Shelby > Recent Status Updates

"We don't pursue the practice of family worship to gain the approval of God. We practice worship in our homes because, in Christ, we have been given the approval of God. With this in mind, we marvel at the grace of God, and a desire for Him to be glorified in our homes." - Matt Boswell

...we have too weak of an affection for the things that please the Lord. Sanctification involves not only learning more about God, but loving the God we learn about ever more deeply.

...it is God's love, even towards his fallen creatures, that initiates the offer of grace to them on the first place. And this outward disposition of redemptive love occurs simultaneously, and without conflict, with his unremitting wrath against sinners. / Amazing!

...it is God's love, even towards his fallen creatures, that initiates the offer of grace to them on the first place. And this outward disposition of redemptive love occurs simultaneously, and without conflict, with his unremitting wrath against sinners. / Amazing!

...it is God's love, even towards his fallen creatures, that initiates the offer of grace to them in the first place. And this outward disposition of redemptive love occurs simultaneously, and without conflict, with his unremitting wrath against sinners. / Amazing!

Now we're getting to the meat: Impassible and Impassioned - Toward a Theological Hermeneutic

Restated thesis: Scripture leads us to the conclusion that God is both invulnerable to involuntary precipitated emotional vicissitude and supremely passionate about his creatures' practice of either obedience or rebellion, as well as their experience of either joy or affliction. / Good stuff. Can't wait till he starts digging into that statement. Still laying the historical groundwork.

Is human experience the measure of meaningful love and relationship with God? Are God's experiences inauthentic if they are not similar to ours?

"...the classical view sees the cross in relation to the achievement of victory over sin, [whereas] many contemporary passibilist see the cross instead merely as a sign of God's suffering solidarity, without the accompanying assurance that this necessarily portends any final victory." / How many times have we actually downplayed the power and significance of the cross by thinking or speaking this way?

Thesis: God is impassible in the sense that he cannot be manipulated, overwhelmed, or surprised into an emotional interaction that he does not desire to have or allow to happen...but God is also impassioned (perfectly vibrant in his affections), and he may be affected by his creatures, but as God, he is so in ways that accord rather than conflict with his will to be so affected by those whom, in love, he has made.

Let's do this!

The "story" portion of the Everyday Evangelism chapter is excellent. Perhaps some good fodder for Film and Theology in the fall...

Really enjoyed the "Everyday Pastoral Care" chapter. "Four Liberating Truths for Those Who Pastor" is worth the price of the book alone.