between our head in heaven and us, His members on earth, and assure us, like the money in a downpayment, of our eternal inheritance in heaven. John 14.16: "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever." John 16.7: "I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away the Comforter will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send him to you." See also Acts 2; 2Cor 1, 2Cor 6; Eph 1; Rom 5, Rom 8.

The Holy Spirit assures believers of this so strongly that the holy apostle says in Ephesians 2.6 that "God has made us to sit together in the heavenly places with Christ," as those who not only await heaven with a mere hope but already possess it in Christ our head. That is why by the power of the same Holy Spirit we should detach our hearts from these earthly things and "seek the things above, where Christ is, sitting at God's right hand" (Col 3.1; see also Php 3.20-21).

[Question & answer Copyright 1995 Lyle D. Bierma]

In this Q&A, Olevianus rightly points out one of the often-overlooked benefits of the ascension of Christ: the giving of the Holy Spirit. If Jesus hadn't ascended into heaven, the Holy Spirit would not have been sent to be our guide and comforter. The assurance provided that "those who not only await heaven with a mere hope but already possess it in Christ our head" along with the exhortation to apply Col 3.1-4 in seeking the things above (living as our Savior would have us live instead of how the world lives) is both comforting and challenging. Because the Holy Spirit has been sent (and we know it has been, based on Acts 1-2) those who claim Christ must realize that the Holy Spirit is here in order to assist us, guide us and comfort us as we strive to (in our humanity) walk the Christian walk.

So we've gotta walk. One step at a time, but we have to move our feet. As we focus on serving our Lord, His Spirit will guide us in that walk. Thanks be to God for His glorious provision of the Holy Spirit to help us in this manner.

If you've read ricoblog for more than a few weeks, you know that I have strong interests in the Pastoral Epistles (1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus) and also in the writings of the Apostolic Fathers (those who wrote in the immediate post-apostolic age, from say 80 AD through 200 AD).

The truth is that I have a general interest in church history, and the later Paulines (some would say deutero-Paulines) and the writings of the Apostolic Fathers seem like a good place to focus that interest. Within this general interest of church history, I have a soft spot for creeds, catechisms and confessions.

One Reformation-era catechism that I always find challenging and reassuring is Caspar Olevianus' A Firm Foundation. Olevianus (along with Zacharias Ursinius) is responsible for the Heidelberg Catechism, one of the foundational statements of doctrine for many of the Reformed church denominations in existence today.

While many folks know of the Heidelberg, not too many seem to know of Olevianus' Firm Foundation. And that's a shame because this work of Olevianus' is essentially a commentary on the Apostles Creed (and thus a commentary on the portion of the Heidelberg that deals with the Apostles' Creed).

If you have any interest in creeds or statements of faith, particularly those of a protestant sort, I'd highly recommend Olevianus. I've had this book for years and have found it helpful when dealing with how to put a clear explanation, with Biblical support, on tough-to-explain theological or doctrinal concepts.

I hope (emphasis on "hope") to post a few examples over the next few weeks of the sort of stuff that Olevanius' work includes (hence this introductory informational post). The first post (posted directly after this one) will have to do with the benefit of the ascension of Christ.

Amy and I had dinner with my brother and his fiancée on Friday. It was the first time Amy and anyone in her family met a member of my family. All in all, it was a pretty cool night.

During the dinner conversation, talk turned to blogging and ricoblog in particular. I found out that my brother now checks ricoblog with regularity and that his fiancée plans to as well. So that means that ricoblog readership has officially doubled!

Ok, there are more readers than that (currently at around 100 unique hits a day mostly from searches for balsamic vinaigrette; with aggregator hits on top of that) but you get the picture. So I figured it was time for a welcome message for the new ricoblog readers.

If you're new to ricoblog, you probably want to read the about ricoblog article. That should cover most of the bases. If you're interested in the Apostolic Fathers, check out my Apostolic Fathers Lookup Tool. Or do a blog search for "Diognetus" or "Polycarp" or perhaps "Ignatius" for bloggin' on those sort of dudes using the search box in the sidebar. Or check out the different topic listings in the sidebar. Or the comprehensive site Table of Contents, organized by subject. Lots of fun stuff, just a click away.

All in all, welcome to the party. If you have questions, feel free to comment on articles or drop email to me at the address listed in the sidebar.

Thanks for readin'!

Peter Kirby, over at the Christian Origins blog, has done some work with word frequencies in the Pauline Epistles. There are two posts to review:

• Lexical Look at the Pauline Epistles
• New Algorithm for Lexical Style

I haven't had time to fully digest Peter Kirby's posts yet, I hope to start on that over the next few days. He may just re-open the word-frequency can of worms for me. If I have further comments after looking through what he's done, I'll surely post them here.

