Tag: Father’s
The Father’s “Love Child” for the World
The *world* even the *churches* speak of love, as if all it needs is love. This is true. But only God *is* love. Only God *is* Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There is no other independent category of “love,” that is not first a predicate of God’s eternal life within itself. So, when the world, and even the churches, speak of love, they ironically bear witness against themselves; that is, if they claim that all we need is love, but are thinking of that in purely horizontal, human, and profane ways (which they are). The world’s only salvation is to…
‘The Father’s Theology’: An evangelical theology versus a philosophical theology
I am a proponent of an evangelical theology. ‘Evangelical’ in the sense that the starting point for theology, I contend, ought to be the Evangel or Gospel Hisself. This is contrary to the philosophical, or hard metaphysical theologies that have characterized much of the Western tradition’s theologizing for centuries (i.e., we could think of Thomas Aquinas all the way into Nietzsche et al.) An ‘evangelical theology’ is a kerygmatic theology; particularly when we understand that the kerygma is the pronouncement and announcement that Jesus is Lord. It is a theology of the Father who declares, “this is my dearly beloved…
Learning to Read Scripture as if Jesus is its Meaning and Context: Along with Athanasius and the Fathers
We all interpret. Whether it be while driving down the street, and stopping at a stop sign, or reading the various sections of a newspaper. We bring readerly expectations and conditions to our daily lives that inform how we arrive at our interpretive conclusions. But for some reason when it comes to biblical interpretation many people in the churches place that into a special mystical, even magical category; as if said people can simply open the text, read it, and receive it as is without interpretation. But this is false of course. We are all faced with interpretive dilemmas, particularly…
The Father’s Loving Discipline
4 You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; 5 and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, Nor faint when you are reproved by Him; 6 For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He scourges every son whom He receives.” 7 It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Furthermore,…