Reflections on the loving kindness of the Triune God
Jonathan Edwards, in his Freedom of the Will, wrote that “Many particular things may concur and unite their strength to induce the mind; and when it is so, all together are as it were one complex motive” (Yale edition, 1.2—p. 141). Let me chase Edwards’ point: how is it that a host of “particular things” …
Read More Thinking about thingsThis post was first published on the Cor Deo website. If you choose to respond I’d love for you to respond on that site. To go there please click here. Yesterday over lunch Matt, a global minister who serves in Germany, shared something important. Brokenness, he commented, is something we all experience in a fallen …
Read More BrokenGod—the Father, Son, Spirit God of the Bible—is all about relationships. He always has been and always will be. Yet too many of Christians operate as slightly modified modalists in at least one respect: we treat God as a single and ultimate power source. Sorry for the jargon! The term modalism comes from early discussions …
Read More ModalismThis post has also been published on the Cor Deo site. To visit click here. What is real? What is unreal? And how can we know the difference? It isn’t always clear. Today, for instance, we have feature length movies with computer-generated scenes so we might not know at a given moment whether the actor …
Read More RealityMany young Americans and Europeans today have given up on religion—they treat God as unappealing and unnecessary. Others retain a “sort of” God. For them God is a spiritual fashion accessory. Still others treat God as a “what if”: what if there really is a God, a heaven, and a hell? “Have we done enough …
Read More Knowing GodThis post has also been published on the Cor Deo site I share with Peter Mead. To visit please click here My conversion came as a distinct moment as I spoke to Jesus about what I had just read in Matthew 6:33 of the Bible. Christ’s new life brought a “lights on” change in the …
Read More Leaders or Lids?Mark returns as a guest contributor this week. His probing questions call for open-hearted reflection. Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, …
Read More Self-Revealing or Self-Deceiving?This is a repeat entry of the post first offered on the Cor Deo site, here Is it ever okay to complain to God? Is it appropriate to tell him that we think he’s done a terrible job and needs to start getting things right? Should the topic, “Proper forms of complaining in prayer,” be …
Read More Complaining to GodAll of us have been victims of sin. We’ve been hurt by what others have done to us, said to us, or withheld from us. We’re all damaged in some measure as a result. And, if we’re honest, we know that we’ve also hurt others. We may have apologized, or we may have simply walked …
Read More Victims?This post was first posted on the Cor Deo site. To visit the site please click here. What is spirituality? The question is huge—reaching well beyond a brief entry like this—but I would like to take a nibble. The main analogy for spirituality and spiritual growth in the Bible looks to organic or physical growth: …
Read More Spirituality