As longer-term ricoblog readers know, I've flirted with this area as well. I think P.N. Harrison (Problem of the Pastoral Epistles, Oxford, 1921) did the most work with the problem of unique vocabulary in the Paulines, and I think Harrison's work can be used as fodder for both sides of the argument. Donald Guthrie, in his short monograph The Pastoral Epistles and the Mind of Paul (Tyndale House Publishers (UK): 1954(?)) uses Harrison's own numbers in an effective argument against Harrison's position. That said, there are interesting things possible with word frequencies, but the agreed-upon Pauline corpus is just too small a sample to make any conclusions about particular epistles. At least, that's my conclusion.

One thing I find even more interesting than word frequencies is the frequency or recurrence of three-word phrases in a given corpus. I've used James Tauber's data (thanks again, James ... though you really need to XML-itize it!). A colleague here at Logos coined the term "tri-log" for three-word-phrase (where the lexical form of the word is considered, not the inflected form), so I've used that term, at least for now. My initial forays in this area can be seen here:

• A Concordance of Tri-Logs in the Pastoral Epistles
• A Concordance of Tri-Logs Held in Common between the "Genuine" Paulines and Pastorals

I've only generated the data, I haven't analyzed it. My basic hypothesis is that these "tri-logs" (three-word-phrases) may be a better indicator of style or authorship than frequencies of individual words across documents in a given corpus.

Stephen C. Carlson, of Hypotyposeis fame, has done similar stuff (with analysis!) that he's posted to the web. Also recommended to me from at least two different sources (though I haven't obtained a copy or read the work) is A Stylometric Study of the New Testament by Kenny (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986). The whole area is interesting to me, but I think I should read Kenny's book and perhaps a few others on style and stylometry before going too much further down this road.

[updated; a few sentences added and a paragraph moved]

I'd heard rumors that one could use an RSS reader to check a Gmail inbox, but didn't know how to do it.

I stumbled across the secret sauce last night: How do I view Gmail messages with my aggregator? 

My morning blog reading brought me to Rubén Gómez' Bible Software Review and an announcement of a Mac version of the LDLS. I normally don't blog directly about Logos or the LDLS, but this seems like it can be an exception.

As Rubén says, this is not an April Fool's joke. I can confirm the rumors. Here are a few sources you can go to for more information:

• The Logos Bible Software for the Macintosh Q&A Page. Note that at the bottom of this page there is an email signup form. You can sign up to be updated of progress and announcements regarding Logos for the Mac.
• The Official Logos Press Release
• The Logos for the Mac Newsgroup at news://news.logos.com/macintosh
• Mark Kellner, computer columnist for the Washington Times, announces the Mac version in his weekly column.

There's a lot of work to do. Keep watching the Logos Macintosh newsgroups and make sure you subscribe to the email list to stay apprised of the latest developments for the Mac platform.

Jesus Christ has risen the dead! He is risen indeed!

The first thing I did after getting out of bed this morning was listen to Don Francisco's He's Alive [Rhapsody Link]. If you have Rhapsody or have access to a recording of this song, do yourself a favor and in the quiet of the morning or the evening, stop everything and listen to the song.

Then, after some reading (Caspar Olevianus on the meaning and benefits of the resurrection) I wrote a quick poem. My poetry isn't the best, but I wanted to share this here anyway:

What we call "sins" are only evidence of our depravity.
Our nature, corrupt to the core, can only produce sin.

Deeds done with good intent are tainted.
Thoughts pondered in secret are void of light.

We are wholly fallen.
We need mercy.
We need grace.
We need Jesus.

Perfect God, perfect man,
Human, yet divine
Steps into time to redeem us.

Sin must be punished, else God would not be just.
Jesus, in perfection, takes our sin upon His own head.

Not simply our wrong-doings, but the source:
Our total wrong-being.*
Our nature, bent** from perfection to sin.

And He redeems us.

 Praise God for His mercy and salvation. He is risen. Enjoy your day as you celebrate Christ's triumph over sin and death.

* "wrong doing" vs. "wrong being" comes from Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, the reading for October 7: "Sin is a fundamental relationship; it is not wrong doing, it is wrong being, deliberate and emphatic independence of God."

** the idea of a "bent" nature comes from C.S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet, the section where Dr. Ransom is attempting to explain the problem of sin to a society that has no knowledge of sin.

If you're coming to ricoblog as a result of reading the article in the spring 2005 issue of The Classic, check out this post for more info.

Update: Responding to my Mom, yeah -- a few folks have emailed. I know the copies are still being mailed (just rec'd my own regular copy on Friday), so if you're reading this, and you know me from those NWC years, drop me a line at textgeek (a-t.) gmail (do t.) com.