The Word became flesh
and took up residence among us.
We observed His glory,
the glory as the One and Only Son from the Father,
full of grace and truth.
(John testified concerning Him and exclaimed,
"This was the One of whom I said,
'The One coming after me has surpassed me,
because He existed before me.' ")
Indeed, we have all received grace after grace
from His fullness,
for although the law was given through Moses;
grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
No one has ever seen God.
The One and Only Son —
the One who is at the Father's side —
He has revealed Him.
John 1:14-18
God has chosen the world's insignificant and despised things — the things viewed as nothing — so He might bring to nothing the things that are viewed as something,
1 Corinthians 1:28
i attended a preaching conference at SMBC a couple of years ago now - one of the best things (apart from the teaching of course) was that their library was doing a bit of a clean out.
with my doctrine exam looming nearer, a few weeks ago i decided i needed to step up - and get my hands on Big Berkhof - or Louis Berkhof's Systematic Theology (Eerdmans: 1938, reprinted 1996), and found it here for only 17 bucks, WITH his 1932 Introduction to the Study of Systematic Theology in the one volume! The Bible never deals with the doctrine of the Trinity as an abstract truth, but reveals the Trinitarian life in its various relations as a living reality, to a certain extent in connection with the works of creation and providence, but particularly in relation to the work of redemption. Its most fundamental revelation is given in facts rather than in words. (ST p85)
what is a gift? what is fruit?[T]he fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)
Now there are different gifts, but the same Spirit.(4,8-11)these are then all to each individually, each being gifted for a purpose.
to one is given a message of wisdom through the Spirit,
to another, a message of knowledge by the same Spirit,
to another, faith by the same Spirit,
to another, gifts of healing by the one Spirit,
to another, the performing of miracles,
to another, prophecy,
to another, distinguishing between spirits,
to another, different kinds of languages,
to another, interpretation of languages.
But one and the same Spirit is active in all these, distributing to each one as He wills.
What appears as imperfect in man, exists in infinite perfection in God. (Systematic Theology (also known as Big Berkhof), p84)
Suppose, however, their standard of these amiable qualities of benevolence and usefulness were greater than what we have depicted. Could they still be a substitute for the supreme love and fear of God, and the dominant desire to promote His glory?a great response to the inclusivists, who would insist upon the good moral character of many who do not claim the name of Christ, and would love to believe that this is grounds for their salvation. how i wish they were right, but this quote (and the Bible) mean we have to say no.
To allow them this plea would be like allowing men to abolish the first commandment in preference to obeying the second commandment.
Turkey is a country with a long and turbulent history, what with Acts, the Pauline epistles, the Petrine epistles, John's Revelation, the seat of the whole church until the split, and then of the eastern church, they had a song written about them by they might be giants – I think even my sister may have been there quite recently (non stop action for Turkey)! 
have you ever heard a sermon on Jonah and had someone say, 'put away your scepticism - it could really happen, in fact it did happen to a guy called James Bartley toward the end of the 19th century!'
"Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me."betraying the one who came to save them, EVEN one who is sharing the closeness of eating. there is a massive thing said, in eating/betraying, just as with Peter/Judas.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, in Christ; 4 for He chose us in Him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love 5 He predestined us to be adopted through Jesus Christ for Himself, according to His favour and will, 6 to the praise of His glorious grace that He favoured us with in the Beloved.
The real sociocritical question then relates to us and our communities with our needs and prejudices. It concerns what we do with these texts. Fortunately or unfortunately there is no doubt about the sociocritical placing of their interpreter and thus of some of the issues they raise for him.John Goldingay, Israel's Gospel, IVP: 2003, p872-3
I write as a white, Oxbridge-educated, middle-aged, Episcopalian priest.
I write as a professor who now earns a larger salary doing an easier job in Southern California than I did in the U.K., as a result of the United States' capacity in the context of its economic domination of the world to attract whomever it wants to work here.
I sit writing these lines in the warm November sun on the extensive patio of our large condo, beyond which Latino gardeners sweep u the leaves for a much more paltry salary than mine, though one they may be even more grateful to receive for doing a job they may be even more grateful to have.
I write as the much-loved child of parents who left school at fifteen, as the colleague of many professors who resent the fact that their salaries seem paltry by American standards and as the husband of someone confined to a wheelchair by multiple sclerosis.
My reading of the First Testament* is shaped by all of these facts, among others of which i am less aware. It has a decisive affect on what i see and what i cannot afford to see.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."Matthew 16:24 (cf Matthew 10:38, Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23, Luke 14:27)
“You have heard their taunts, O LORD,
all their plots against me.
The lips and thoughts of my assailants
are against me all the day long.
Behold their sitting and their rising;
I am the object of their taunts.
“You will repay them, O LORD,
according to the work of their hands.
You will give them dullness of heart;
your curse will be on them.
You will pursue them in anger and destroy them
from under your heavens, O LORD.”
οὐκ ἔνι Ἰουδαῖος οὐδὲ Ἕλλην, οὐκ ἔνι δοῦλος οὐδὲ ἐλεύθερος, οὐκ ἔνι ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ· πάντες γὰρ ὑμεῖς εἷς ἐστε ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ.i wrote about it previously here.
I will sing for joy in GOD,- Isaiah 61:10-11, The Message
explode in praise from deep in my soul!
He dressed me up in a suit of salvation,
he outfitted me in a robe of righteousness,
As a bridegroom who puts on a tuxedo
and a bride a jewelled tiara.
For as the earth bursts with spring wildflowers,
and as a garden cascades with blossoms,
So the Master, GOD, brings righteousness into full bloom
and puts praise on display before the nations.
Es gibt in der Theologie die Frage nach der Quelle, nach dem Woher des Wortes, und die Antwort auf diese erste Frage wird immer wieder zu geben sein in jener Disziplin, die wir Exegese nennen.
