Attempting to understand the oneness of God, the Trinitarian Father, Son, and Spirit, is a daunting task in itself; moreover, trying to understand how the Spirit relates individually to the Christ while He was on earth seems to press the issue even further. Within this article the concept of the mono-God will be examined in light of the individual relations between the Spirit and Christ, who are both the “one” God. How can it be that the Spirit is said to come upon Christ (who is God), when the Spirit, in the Trinitarian sense, is already God Himself? Read the rest of this entry →
Last Saturday several of us had the opportunity to participate in downtown Kalamazoo’s Safe Halloween. We had a table where kids could stop and make a bookmark using foam stickers. Several of the stickers declared “Shine with the Light of Jesus.” It was a reminder that like the jack-o-lanterns show their faces when the light is placed inside that we should be showing the “face” (character) of Jesus when his light is placed inside of us. After making a bookmark we handed out a great piece of candy, and fliers inviting them to the country fair on Halloween night, church, and Olympians. We made contact with over 500 kids and parents. Please pray that we would have a chance at the Country Fair to connect with these families again!
I have been thinking about the upcoming election quite a bit later. Seriously how could you not? Have you not watched even one TV program or visited a web page, the ads are everywhere.
As a Christian I have to decide who I am going to vote for, and here in Michigan the other big thing on the ballet is proposal 2. Proposal 2 would expand the use of human embryos for any research permitted under federal law subject to a few limitations. There seems to be so many different issues and all of them appear to be of the utmost importance, how do we determine which ones we can sacrifice on when we vote and which ones we can’t? I have done some reading and found a few articles and links that have been very helpful to me in thinking through these issues. Please read these before voting next Tuesday.
In the New Testament we read about believers being baptized, filled, and gifted by the Holy Spirit, but what was his role in the Old Testament? What did the Holy Spirit do in the Old Testament? Perhaps a better question would be “what didn’t he do?” Read the rest of this entry →
Genesis 1:2 says, “…and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” Have you ever wondered what each member of the trinity did when the world was created? Genesis 1 says God is the one who spoke creation into existence, Colossians 1:16 says that by the Son “all things were created”, but what of the Spirit? Read the rest of this entry →
The question posed in this title really contains three questions, and they are utterly crucial for the missionary task of the Christian church. We can watch the three questions emerge when we ponder the answers people are giving. Read the rest of this entry →
This past weekend, Oct. 19-21, the Youth Group went on our semi-annual work retreat at Spring Hill Camp. We had a great weekend and got to do some new work that we have never done before (digging rocks out of the ground). Everyone did a great job working while also having alot of fun. If you would like to go straight to the web album click HERE.
In many ways the question of the Holy Spirit is parallel to the issues we have already looked at with regard to the person of Christ. Like Christ, in the ancient church the Spirit was often held to be subordinate to the Father. In marked contrast to the pagan world, Judaism, and Christianity following it, held firmly to monotheism. To safeguard the monarchy, both Christ and the Spirit were thought of as lesser than God (the Father) in some way. Otherwise how could one avoid polytheism? In the fourth century the problem of a plurality in God issued in a full Trinitarianism, with the person of Christ as the focal point of a long and bitter controversy. Once theology figured out the necessity of Christ’s full deity and worked out an explanation for how God could be dual, the biblical triadic pattern of Father, Son, and Spirit naturally carried the Spirit’s deity almost as a matter of course. Read the rest of this entry →
I have been thinking about the upcoming election quite a bit later. Seriously how could you not? Have you not watched even one TV program or visited a web page, the ads are everywhere.