THE POWER OF THE SYMBOLIC

'...symbolic actions are among the most powerful things in the world...'
Tom Wright, The Meal Jesus Gave Us: Understanding Holy Communion, p.59.

THE EPITOME OF DIVINE GRACE

'This is the epitome of divine grace: a meal in the presence of God.'

Tim Chester, Truth We Can Touch, p.59.

THE SACRAMENTS

'...baptism and Communion are God's promise in physical form.'
Tim Chester, Truth We Can Touch: How Baptism and Communion Shape Our Lives, p.36.

IDENTITY SHAPED BY MEMORY

'Our identities are very closely linked to our memories. Who we are is shaped by what we remember because our identity is, at least in part, narratival, and our memories constitute our story.' 

Grant Macaskill, Living in Uniion with Christ, p,73.

THE SACAMENTS

'We believe that our good God,
mindful of our crudeness and weakness,
has ordained sacraments for us
to seal his promises in us,
to pledge good will and grace toward us,
and also to nourish and sustain our faith.
God has added these to the Word of the gospel
to represent better to our external senses
both what God enables us to understand by the Word
and what he does inwardly in our hearts,
confirming in us
the salvation he imparts to us.'
Belgic Coonfession 33 in Todd Billings, 'Sacraments' in Christian Dogmatics: Reformed Theology for the Church Catholic (Edited by Michael Allen & Scott R Swain), p.342.  

THE SACRAMENTS

'...to reject, marginalize, trivialize or be suspicious of the sacraments (and quasi-sacramental acts such as lighting a candle, bowing, washing feet, raising hands in the air, crossing oneself etc.) on the grounds that such things can  be superstitious or idolatrous, or that some people might suppose that by doing them they are putting God in their debt, is like rejecting sexual relations in marriage on the grounds that it's the same act that, in other circumstances, constitutes immorality.' 

Tom Wright, Surprised by Hope, p.275. 

THE SACRAMENTS

'Baptism and Eucharist are the great sacraments of God's self-giving. They create, cultivate, and sustain the foundational unity between God and humanity that is manifested in Christ. These are the sacraments of our deepest identity, hidden in the self-emptying of God in Christ.'

Martin Laird, Into the Silent Land, p.15. 

THE LORD'S SUPPER

'The Lord's Table...isn't just a visual aid to remind us, as though it were a memory-jogging tool. As we gather together around the Table, we are being trained to eat at the "big table" in Jerusalem. And we're announcing to ourselves, and to the satanic powers in the air around us, what's really true. "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die" is a sham. The alternative is not a refusal to eat, drink or be merry. That would be ingratitude. Instead, with the resurrected Jesus we sing out, "Let us eat, drink and be merry, for yesterday we were dead."'

Russell D Moore, Tempted and Tried, p.75.

THE SACRAMENTS

'As the Reformers used to say, the sacraments are visible words. They supplement the word of God by divinely authorized dramatic images. So, the fullness of divine teaching is by Word and sacrament.'

John Frame, Salvation Belongs to the Lord, p.275.