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Messianic Judaism
[Denominations]Messianic Judaism is a religious movement whose adherents believe Jesus to be the Messiah of Israel while seeking to maintain Jewish identity and Jewish practices such as the Sabbath and the biblical feasts.
Hospitality
[Christian Life]Hospitality is the practice of welcoming guests or unfamiliar strangers into one's home and church and providing them with food and a place to rest. Scripture commends it as a virtue of believers and as an expression of the life of faith.
Song of Lamech
[Bible]The Song of Lamech is a short poem in Genesis 4:23–24 in which Lamech, a descendant of Cain, tells his two wives that he has killed a man and boasts that his vengeance will far exceed Cain's.
Apologist
[Doctrine & Theology]An apologist is a person who argues that the Christian faith is true and reasonable and who responds to criticisms and misunderstandings of it. The term is used especially for the second-century early church writers who wrote in defense of the faith.
Mass
[Worship & Rites]The Mass is the public, Eucharist-centered worship of the Catholic Church. It consists of two parts: one in which the Scriptures are read and heard, and one in which bread and wine are shared.
Theosis
[Doctrine & Theology]Theosis, also called deification, is the teaching that the goal of salvation is for human beings, by the grace of God, to participate in God's life and nature and so grow into the likeness of God. It is a central concept of Eastern Orthodox soteriology.
Declaration of Absolution
[Worship & Rites]The declaration of absolution is the element of a worship service in which, after the congregation has confessed its sins, the worship leader announces God's forgiveness of sins on the basis of Scripture. Its meaning and use vary among denominations.
The Pilgrim's Progress
[Christian Life]The Pilgrim's Progress is a Christian allegory by the English Puritan preacher John Bunyan, published in 1678 (Part One) and 1684 (Part Two). Told in the form of a dream, it depicts the journey of the pilgrim Christian from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City.
Apologetics
[Doctrine & Theology]Apologetics is a branch of theology that explains why the Christian faith is true and reasonable and responds to criticisms of and questions about the faith.
Easter Vigil
[Worship & Rites]The Easter Vigil is a service held on the night of Holy Saturday, the day before Easter, in anticipation of the resurrection of Christ. It proceeds through the Service of Light, the Liturgy of the Word, the Liturgy of Baptism, and the Liturgy of the Eucharist, and it is especially valued in liturgical traditions such as the Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran churches.
Theonomy
[Doctrine & Theology]Theonomy is a theological position held by some within the Reformed tradition. It maintains that the civil laws and penal sanctions of the Old Testament Mosaic law should, in principle, apply to nations today.
Protevangelium of James
[Bible]The Protevangelium of James is a Greek apocryphal work from around the second century that recounts the birth and upbringing of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and the birth of Jesus. It is not included in the canonical Bible.
Pacifism
[Doctrine & Theology]Pacifism is the position that rejects war and violence and pursues peace through nonviolence. Within Christianity, the Anabaptist and Quaker traditions are its most prominent representatives, and it stands in contrast to just war theory.
Grammatical-Historical Interpretation
[Doctrine & Theology]Grammatical-historical interpretation is a method of biblical interpretation that reads the text in light of the grammar of its original languages and the historical setting in which it was written, in order to discover the meaning the author originally intended to convey.
Sending of the Seventy
[Bible]The Sending of the Seventy is an event in which Jesus appointed seventy others, apart from the Twelve, and sent them two by two ahead of him into every town he intended to visit. It is recorded only in Luke 10.
Two Kingdoms Doctrine
[Doctrine & Theology]The two kingdoms doctrine is a Protestant teaching that God governs the world in two ways: through a spiritual government, in which he rules faith by his Word, and through a temporal government, in which the state and the law preserve social order.
Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion
[Doctrine & Theology]The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion are thirty-nine articles of faith drawn up by the Church of England during the sixteenth-century Reformation. They are a historic standard of Anglican doctrine and also influenced the Methodist Articles of Religion.
Song of Zechariah
[Bible]The Song of Zechariah is a hymn recorded in Luke 1:68-79. Filled with the Holy Spirit on the day of his son's circumcision, Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, praises God's salvation and prophesies concerning his son's mission.
Works-Righteousness
[Doctrine & Theology]Works-righteousness is the attitude or belief that a person can obtain salvation or God's grace through his or her own good deeds and religious acts. The term is used mainly in Protestantism, usually in a critical sense.
Presence of God
[Doctrine & Theology]The presence of God refers to God's being with a particular place, person, or community. Denominations differ in their emphases on how this presence is experienced and understood in worship and prayer.