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Anders Nygren, On Christian Agape-Love and Eros-Love in Gospels and Pauline Epistles
Biblical Interpretation

Anders Nygren, On Christian Agape-Love and Eros-Love in Gospels and Pauline Epistles

Bruce Strom 1

Anders Nygren emphasizes that “Old Testament piety with its devotion to the Law was by no means the external legalism it is often assumed to have been. There was an inward bond that held the godly man to the Law. The righteous felt no sense of external compulsion when confronted by the Law, but a sense of inner solidarity with it. Its observance gave him value and made him acceptable to God. His prevailing mood was expressed in Psalm 1,” the Psalm that sings of Law as Gospel. […]

Biblical Interpretation

Do Christians Need To Go To Church? Which Type of Church Should You Attend?

Bruce Strom 0

St Augustine’s memorable reflection on our question appear in his Confessions, which is really one of the first testimonials. St Augustine tells us the story of Victorinus, a philosopher who studies the Gospels and the Church Fathers but declines to attend services, asking “Do the walls of the Church make you a Christian?” Victorinus was a learned man, an erudite pagan Platonic philosopher, the Word of the Lord spoke directly to him from the page, perhaps he felt intellectually superior to many simple Christians he knew.

In the words of St Augustine, in his studies Victorinus became “resolute, he was seized by the fear that Christ might deny him before the holy angels if he was too faint-hearted to acknowledge Christ before men, and he felt himself guilty of a great crime in being ashamed of the sacraments instituted by the Word of God in his lowly state.” […]