Archive for the ‘Trinity’ Tag
Woo-Hoo!
Filed under: By John Stonecypher, Christian Living, Trinity | Tags: Bible, Christian Living, Jesus, Matthew 5, Perichoresis, Sermon on the Mount, The Shack, Trinity
Comments (6) Here’s a Trinitarian paraphrase of Matthew 5:3-16
(3) The Triune Life has been freely given to all. If you are spiritually impoverished, shout ‘WOOHOO!’ for this gift does not depend on your religious skills.
(4) If you are sad, shout ‘WOOHOO!’ for you will be comforted.
(5) If you are unassertive, shout ‘WOOHOO!’ for your inheritance does not depend on your ability to assert your right to it.
(6) If you are starved for the world to be put right, shout ‘WOOHOO!’ because you will get what you want.
(7) If you are kind to people who don’t deserve it, shout ‘WOOHOO!’ because the Trinity is like that too.
(8) If you long for an undistorted vision of Papa, shout ‘WOOHOO!’ because you will receive the desire of your heart.
(9) If you constantly find yourself in between warring parties, shout ‘WOOHOO!’ because you are behaving just like your Papa.
(10) If your fight for social justice gets you in trouble, shout ‘WOOHOO!’ because you are already experiencing the Triune Life that has been given to you.
(11) If people spread lies about you and insult you because of me, shout ‘WOOHOO!’ (12) because you are experiencing the life of Jesus in the world; you are in good company.
(13) Like a pinch of salt in a big pot of soup, you ‘little people’ have a much greater effect on the world than you’d think. The trick is to stay spicy; it’s hard to be different from everybody else, but that’s the whole point. The world already has plenty of landscaping pebbles; what it needs now is salt, really SALTY salt.
(14) Through you, light is coming into the world. Like a city on a hill, you will be seen—just by you being you. (15) And nobody puts a candle under a bowl; they put it on a stand, where its light can bless everyone. (16) So don’t hide who you are. When people see the love inside you, they will see Papa and love Him.
~ John Stonecypher
Imagine God’s Desire
Filed under: By Tim Brassell, Christian Living, The Dance and Dream of the Trinity, The Plan of Adoption, Trinity | Tags: Christian Living, Christianity, Forgiveness, Gospel, Jesus, Perichoresis, Salvation, Sin, Trinity
Comments (4) The Father’s desire is for you – and in Jesus he has you!
This 15 min. audio will help you understand more clearly how the desires of your heart are flowing from the life of the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit and the creative way in which the Father is pursuing his relationship with you.
Imagine God’s Desire by Tim Brassell
Jesus Defined
Filed under: By Jonathan Stepp, Gospel, Trinity | Tags: Christianity, Easter, Gospel, Jesus, Karl Barth, Perichoresis, Resurrection, Salvation, Trinity
Comments (2) What’s the definition of a peanut butter sandwich? It’s peanut butter and bread.
If you have peanut butter, but no bread, then you don’t have a sandwich, do you? You have peanut butter. Likewise, if you have bread and no peanut butter then you also don’t have a sandwich – you just have bread. Both elements must be present, joined together, in order for a peanut butter sandwich to exist.
What’s the biblical definition of Jesus? Jesus is God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, in the flesh (John 1:14). He is fully God and fully human.
So, if God the Son ever stops being fully human then there is no more Jesus. Likewise, if Jesus ever stopped being fully God he wouldn’t be Jesus anymore. To say the name “Jesus” (from a biblical perspective) is to say “the Son of God in the flesh”.
When the Bible says “Jesus lives forever” (Heb. 7:24) what is it saying? It’s telling us that Jesus will never cease to exist. That means that God the Son will never stop living in the flesh as the man Jesus. He will forever be fully God and fully human.
Jesus’ eternal existence as Son of God and Son of Man has profound implications for our lives:
1. It means that, in Jesus, God and humanity are permanently united. This “humanity of God” (as Karl Barth called it) means that there is now no Trinity without humanity and there is no humanity without the Trinity.
