worldview and perspective on Contrast

Put light against light - you have nothing. Put dark against dark - you have nothing. It's the contrast of light and dark that each give the other one meaning.

Error, by force of contrast, enhances the triumph of Truth.

Everything in the universe is all jumbled together. So God begins to do some creative separating: he separates light from darkness, day from night, water from land, the sea creatures from the land cru...

Striving for excellence versus striving for superiority. Striving for excellence means striving to become better in some regard, to improve, or at least not to get worse, especially as we age;47 it is...

When conflict and division are driving both politics and media (including social media), the contrast between the way of the world and the way of Jesus stands out more than ever. How can pastors, task...

The Hebrew word for “fool” is very close to the Hebrew for “noble,” with only one letter different, and it is sometimes only in the outcome of their lives that the people considered noble by the peopl...

How many modern Christians consider dying to be the worst thing that can happen to them? We pray for safety, healing, and protection, and rightly so. However, do we live in the truth that death has tr...

James Nelson describes sexuality as the central clue to what God is up to in the world. While this might seem a little over the top, when you think about it, sexuality factors integrally in our relati...

Ancient Lens What’s the historical context? Background Structure This Psalm of David is unique. “It is the only hymn in the Old Testament composed completely as a direct address to God.” [1] It e...

Dieu pardonerra; c’est son métier; God forgives you — it’s his thing. *for contrast

Nahum Sarna writes in Understanding Genesis: Perhaps nowhere is the contrast between the mythological and the Israelite conceptions more striking and more illuminating than in their respective descr...

One of the most hopeful and gratifying conclusions to come out of our 12 years of research on shame and guilt is that that notion of morality is wrong. Dead wrong. You don't have to feel really ba...

The United States is undergoing a marked change in its attitude toward religion, and Christians here face new challenges. When a blogger named Marc Yoder wrote about “10 Surprising Reasons Our Kids Le...

Politics draws lines between people; in contrast, Jesus’ love cuts across those lines and dispenses grace. That does not mean, of course, that Christians should not involve themselves in politics. It ...

You will always find what you are looking for. Think about the difference between two birds: a vulture and a hummingbird. Vultures soar high in the sky, looking and searching. What does a vulture find...

This paragraph from the scientist and atheist David Friend provides a stark contrast to a Christian conception of life, humanity, and the world we inhabit: We are here because one odd group of fishe...

Whenever I lead a training session on cultural identity—particularly when there’s a strong white presence—I begin with this question: “Describe the first encounter you remember having with race.” Most...

In his insightful book, Delighting in the Trinity , Michael Reeves shares an interesting point of connection between the Protestant understanding of sola grati discovered by Francis Xavier during...

I wondered whether negative feelings against religion were a local phenomenon until I came across a poll of eighteen thousand people in twenty-three countries. In preparation for a 2010 debate between...

If we accept Genesis 1 as ancient cosmology, then we need to interpret it as ancient cosmology rather than translate it into modern cosmology. If we try to turn it into modern cosmology, we are making...

The Power—the Spirit—is thus a social power, working to bring all minds into its own unity, sometimes by similarity and at other times by contrast. There is a diversity of gifts, but the same spirit.

Nature, the world, has no value, no interest for Christians. The Christian thinks only of himself and the salvation of his soul.

To see with God’s eyes, suppose we were to compare one person’s morals to being in Death Valley, 280 feet below sea level; another person’s morals to being in Denver, the mile-high city; and another p...

Kate's Crisis: Values vs. Church One damp afternoon during the fall of 2016 I was sharing a pastoral conversation with Kate, a professional artist in her late 20s. Over years of meals and convers...

Ancient lens What’s the historical context? A Structured Complaint The Psalmist organizes his complaint against God in three sections. The first two sections dramatize the complaint (vv. 1-11 and...

From a historical perspective it is atheism that was old and the Christian faith and its good news that burst on the world as new. Once commonly called “atomism,” the genealogy of atheism can be trace...

In the first chapter of her book, Get Out of Your Head , author Jennie Allen shares a vulnerable and honest moment from her own life about just how hard it can be to focus in a world of distraction...

Contradiction, paradox, the tension of opposites: these have always been at the heart of my experience, and I think I am not alone. I am tugged one way and then the other. My beliefs and my actions of...

Contradictions can bring us into touch with a deeper longing, for the fulfillment of a desire that lives beneath all desires and that only God can satisfy. Contradictions, thus understood, create the ...

Differences simply act as a yarn of curiosity unraveling until we get to the other side.