From Howard McPhee,

Pastor of Springdale Christian Reformed Church,

Bradford West Gwillimbury, Ontario

First of all, I want again to express my appreciation of your musical gifts.

Thank you for the revised copy of your thesis. I read through it this evening after church (Jan 27) and once again found it stimulating, challenging, informative and helpful. It is an excellent piece of work. I very much appreciate your bringing together a wide range of texts on various subjects and exploring them in terms of cruciformity. Your argument that cruciformity is the foundation, heart and goal of the new life in Christ is something we need to be challenged to focus on.

. . . I found stimulating your points that “it is legitimate to keep in our minds that the indwelling Christ is a cruciform Christ”, and that “the indwelling Christ becomes our new identity.” (page 41)

. . . Study #14 on the kingdom and cruciformity is excellent. Your statement that “He was declaring that the very essence of His kingdom was cruciformity” is powerful. (page 52)

Excellent pastoral advice: “Unkind words from others might tend to cause us to feel unloved, rejected, or guilty. However, if we know by experience that the cruciform love of Jesus can satisfy all our needs we have complete victory…. Victory is assured over every tendency to be conformed to any other paradigm than Jesus’ cruciformity. Many seek after men’s approval and thus conform to men’s expectations rather than the Lord’s nature. We are certain of the Lord’s approval if we pursue cruciformity as He has commanded so often in the New Testament.” (page 55)

I wish all evangelicals, regardless of their understanding of Romans 11 and the place of the Jewish people in the history of redemption, would read Study #16. Your application of cruciformity to the Arab-Jew relationship and situation is a breath of fresh air, and manifests a true understanding and appreciation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The list of additional topics in the appendix is stimulating and is well worth working on.

In the spirit of “iron sharpens iron” please feel free to respond to any of the above remarks.

Howard