Reflections on the loving kindness of the Triune God
Heavy hearts bend a soul and the pain of lost love stifles us. Bible verses and lessons-for-life from well-meaning friends won’t help. Grief is much too heavy. So it’s hard to walk, talk, think, or see. Kind words feel like thin plastic. Poetry is hollow. Once rich colors now come in shades of gray. Yet …
Read More Thinking of WendyThe Spirit is God’s bond of love. It’s who he is and what he does. Yet he’s fully personal, with feelings, intentions, and actions. He prefers transparency in his role of elevating others, in forming union, and sustaining unity. So the Father loves the Son, and the Son in turn loves the Father, with the …
Read More You & me togetherDecades ago, in 1987, I sent an article on Bible reading off to a magazine [the Moody Monthly] and it was published. I’ve maintained a slightly updated version on a separate page of this site as “Bible read throughs.” I’ve now scrubbed it up a bit, but without changing the basic content. Here’s the new …
Read More Make this the year!Lately I’ve pushed things aside, including Spreading Goodness posts, to write a syllabus for a course on “Affective Theology.” It’s offered very soon—next month—at Multnomah Biblical Seminary (June 12-16). Four hours each day, with no online option. I mention it in case any SG readers might be interested and available at the last minute. The …
Read More Next MonthHow does faith reshape our appetite for freedom? Freedom has been a human ambition from Adam and Eve onward. It’s ironic, given our deep reliance on others: in being birthed and raised; in learning; in work, family, and daily needs; and in our final interment. There is a healthy impulse to leave home to enter …
Read More Dependent Hearts[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 4