Reflections on the loving kindness of the Triune God
[I published an earlier version today. I wasn’t satisfied with it; so here’s my revision] What is an identity? Informally, we call it the “self” that anchors our unique view of life. It’s home to our core motives and deepest values. It determines why we do what we do. In Christian history a common basis …
Read More New IdentitiesWe’ve looked at Deuteronomy 6:4-5—the “shema”—that Jesus called the greatest commandment in Mark 12:30. So we’ve listened and see it as the pathway for life. It started with the “eyes of our hearts” being opened. So faith isn’t our moral self-improvement. Or our endorsement of doctrines. Or our working to achieve marks of orthodoxy. Instead …
Read More A Vision for Life: ConclusionJesus made Deuteronomy 6:4-5 the calling of life. “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” In the first of our set of posts we looked at the call to love …
Read More A Vision for Life: 4 of 4We began this series with two posts on the Great Commandment of Deuteronomy 6:4-5. The first post identified “love” for God as the Vision of faith. Next, we treated “all” as the basis for spiritual Integration—the call to love God in every aspect of life. Now, we have Nurture in v. 6: “And these words …
Read More A Vision for Life: 3 of 4What do we want most in life? The Bible offers a simple truism here: our love shapes us. Christians, after all, love God because he first loved us [1 John 4:19]. So, in our first post we started with God’s call for us to receive him as our ultimate love. Yet today most people love …
Read More A Vision for Life: 2 of 4In the first century the Christian faith grew dramatically—hearts changed in huge numbers. So, what created that change? This post is the first of four to chase the question, with a summary post to follow. I pray the core insights are as useful in today’s post-Christian world as they were in the new-Christian days of …
Read More A Vision for LifePaul wrote of Jesus to the Romans, “if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved” [Ro. 10:9-10]. Salvation, then, is heart-based. But we …
Read More Believe in your heartYesterday I finished reading the Bible. Each morning I track at a normal reading pace for thirty to forty minutes. Reading, not studying. All of Genesis to Revelation takes about four months. Why this lifelong habit? Some call it a spiritual discipline. But it’s not. Efforts on my exercise bike are a discipline … because …
Read More A look at loveCenturies ago, Puritan theologians charged their opponents with treating Scriptures like a “wax nose.” Truth can be pliable, like an actor’s face reshaped for a Shakespearean play. Is it still a problem? Of course. And not just in religion. It’s true of advertising, news-making, and identity-building. It’s summarized in Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful …
Read More Wax nosesI happened to be in England just after Queen Elizabeth died. The trip—arranged two months ago—was set up to visit friends. Yet it felt like a small providence to be in London at the time of her funeral. As I wrote here a few years ago, I once met her—for all of eight seconds—and that …
Read More Queen Elizabeth II