2. Jesus has given you a relationship with God! Even when you don’t know it, realize it, or believe it, you are still included in the life and love of God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.
3. Jesus changes the very definition of what it means to be human. Paul tells us “as in Adam all die, in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22). Human beings are not creatures destined for destruction. The Son of God has permanently united human nature to the Trinity by living forever in the flesh as Jesus and therefore we have been raised up in his resurrection (Eph. 2:6). Jesus has changed us from creatures who would have died into sons and daughters of the Father who will live forever.
This is why it is of paramount importance that we believe in Jesus and his resurrection.
To believe in Jesus is to stop believing the lie that we are isolated, separated, and not acceptable to God. To believe in Jesus is to believe that he has included us in his relationship with the Father, making us children of the Father with himself. And to believe in his resurrection is to believe the truth that we will also be resurrected and live forever in Christ.
~ Jonathan Stepp
Yahweh is not Codependent
Filed under: By John Stonecypher, Christian Living, Trinity | Tags: Christian Living, Christianity, God, Jesus, Perichoresis, Relationships, The Shack, Trinity
Comments (4) Something I love about THE SHACK: Papa, Jesus, and Sarayu have good boundaries with each other.
In times past, my best attempts at a Trinitarian vision always involved some kind of enmeshment between persons. In my mind, I couldn’t imagine how God could be truly ONE unless the 3 were always together, always doing the same thing, always thinking the same thing. In this vision, I saw 3 identical bodies with identical faces and simultaneous blinking. The 3 did not have conversations, but instead sort of chanted the Single Triune Mind in unison.
But THE SHACK opened up some fresh space for my imagination.
Jesus was a Middle Eastern man (makes sense); Papa was a feisty middle-aged black woman; and Sarayu was a flighty, eccentric Asian woman. Not only did they LOOK different, they SPOKE and ACTED different; they didn’t even stay in the same room most of the time. They each had their own projects that they were working on – Papa cooking in the kitchen, Jesus tinkering in his workshop, Sarayu puttering around her garden.
They are unified in love and mutual submission, but never enmeshed in codependence.
This changes so much about my approach to life and relationships. I’d always believed that love meant not having boundaries. That love meant always being together, always doing the same thing, always thinking the same thing. Saying YES to all requests. Never disagreeing. Always feeling the same emotions.
My vision of love was all wrong.
I’m putting a lot of effort right now into learning more healthy and authentic ways of relating to people. And THE SHACK‘s theological vision is helping.
~ John Stonecypher
Why Your Religion Isn’t Working
Filed under: By Tim Brassell, Christian Living, Trinity | Tags: Baptism, Christian Living, Christianity, Gospel, Jesus, Perichoresis, Religion, Sacraments, Trinity
Comments (6) You’ve probably forgotten that Christianity is about God’s forgiveness, NOT your goodness!
And that is one of the reasons it can confidently be said that God is not a Christian, including Jesus (or Immanuel – “God with us” in human flesh!). And when I say God, I mean the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as Gregory of Nazianzus has said, and Martin Davis reminds us on his blog.
Yes, to be a Christian is to be aware that you are not good, even after all of your confession, baptism, and good work like faithful attendance at a Gospel (Jesus) proclaiming Church! Don’t get me wrong – all of these things ARE GOOD because they are supposed to remind each of us that “there is none good, no not one”, EXCEPT Jesus Christ, AND that he shares His goodness with us EVEN IN OUR CURRENT BADNESS!!!)
These sacraments, or signs pointing to Jesus, are simply (and profoundly!) nothing less than the practical ways we participate in and experience the fact that ONLY God is Good, and apart from him we can do nothing!
Confession is to say “I confess that I am not good apart from Jesus! I am only good IN HIM! I admit that it is only through the grace of shared relationships, experiences, and the opening of my eyes to see Who he is and who I am in Him, that Jesus has brought me to realize that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwells no good thing!”
To be Baptized is to proclaim, “It was Jesus’ one baptism 2000 years ago that washed all of humanity clean and was a fitting human response to the Father in fallen flesh. ONLY in His literal humanity, and lack of sin in fallen flesh, was humanity adopted, made truly obedient, renewed, and lifted up into the Life of the Trinity! I participate with Him in His baptism, NOW, PUBLICLY displaying my belief in His One Baptism of, and for, everyone in Himself!”
