Reflections on the loving kindness of the Triune God
Who rules the world? God? Or Satan? This question, if we’re honest, has a very high cringe factor these days. The first wince comes with the premise that the world is ruled by supernatural powers. Then to set it out as a binary opposition—that only God or Satan rule, with no other options—the question feels …
Read More A questionThis 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 BrokenAll 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?Relationships define us. Yet most of us share a common sense assumption that we exist as self-defined and self-directed individuals. This unshakeable premise grows out of a shared human experience: that we live and move on the basis of inward, personal deliberations. Even the quiet and private moment of reading just now can be seen …
Read More BondingI’m struck with the lack of overt humor in the Bible, especially given how often we readers tend to treat delight and laughter as one and the same. Yet the Bible avoids linking God to laughter even though it speaks of his delight and joy. So joy, yes, but laughter, no. Irony, yes, laughter, no. …
Read More The Divine Last LaughYears ago John Stott’s book, Christ the Controversialist, caught my attention. He put into words what I was finding in my regular tours through the Bible: Jesus, though gracious and loving, always produced chaos as he rejected the status quo. He was, for instance, deeply spiritual yet without being either a Stoic or a mystic—both …
Read More Christ the ControversialistThis post has also been published at the Cordeo.org.uk website. In John 17 Jesus prayed for his own—for those the Father had given him. In praying for his own he offered a contrast between them and those who are in the “world”. The distinction can’t be missed as Jesus uses the term “world” seventeen times …
Read More Out of the WorldI can hear God. His voice is easily picked up by the alert ear—by any who are ready to listen. And I’m listening. What is he is saying? He regularly starts with a simple message that is both threatening and comforting: “I am Yahweh.” And from there he goes on to share what that means …
Read More God’s VoiceIt is said that Genesis 1-3 is the seedbed of all of Christian theology. What we believe about God, about our humanity, our morality, our future, and much more is traced back to our reading of these three chapters. What, for instance, should we make of the serpent’s word to Eve that “… you will …
Read More DeificationJeremiah’s book is God’s spiritual and moral bristle brush: it always gives my soul a good scrub when I read it. God, as the prophet tells us, will confront sin. Chaos is coming. Why? Because national religious and political leaders all support evil: the evil of ignoring God’s words and ways. Jeremiah promises his readers …
Read More Stability in Chaos