The question of the unity of the Bible's message is one that will never be satisfactorily solved, though it is one which every generation of Christians must seek to solve. We are continually impelled to search for the answer because the unity of the Church's message to the world is at stake.

‘It becomes theologians to be cautious in accepting the gifts of the Greeks.’ It is the conviction of the present writer that Christian theology as a whole, and the doctrine of God in particular, have suffered because of the lack of caution which theologians in every age have shown in their too ready acceptance of the gifts which the Greeks have brought. Of no age is this more true than of that which witnessed the formalisation and systematisation of the Christian doctrine of the Godhead, namely, the second, third and fourth Christian centuries, during which ‘theologizing’ was for the most part in the hands of men who had been trained in the philosophical schools of the Hellenistic world, and who refused to do intellectually what Justin Martyr had refused to do literally, refused, that is, to doff the academic dress of the philosopher. But it is still true that philosophical theologians today, in their desire to interpret the Christian faith in modern philosophical terms, tend to be too ready to accept as gifts the presuppositions of some modern philosophical school, and in doing so to give away much that is vital to the faith which they are seeking to interpret.

The question of sacrifice in the Eucharist has been called by the Ways of Worship Commission of Faith and Order a ‘live issue’, that is to say a question over which agreement is not right out of sight though considerable and even vehement controversy continues. At Lund, the section considering Ways of Worship reported that they had held a lively and rewarding discussion on the subject, and had been surprised by the degree of agreement revealed; on the other hand it must be admitted that neither the discussion nor the resulting agreement are very apparent from the relevant chapter of the Conference report. This article is an attempt to examine the present state of the question against a background of ecumenical discussion, and to suggest ways of conceiving the Eucharistic Sacrifice which might be more widely acceptable than those commonly put forward by ‘catholics’ in the past. Its sources, besides a necessarily incomplete study of some of the more influential modern contributions to the discussion, consist mainly in discussions amongst younger theologians and theological students in the ecumenical movement. Whilst this group is not so learned as its elders, and its discussions are seldom recorded in print, its contribution can be a valuable one, because it is most sensitive to the issues which are now live ones, and also because it frequently seems to clear away misunderstandings more effectively and reach greater agreement than more senior groups.

Since the first Synod of the Church of South India elected a standing Liturgy Committee and assigned it as its first task the drafting of an order for the Lord's Supper, that committee has never been without work in hand. SJT has from time to time given the hospitality of its pages to reports of the committee's progress, the most recent being Doing Over a Liturgy by the Rev. J. R. Macphail, which appeared in the issue of December 1954 and gave an account of our revision of An Order for the Lord's Supper. This present essay may be regarded as continuing in the same series and reporting on our experimental production of An Order for Holy Baptism, which was the task we undertook and completed in 1954. Our intention is to revise it together with An Order for Reception into Full Membership of the Church or Confirmation after about five years of use, when we hope to have an adequate body of criticisms to guide us.

The Reformed Minister in the contemporary Church is concerned about his Ministry because he realises that without a doctrine of the Church's ministry, there can't be a true doctrine of the Church. The revived interest in the theology of the Church, has therefore led to a renewed interest in the Reformed doctrine of the Ministry. Among many excellent ministers in Canada and in the United States and among seriously-minded Divinity students in a Southern Presbyterian Seminary, I have frequently noticed uncertainty with regard to the doctrinal basis of the pastoral calling. The Scottish minister has a traditional regard for his vocation which is still shared by the vast majority of the Church people. But he too might sometimes wonder where the Minister really stands, not only in the tradition and practice but in the doctrine of the Church.

It was inevitable, amongst a pastoral community such as the Hebrews, that the vocabulary and occupational habits of the shepherd should colour their language and help to formulate their way of looking at life. This was particularly true in the sphere of religion. The rich imagery of the pastoral life of Palestine has been one of the creative elements in the language and religious thought—forms of the OT, especially where Israel's relationships with Jahweh were concerned. Undoubtedly the OT conception of God, of divine providence, and of man's relations with God owe much of their profound insight and simple dignity to the metaphors current among the shepherds who lived among the Judaean hills and on the plains of Samaria.