Even to experience the good work of faithful attendance at a Gospel (Jesus!) proclaiming Church is to demonstrate and shout boldly to the Cosmos “We are All welcome at the Divine Party where sinners (every human being on the planet!) are celebrated as the Children the Father Always wanted and claimed in Jesus 2000 years ago! We are sinners because we have completely misunderstood the heart of the Father and thought He was all about rules! He’s not! We were mistaken! We can eat and celebrate at the party anyway because it’s not about our Goodness – It’s about His forgiveness!! Let’s PARRRR-TAYYYYYY!!!”
WARNING: If we keep forgetting this truth of the Gospel, we’ll keep making the same HUGE mistake that religious people of every generation make.
As Baxter Kruger states eloquently and hauntingly in his little booklet The Parable of the Dancing God, regarding religious people:
They invent their own terms. Instead of recognizing their own failure and nothingness, and then basking in the Father’s sheer grace and living in His lavish embrace, they create a religion. They create imaginary definitions, so that they can convince themselves that they are good, righteous and loving. And things get so twisted and wrongheaded, they cannot get to grips with a gracious Father who embraces and accepts the fallen ones, nor a Jesus who receives them freely and treats them as old friends. They never know the real God and life in His pleasure. Their self-righteousness keeps them from seeing and experiencing His grace. They never join in the divine party. How could they? They do not see themselves as desperate failures who stand helpless and powerless to change–they are doing religion. Inevitably, bitterness wells up within their heart when they see the free-ness of the Father’s embrace and His lavish feast. And their religious presence stifles the marvel of amazed sinners and turns the celebration into a dead and boring act of “religious service” to God, which is lifeless and vacuous of glory. (pp. 25-26)
Yikes! That’s exactly what’s happened, and why our religion isn’t working! Help us Holy Spirit, cause we, our kids, our grandchildren, and our single mothers and fathers REALLY want to “PARRRR-TAYYYYYY!!!” Ha-Ha!
~ Timothy Brassell
Coincidence? I think so.
Filed under: By Jonathan Stepp, Christian Living, Gospel, Trinity | Tags: Christian Living, Christianity, God's Will, Gospel, Jesus, Perichoresis, Trinity
Comments (2) We Christians love coincidence.
You know the kind: “Well, right after talking to you I was praying that somehow God would show me if we should be together, I was just headed into the grocery store when I ran into an old high school classmate I hadn’t seen for 10 years. His boss had just this morning given him tickets to the U2 concert next week – but he can’t use them because his mom’s having surgery that day. He asked if I wanted them! So, see, God does want us to go on a date together – to the U2 concert!”
I’ve heard coincidence used as an authority for determining everything from what ministries a church should engage in to settling questions of doctrine.
So what’s the deal?
I think the problem is that we don’t want to take responsibility for our own thoughts, feelings, and decisions. It’s easier to say “this is what God wants – see, he worked out all these coincidental circumstances to show us his will.”
Consider two alternate views of reality:
View One: God is in heaven. He wants you to do exactly what he wants done so that everything will be perfect and no one will ever make a mess (like, say, crucifying the Son or stoning a deacon to death). You are on earth. For some reason God has trouble communicating – maybe it’s because he’s so far away, or you’re so hard of hearing – whatever it is, God has to orchestrate elaborate coincidental schemes to get your attention and tell you what to do so everything can be perfect.
View Two: The Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit have embraced all our lives and the whole creation – the good, the bad, and the ugly. In Jesus we have all been raised up into the Trinity’s life of joy, love, and freedom. Because humanity is secure in Jesus we are free to make choices, to succeed or fail, without any fear that all will be lost. The Father can deal with messes (like, say, crucifixions), in fact, he’s good at cleaning them up – and helping us learn to clean them up – and like any Father he enjoys going through life with his kids and helping them learn. He doesn’t necessarily do everything for them but he does do everything with them.
