keyword
Search by topic, scripture, category etc..
100 Results in 2183ms
Display
Sorted By
-
illustration
Reducing God to Manageable Terms
A. W. Tozer once wrote, Left to ourselves we tend immediately to reduce God to manageable terms. We want to get Him where we can use Him, or at least know where He is when we need Him. We want a ... -
Quote
Being fully human is to inhabit the wild mysteries of our bodies and trust that, because Christ was a body, and still is a body, we don’t need to fear this place. We can say, it is good, because Chris... -
illustration
A Trinitarian Deficit Disorder
A student of mine, Josiah Brown, oversees the student outreach team. He and some of our students go to youth groups to teach the youth about Christian spiritual formation. They talk about what formati... -
Quote
This is the ultimate in human knowledge of God: to know that we do not know Him. -
Quote
Our age dislikes intensely the idea of mystery because it directly exposes our limitations. The thought that there could be something, or someone, beyond human comprehension or imagining is, of course... -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, Psalm 8 (Guide B)
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... -
liturgy
Forgive us, O God, when we limit you
Forgive us, O God, when we limit you – When we remake you in our image, When we claim our causes as your own, When we box you in, And explain you away, And in our attempts at understanding, whittle aw... -
Quote
Our clawing, grasping attempts at answering every question and making sense of every mystery in life will end up in failure. Instead, God invites us to take a tour of the mad, mad world around us, to ... -
Quote
When we are regularly shamed away from thoughts that venture near spirituality and transcendence, we learn to avoid it altogether, even in our thoughts. We develop a resistance to thoughts that would ... -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, 2 Corinthians 4:3-6
Ancient Lens What’s the historical context? Mixed Loyalties Diving straight into 2 Corinthians 4:3-6 without giving a nod to 2 Corinthians 3:1-4:2 gives a strange impression, because Paul’s point... -
series
Psalm 8 | God's Majesty
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... -
Quote
The final mystery is oneself. -
Quote
Man with all his shrewdness is as stupid about understanding by himself the mysteries of God, as an ass is incapable of understanding musical harmony. -
Quote
Things aren't all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered, and more unsayable than all... -
Quote
He is either greater than we can understand, perceive, describe, or imagine, or He is not God—we are. -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, Isaiah 6:1-8
Context Prophecy: Not Just Future-Telling When confronted with the question of the purpose of the prophetic books in the Old Testament, it is commonly supposed that their primary purpose is future t... -
Quote
The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man. -
Quote
We don’t know what’s going on here. If these tremendous events are random combinations of matter run amok, the yield of millions of monkeys at millions of typewriters, then what is it in us, hammered ... -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, Ephesians 3:1-12
Context Layers The responsible interpretation of any biblical text requires one to consider multiple levels of context, but these contextual strata are especially important to define and explore in ... -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, Matthew 28:16-20
An Incomplete Trinity? Protestant churches who lean evangelical but not charismatic have occasionally been accused of being more “binitarian” than “trinitarian.” The suggestion is that such churches... -
lectionary
Epiphany of the Lord
Context Layers The responsible interpretation of any biblical text requires one to consider multiple levels of context, but these contextual strata are especially important to define and explore in ... -
illustration
Mystery and Revelation
Karl Barth wrote that, “God is always a mystery. Revelation is always revelation in the full sense of the word or it is not revelation” ( CD I.8.2). God’s revelation, to Barth, always exists in a dia... -
lectionary
Trinity Sunday
Context Prophecy: Not Just Future-Telling When confronted with the question of the purpose of the prophetic books in the Old Testament, it is commonly supposed that their primary purpose is future t... -
Quote
Man is the creature with a mystery in his heart that is bigger than himself. -
illustration
Augustine of Hippo Tries to Understand the Trinity
One day when St. Augustine was at his wits’ end to understand and explain the Trinity, he went out for a walk. He kept turning over in his mind, “One God, but three Persons. Three Persons–not three Go... -
illustration
A Calvinist and Arminian Dialogue
A conversation in 1784 between Charles Simeon (a Calvinist and believer in unconditional predestination) and John Wesley (a follower of Arminius, who denied unconditional predestination) can help us u... -
Quote
Deep in unfathomable mines Of never ending skill, He treasures up his bright designs, And works his sovereign will. -
blog
Back in Flatland: Sermon Illustration Tuesday
In 1884, an English schoolmaster named Edwin Abbott Abbott wrote a story about a two-dimensional world called Flatland, inhabited by various shapes (circles, squares, etc.). In Flatland, there is heig... -
Quote
Religion points to that area of human experience where in one way or another man comes upon mystery as a summons to pilgrimage. -
illustration
The Eternal Question: “Why?”
If you’ve been around a kid who’s just learned to ask “why?”, it can be a bit much. You’ll be asked, “why is grass green?” “Why do birds fly?” “Why do I get hungry?” and much, much, more. Pa...
Page 1 of 4
Keywords by Topic
A
G
H
Keywords by Reference