Reflections on the loving kindness of the Triune God
[A technical note: the subscription feed for Spreading Goodness failed and needed to be replaced. In the changeover this post wasn’t sent to most subscribers and needs to be re-sent. But some of you will have seen it already – sorry for any inconvenience!] I’m returning to the ministry of the Spirit in this post—a …
Read More Reflecting on the SpiritI’m returning to the ministry of the Spirit in this post—a favored topic of recent months. The immediate stir this time was a recent invitation to speak on the Trinity. The preparation took me back into Jonathan Edward’s “Treatise on Grace” which is really a discussion of the Spirit. But let me start with the …
Read More Reflecting on the SpiritTime measures things. An ordinary conversation, for instance, is usually trivial. A brief exchange with a friend may fade in minutes. After 500 minutes it’s at best a faint recall. And it’s certainly gone after 500 days. Unless, of course, it’s something like a marriage proposal or a new job offer. But a request to …
Read More Luther’s 500thIn the Genesis creation narrative we read of God’s vocational calling for Adam and Eve. “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth …
Read More Dominion with ChristIn this entry I’d like to consider corruption and its cure. In the news we regularly read about corruption but in most cases it isn’t explained. So let’s chase a definition by turning to Ezekiel where we read of Satan’s fall: “Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the …
Read More Corruption & CorrectionLet me revisit an important question. Is a distinct conversion always part of an authentic faith? Or in a day to come will professed believers who lack a decisive conversion hear the Lord say, “Depart from me. I never knew you.” As a starter, we must never take on God’s role. If someone claims to …
Read More A Lively QuestionLet me return to a familiar topic but this time with a new facet in view. How does our Trinitarian faith touch on the question of passions? A book recommendation from a friend stirred my question. C. Kavin Rowe, in his One True Life: The Stoics and Early Christians as Rival Traditions, affirms the traditional …
Read More In Defense of PassionJonathan Edwards (1703-58) offered some unique and helpful insights about the Holy Spirit in his “Treatise on Grace.” Right now I’m reading Robert W. Caldwell’s study, Communion in the Spirit: The Holy Spirit as the Bond of Union in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards, where he probes the “Treatise” in his second chapter. As Edwards …
Read More Broken LoveI was in Ethiopia last month to observe and support a Christian “follow-up” ministry. The leader, Rich, was a Bible translator in Nigeria for many years. After translating the New Testament into a regional language he spotted a problem. Many new converts brought along their old ways of worship to their newfound Christianity. So for …
Read More The Demonized LadyRichard Sibbes, my favorite English puritan (1577-1635), treated human salvation very much as Martin Luther had done in Saxony a century before—mainly as a function of ontology. It shifted the focus away from the more judicial notion of salvation common in his day. In the judicial view Jesus took up the Father’s judgment against sin—death—on …
Read More Three unions