To me, that second view of reality sounds more like the Father that Jesus has shown me.
~ Jonathan Stepp
Fear and Trembling
Filed under: By John Stonecypher, Christian Living, Trinity | Tags: Christian Living, Christianity, Fear, God, Jesus, Perichoresis, Trinity
Comments (5) Why is the Old Testament so concerned with telling us to FEAR God?
After all, John teaches us that “perfect love casts out fear” (1 Jn 4.18a). We could chalk this up to an Old Covenant vs. New Covenant thing, but I don’t think that quite works. The fear of God is also taught by New Testament teachers, from Peter and Paul (1 Pet 2.17; Eph 5.21; Phil 2.12), to Jesus and his angels (Lk 12.5).
Certainly John is right in saying that love casts out the kind of fear that “has to do with punishment” (1 Jn 4.18).
But there seems to be another kind of fear, one that is beautiful and good.
I can honestly say that I fear my wife. It’s not that I’m afraid of her hitting me on the head with a frying pan (as much as I occasionally deserve it). It’s not that kind of fear. It has do with my knowledge that I have absolutely no control over this woman. Sometimes she does things I like, sometimes she does things I don’t like, and I never know what’s going to happen next. It’s not about her doing good things or bad things; it’s about her being a distinct person from me. It’s what makes relationships risky and thrilling. It’s what necessitates that glorious experience we call “submitting one to another” (which, interestingly enough, we do “out of our fear of Christ” (Eph 5.21).
We all know that falling in love is a terrifying experience, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. This is a fear that love doesn’t cast out. In fact, there is no such thing as love apart from this kind of fear. As my theology prof Leron Shults likes to say, “love is a delightful terror and a terrible delight.” And that’s the way we like it.
To fear God is to accept and deal with the fact that Aslan is not a tame lion.
If we want a non-fearsome easy-to-control god, we’ll have to settle for idols (which is, in fact, what we so often do). But if we want to face reality rather than fiction, then we must deal with Someone with teeth and a sense of adventure. We know that He will never leave nor forsake us, but we still never know what He’s going to do next, and whether or not we’re going to like it.
And we wouldn’t want it any other way.
~ John Stonecypher
What God Thinks . . .
Filed under: By Tim Brassell, Christian Living, Gospel, The Plan of Adoption, Trinity | Tags: Christianity, Easter, Faith, God, Gospel, Jesus, Perichoresis, Salvation, Trinity
Comments (2) …Is far more important than what you think, or what I think!
This would seem to go without saying considering that God, in most people’s minds, is supposed to be the best and greatest at everything, including thinking! But this is not where many of us necessarily start. On p.195 of his book The Secret Message of Jesus, author Brian McLaren points out how C.S. Lewis was struck one day about this subject. He quotes Lewis out of Lewis’ essay entitled “The Weight of Glory” on pp. 38-39:
I read in a periodical the other day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God. By God Himself, it is not! How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. Indeed how we think of Him is of no importance except insofar as it is related to how He thinks of us.
So how does God the Father, Son and Spirit think of us?What does the Triune God think of you? What does this One God in Three Persons think regarding your Neighbor? What does God the Trinity think of the World?
Here are three great quotes for your consideration.
One from scripture. One from a great 20th century Christ-centered theologian. And one from another great Christ-centered theologian lay member who attends with my local Church and works at Golden Corral.
“Every person the Father gives me eventually comes running to me. And once that person is with me, I hold on and don’t let go. I came down from heaven not to follow my own whim but to accomplish the will of the One who sent me. “This, in a nutshell, is that will: that everything handed over to me by the Father be completed – not a single detail missed – and at the wrap-up of time I have everything and everyone put together, upright and whole.” – Jesus, the fullness of God in the flesh, John 6:37-39, The Message.
