wonderful thoughts from the Pope, intellectually coherent and practically relevant and doable IMO
Weekly lessons in theology and public life • Since 2011
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Lesson 12: God’s Love for Us
Read MORE: Lesson 12: God’s Love for UsThe Bible seems to make a point of dividing God’s love for us, our love for God, and our love for each other. I’ll use the same pattern. God’s love for us is not mentioned much in the Old Testament.…
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Lesson 11: Hope 2
Read MORE: Lesson 11: Hope 2Bob’s comment makes a wonderful summary: “The nexus between faith, love, and hope is exemplified by the phrase “what we will be has not yet been revealed.” It is not fully spelled out, but our faith assures us that we…
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Lesson 10: Hope 1
Read MORE: Lesson 10: Hope 1Let’s take a look at “hope” as we continue our study of the triad used to describe the Christian life. For what do we hope? A quick word search finds the object of Christian hope is usually our own resurrections…
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Lesson 9: Faith 5
Read MORE: Lesson 9: Faith 5At the heart of Christianity is, of course, faith in Christ Jesus. John says this means Jesus is the logos, the design, or the explanation of the world. If Jesus is the first thing God created, he becomes the pattern…
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Lesson 8: Faith – Biblical Support
Read MORE: Lesson 8: Faith – Biblical SupportLet me list the points our discussion has made so far: Faith is trusting God. It includes trusting also the goodness of his creation. That means we must trust God’s love in spite of what we observe humans doing to…
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Lesson 7: Faith – Story and Promise
Read MORE: Lesson 7: Faith – Story and PromiseLet me say more about story and promise. It can be said that the Bible contains God’s story. We are not talking about theological statements, laws or even history. As the Augsburg Confession XX says, faith is not merely knowledge…
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Lesson 6: Faith 2
Read MORE: Lesson 6: Faith 2I closed last week’s post with the question, “What does faith in God involve? What do we trust God to do for us?” None of the responses I received believed faith in God involved expecting God to grant personal requests.…
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Lesson 5: Faith 1
Read MORE: Lesson 5: Faith 1Biblical faith is best defined as trust. To have faith does not mean simply believing God exists or accepting some teaching about him. It is to trust God’s promises. So when Jesus wonders out loud in Luke 18: 8, “When…
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Lesson 15: Summary of Salvation
Read MORE: Lesson 15: Summary of SalvationLooking back over all the biblical pictures of salvation, you find many similarities. For one, they are primarily about healing what is rather than escaping from this world. They reflect our craving for something better than our society’s suffering. In…
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Lesson 14: What Buddhism Teaches Christians About Salvation
Read MORE: Lesson 14: What Buddhism Teaches Christians About SalvationA couple of my face- to- face fall classes used Kristen Largen’s What Christians Can Learn from Buddhism: Rethinking Salvation. In her last chapter she suggests four challenges Buddhism offers to our popular Christian picture of salvation. In many ways,…
Recent Comments
I absolutely love these ideas, especially paying attention to beauty and reducing your needs.
Fritz a wonderful lesson – and esp. reading has a flow I found encompassing. If only …….. yes we can…