Category: Love

Abraham and the Love of God

The pagans knew their place in the world, the utter separateness between them and the creative force of the world and the fearful sense of a being so much greater than us that might as soon squash us as let us live. That creative force it turns out, however, loves us and desires relationship with us.

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abrahamAbraham, by Sufjan Stevens, ends with these words:

    Abraham

  Put off on your son

Take instead the ram

   Until Jesus comes

Abraham lived around 2000 B.C.E. in Mesopotamia. (Answersingenesis) Child sacrifice was common practice in that time in that area of the world to appease the gods that people thought existed. It would not have been a foreign concept to Abraham for God to ask him to sacrifice his son. That practice was part of the life and culture of the time in which Abraham lived.

The request, however, would have been particularly difficult for Abraham to honor. God had promised him a son. God promised that Abraham’s child would populate the earth as the stars in the sky. Abraham was already old and past normal child rearing age when God made these promises.

The request by God for Abraham to sacrifice his son would have hit Abraham hard. It would have made no sense. It flew in the face of the promises Abraham thought God made to him. Continue reading “Abraham and the Love of God” →

How Can a Loving God….?

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Sunscreen

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In 1 Samuel 15, God told King Saul to wipe out the Amalekites, every last one of them, and leave no survivors. The story is about Saul failing to follow God’s directions while claiming to have done so. He kept King Agab alive and allowed his men to save the best of the sheep and other animals. When Samuel, the prophet, asked, “What is this bleating of sheep I hear?” Saul blamed the men for his failure to obey God, but Saul was the one who did not obey God. That is how the story goes….

But, wait a minute! …. God told Saul to kill them… all of them. That sounds incredibly harsh. It sounds worse than harsh. Is God not supposed to be a loving God?

This is a pretty common question (a rhetorical one) posed by people who oppose Christianity and reject the Bible. “A loving God would not kill people,” they say. Since the Old Testament, in particular, depicts God in this way, the Bible cannot be true, the Christian God is fiction and the whole thing is bunk.

The unspoken sentiment behind that line of thinking is that “we” (humankind) have come a long way since primitive times. We have evolved past the Enlightenment into a modern scientific age in which we have superior moral and intellectual stature. We are the gods of our own world. We have thrown off superstitious belief in a tyrant God that stifles human potential in this post-enlightenment age.

But does history add up that way?

Continue reading “How Can a Loving God….?” →

Immigration: the Strangers Among Us

If Christians are to be instructed by the Word of God on immigration, what would that instruction be?

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In the wake of Obama’s executive orders on immigration and the outcry and fallout from it, I realized that I did not have a biblical framework on which to analyze the issues. I could not definitely say exactly what the Bible instructs us on the issue of immigration.

The Syrian refugee crisis at that time was much in the news, and I was conflicted by the many Christians urging our government not to allow Syrian refugees into the country. I was conflicted because I didn’t know what to think.

I realized that, as a Christian, I need to be instructed by the Word of God, and I wondered, “What would that instruction be?” Therefore, I took the time to study it, and the answer surprised me in its clarity.

Continue reading “Immigration: the Strangers Among Us” →

Whatever We Fix Our Eyes On We Reflect

I have found myself recently caught up in the torrent, reacting and re-reacting to the various comments, news clips and videos, like waves of offensives and sieges…

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Flagstaff Mountain Flowers Philippians 4 8 by Chris Fraley jpeg

The world seems to be coming unglued! Militant, radical Muslims in Iraq are killing Christians, minority religious groups and even other Muslims. Hamas bombards Israel, and Israel responds with shelling that is killing women and children. At home, police decked out in military gear in a Missouri town are confronting an angry mob looting in the street and threatening to kill policemen.

Daily posts on Facebook and other social media demonize Barack Obama and “liberal Democrats”, or greedy corporations and capitalists, or Israelis or Hamas. The air is filled with ranting on both sides and all sides decrying every conceivable evil in the world. The cacophony seems to be reaching new heights. The many forms of social media make ranting as easy as shouting out the window to a world that is right within earshot.

I have found myself caught up in the torrent, reacting and re-reacting to the various comments, news clips and videos, like waves of offensives and sieges, until I began to realize something was happening to me…. Continue reading “Whatever We Fix Our Eyes On We Reflect” →

What about People Who Never heard of Jesus?

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Dramatic Aerial view of Rio De Janeiro

One of the most asked questions about Christianity goes something like this:

If Jesus is the only way to heaven, what about the people who lived before Jesus was born?

A corollary question is: What about the people who have never had an opportunity to hear about Jesus? I am no biblical scholar, but I have wondered about these things myself. Continue reading “What about People Who Never heard of Jesus?” →