“On the basis of the eternal will of God we have to think of every human being, even the oddest, most villainous or miserable, as one to whom Jesus Christ is Brother and God is Father; and we have to deal with him on this assumption. If the other person knows that already, then we have to strengthen him in that knowledge. If he does not know it yet, or no longer knows it, our business is to transmit this knowledge to him. On the basis of the knowledge of the humanity of God no other attitude to any kind of fellow man is possible. It is identical with the practical acknowledgement of his human rights and his human dignity. To deny it to him would be for us to renounce having Jesus Christ as Brother and God as Father.” Karl Barth, The Humanity of God, p. 53. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982.
“I will believe in the one [Jesus] that believes in me.” – Calvin Simon (in an e-mail to me on 4.16.09.)
~ by Timothy Brassell
He Descended into Hell
Filed under: By John Stonecypher, Gospel, The Plan of Adoption, Trinity | Tags: Crucifixion, Good Friday, Gospel, Heaven, Hell, Jesus, Salvation, Trinity
Comments (3) If you want some truly awful theology mixed in with some great theology that’s included by accident, a good place to start would be the 1998 film WHAT DREAMS MAY COME, starring Robin Williams.
Williams’ character (Chris) dies and goes to heaven, where everything he imagines becomes reality (which happens to be C.S. Lewis’ vision of hell in THE GREAT DIVORCE. Go figure). The strange thing is that God is conspicuously absent. Inquiring about this, Chris is informed: “I guess God is still up there somewhere, wondering why we can’t hear him telling us how much he loves us.”
Meanwhile, Chris’s wife (Marie), distraught over her husband’s death, kills herself and goes to hell. Apparently this is fine with with God and the rest of heaven’s blissed-out population. But Chris does what love does: He mounts a rescue mission. He escapes heaven and illegally immigrates into hell, braving its terrors to find his beloved and bring her home.
The theistic ‘god’ of the film is pathetic and useless.
He’s a perfect illustration of why I rejected theism and became a hardcore Trinitarian instead.
The only place in this film where we see the passion of the Trinity is in Chris. Being without her is not an option. Nothing will stop him from finding her. Ain’t no mountain high enough, ain’t no hell deep enough. This is love, and it is beautiful. This is a Good Friday movie.
Today our Beloved shows us how far he has gone to find us.
We were dead in our transgressions, so he entered into death to find us, to be there with us in our agony and darkness, and to set us free. It’s the simplest and best love story there is.
~ by John Stonecypher
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No matter where you go
I will find you
If it takes a thousand years
(LAST OF THE MOHICANS soundtrack)
Beautiful Music
Filed under: By Jonathan Stepp, Christian Living, Gospel, Trinity, Worship | Tags: Christian Music, Christianity, Gospel, Jesus, Perichoresis, Trinity, Worship
Leave a comment Are you looking for music that is rooted in the Trinity? I know I have been!
There’s a lot of Christian music that I like, but I have to admit that a lot of the songs I like don’t fully express the beauty of humanity’s adoption into the Trinity through Jesus.
One artist who is expressing the gospel of our adoption is Vanessa Kersting.
I’ve been blessed to know Vanessa and her music for a couple of years now, but when she visited our congregation here in Nashville this past Sunday – and led worship – I was reminded of just how special her gift is. Not only is she a gifted musician who writes beautiful music, she also knows the gospel and can express it in music. The lyrics of her songs are infused with the life of the Trinity in a way that few other artists’ songs are.
Here are some examples of lyrics from songs on her new album, For all the Times:
Into the world you came / into the world you sustain / forever You are with us, forever You are here / a babe in all it’s frailty / embracing all our humanity ~ from Emmanuel
You hold all things together, You’re the center of it all / You embraced all things forever, You’re the center of it all / You’re beautiful, so beautiful, my mind can’t comprehend / You’re beautiful, so beautiful, Your love it never ends / in You death’s defeated, You’re the center of it all / with You we are seated, You’re the center of it all ~ from Center of It All
Christ is in the Father / the Father is in Christ / Christ is in humanity / and humanity’s in Christ / Christ is in our darkness / Christ is in our pain / when all that’s around us fails / the truth of Christ remains ~ from Christ in Us
You can learn more about Vanessa, check out her music, and even buy her new album at www.vanessakersting.com.
~ by Jonathan Stepp