Auf der andere Seite aber erhebt sich auch die Frage nach dem Wie, nach der Form und Gestalt der Verkündigung, die der Kirche aufgetragen ist, und dort befinden wir uns auf dem Felde dessen, was man die praktische Theologie nennt.
Genau in der Mitte zwischen Exegese und praktischer Theolgie steht die Dogmatik oder umfassender ausgedrückt: die systematischer Theologie. In der Dogmatik fragen wir nicht: Woher stammt - und nicht: Wie gestaltet sich die kirchliche Verkündigung, sondern in der Dogmatik fragen wir: Was haben wir zu denken und zu sagen? [...] im Blick darauf, dass wir nicht nur theoretisch etwas zu sagen haben, sondern etwas in die Welt hinein rufen sollen.so basically, in Exegesis we have the source (die Quelle), on the other side, asking 'how?', we have practical theology. and in the middle, coming out of the one, and informing the other, we then have Dogma, or ST, which is we have to think and to say. and it is not just in theory, but rather, Dogma is rather something we can cry out into the world.
a reaction. in God, who is its transcendent origin and end, it is the one infinite and changeless act of being that makes all else actual, and so is purely positive, sufficient in itself, and without any need of contrariety to be fully vital and creative. As trinity, God [...] has not need of any external pathos to waken or fecundate his love. We are not necessary to him: he is not nourished by or sacrifices or ennobled by our virtues, any more than he is diminished by our sins and sufferings. [...] though he had no need of us, still he loved us when we were not. And this is why love, in its divine depth, is apatheia.David Bentley Hart, Doors of the Sea 2005: p77
In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.1 John 4:10
No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, [Jesus] has made him known. John 1:18If the Bible is God’s self revelation, Christ is the Word of God, revealing God to us – then why do we always talk about reading and preaching Christocentrically?
There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.there's a nice rhythm there, neither A nor A', B nor B', C nor C'.
That is precisely what Paul does not say; and as it’s what we expect he’s going to say, we should note quite carefully what he has said instead, since he presumably means to make a point by doing so, a point which is missed when the translation is flattened out as in that version. What he says is thatso i checked my greek*, and he's right.
"there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, no ‘male and female’".
the people of God will be 'like angels in heaven', in that the centre of their existence will be undivided communion with God. Then the beautiful and delicate interplay of man and woman with one another will give way to the ultimate reality of Christ and his church for ever at one.i'm not sure what that bit at the end means (at one), but the picture i get, despite the author's assurances, is that of androgynous winged angels playing harps in the clouds. which i don't quite get from Galatians 3 (nor elsewhere really).
another one – the gripping story of Australia’s America’s Cup win (in 1983), an unlikely victory. But with that really interesting story in your mind, here’s the not quite so interesting story of the Israelites being saved from certain death, with Pharaoh’s army on one side, the Reed sea on the other.
In grace our Saviour God appeared,
to make his love for mankind clear.
‘Twas not for deeds that we had done,
but by his steadfast love alone,
he saved us through a second birth,
renewed us by the Spirit's work,
and poured him out upon us, too,
through Jesus Christ our Saviour true.
And so, made heirs by his own grace,
eternal life we now embrace.
Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land the LORD your God gives you.up until now, i'd always understood this being as being directed to children (my parents loved to quote this one at my sister), it being about respecting your parents, giving them their due honour.
Exodus 20:12
Funny things you learn from your mama,indeed there are always things we learn from our parents, both good and bad. but, generally speaking, they did their best, to install in us what they felt was important. and this not necessarily for their sake, so they could boast in us, but for our sake, and for continuity's sake.
like the way to throw your head back when your swallowing pills
Funny things you learn from your papa,
like when you're talking you just can't keep your hands still
Ben Harper, Burn to Shine
Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.as Christians, there is much we learn from our earthly parents, but what we most learn as of most importance, and pass on as of utmost importance, is what we learn from our heavenly father. to pass this on to the next generation, that they may fear the Lord their God, who brought them out of Egypt, out of slavery to the Lord of this world, and promises them an inheritance that will not rot or waste away, is what every generation needs to know from their parents. and in that, your parents, and God, are honoured.
Hebrews 12:9-10
i must say, i'm loving this book. Voltaire sees only the terrible truth that the history of suffering and death is not morally intelligible. Dostoyevsky sees [...] that is would be far more terrible if it were.quite.
with a greek half-yearly in 2 days, a sermon to write, and countless hours of reading and hebrew paradigms to do, i thought i'd buy and read this book. it's based on a newspaper article he wrote a couple of days after the asian tsunami, and in light of reading the beauty of the infinite, i wanted to see the way an eastern orthodox theologian dealt with the complex question of suffering in the midst of a sovereign God. i read the first couple of chapters last night. 
2:14-15 Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.
v16 These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires; they are loud-mouthed boasters, showing favouritism to gain advantage.
16:2 And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, [...]
16:7-9 "and in the morning you shall see the glory of the LORD, because he has heard your grumbling against the LORD. For what are we, that you grumble against us?” And Moses said, “When the LORD gives you in the evening meat to eat and in the morning bread to the full, because the LORD has heard your grumbling that you grumble against him—what are we? Your grumbling is not against us but against the LORD.” Then Moses said to Aaron, “Say to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, ‘Come near before the LORD, for he has heard your grumbling.’ ”
"The Christian understanding of difference and distance is shaped by the doctrine of the Trinity, where theology finds that the true form of difference is peace, of distance beauty" (p187)i most enjoyed this section, where difference is shown to be peace and not threat, and distance is indeed beautiful. a hard read, but well worth it.
The Crusaders, however, would not listen to their offer, but were bent on conquering the country. (p45)
