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Category Archives: Theology
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Posted in blogging, Christianity, Humor, Life As Prayer update, Theology, travel, Walking with God
Tagged author, Humor, Life As Prayer, Life As Prayer update, Lisa Colón DeLay, lisa delay, lisadelay.com, new blog, Theology, travel, writing
Can Mustard Seed-sized Faith move a Mountain…of trash?
Some days you take your faith to the scales. You wonder…is it up to mustard?
Today is one of those days–and it’s epitomized in the not-so-scenic view from my front porch.
Will you pray for me?
What do you need faith for today?
Posted in Christianity, Community, fear, God's will, hope, Humor, Jesus, Life As Prayer, Prayer, Prayer Follies, Scriptures, Spiritual growth, Spiritual practices, Story as Life, Theology, Walking with God
Tagged anxiety, bad neighborhood, Bible, Christian theology, Christianity, faith, fear, hope, Jesus, Life As Prayer, move mountains, mustard seed, parable, petition, Prayer, Schuylkill County, Theology, throw mountains, Walking with God
Third Sunday of Advent Meditation 12/12/2010
(from the online Book of Common Prayer)
Third Sunday of Advent
Stir up thy power, O Lord, and with great might come
among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins,
let thy bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver
us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and
the Holy Ghost, be honor and glory, world without end.
Amen.
160 Collect: Traditional
O God, who hast caused this holy night to shine with the
illumination of the true Light: Grant us, we beseech thee,
that as we have known the mystery of that Light upon earth,
so may we also perfectly enjoy him in heaven; where with
thee and the Holy Spirit he liveth and reigneth, one God, in
glory everlasting. Amen.
Do you have any reflections for this Sunday?
Posted in Christianity, Christians, devotions, Holidays, hope, Life As Prayer, ministry, Prayer, Theology, Walking with God
Tagged Advent, advent prayer, awe, Christ, Christianity, Christmas, devotion, God, Gode, Holy Spirit, hope, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Life As Prayer, Liturgy, Prayer, reading, reflection, sunday, sunday meditation, Theology, Worship
Thoughtful Thursday: An Almighty, Good God Allows an Evil World?
Here is a response to a difficult subject: Evil and human suffering. Your comments are valuable here. Thanks for reading.
The following are comments from a former classmate Marty Schoffstall as placed within the comment section on blog site of Theology Professor Ken Miller.
From Marty:
Dr. Dorsey [professor of Old Testament Studies] says that the story of the prophets (a rather large portion of the canon) looks like this:
(1) God Is Allowing Wickedness…
For a season…. and the wicked to succeed in their opposition to Him to temporarily triumph over Him (and over those loyal to Him). He may allow them to spurn Him, mock Him, humiliate him, or persecute those who remain loyal to Him.(2) God is redirecting their evil….
to accomplish his own good purposes. The deeds of the wicked play into God’s hands and are used by God to further his own semi-secret agenda. [During this time when evil appears to prevail], God’s children are encouraged to: (a) Trust God, (b) Wait patiently for the time when God will intervene and right all wrongs, (c) Remain loyal and obedient to him.(3) Finally, God dramatically intervenes…
to defeat his enemies. God is vindicated the wicked are punished; and those loyal to God are rewarded.Now as my old friend friend Dr. Cunningham from UVA who was a very competent Roman Catholic Theologian on the side used to say:
“…mercy and justice are always in tension. We want mercy for ourselves, and justice for the other…”
Eventually we grow a little wiser and want some mercy for the other as well; however, we can never give up the concept of justice completely. Some decisions are so revolting (like genocide) that they must rigorously opposed, some people are so broken (like serial killers, serial kidnappers, etc) that we invest enormous time and money in the criminal justice system to stop them, they are horribly corrosive to society, they must be stopped.
How do you respond?
Posted in Bible, Christianity, Christians, evil, God's will, grief, hope, pain, Prayer, Scriptures, Social justice, Spirituality, stress, suffering, Theology, warfare, worldviews
Tagged atheism, atheist, Bible, Christ, Christian theology, Christianity, Criminal justice, criminals, death, evil, Existence of God, genocide, God, good God, Jesus, Religion and Spirituality, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, suffering, theodicy, wickedness
Soul, mind, and heart: Not understanding the Biblical text
Which one sounds wrong?
A. Do you have the guts?
B. Put your heart into it.
C. Make up your heart.
What is the heart?
The answer might surprise you.
In modern times, the “heart” has been called, “the feeling mind”. That sounds pretty good to me. What do you think?
A recent visitor responded to my post Is Chocolate Filling my God-shaped Hole? with the comment below (edited down). I think it would help to respond through a post, also. Now we can open up the whole thing to dialogue a bit more. Thanks for your contribution on this topic.
Visitor Response to Post–Submitted: on 2010/12/03 at 3:10 pm
The way I look at it, viewing the heart and mind as separate is extrabiblical; thus, in fact, “that thing that ‘falls in love’ or gets sentimental” *is* the mind. So the modern “follow your heart” does not connote the *opposite* of the biblical “heart,” but rather only *part* of it. Bottom line, I can’t trust my mind or my heart, or even my own spirit completely… only God is 100% trustworthy. As for filling our “voids” with things “besides” God, I try to remember that God gets the credit for all good things anyway…My response:
I should have also pointed out [within that post] that the Hebrew equivalent of the emotions or passions (what many now consider the “heart”) were also referred to differently than the mind (i.e. set a different category, if you will–the bowels or “guts”). The “guts” implied connection with those qualities of emotion, and so forth.To sum up: In the Bible, (most especially in the Old Testament)…
1. What is translated as “heart” (in the KJV and others) is closer to what we now term as “the mind”. More specifically, the individual’s command center, or the place where decisions are made– which includes the will.
2. What we may think of as “the heart” that is, passions, desires, emotions, in the Hebrew language is connected with “the guts” or “bowels” of a person. For instance, “In his guts he loved her”. Yes, it sounds awkward, at best.
Even more controversy:
THE SOULThere is a big dissimilarity in the Hebrew vs. English renditions of the word often translated in English as “soul”. In Hebrew, it refers to the whole being. The whole person (So, no. It does not mean a ghosty thing that floats to the clouds like in Warner Brother cartoons). We can understand it in our context more this way when we say, “30 souls were lost [died] in the shipwreck.”
Hey, everyone, please, weigh in.
This post is open to opinions, thoughts, comments, or if you’re of the particular stripe…exegesis.
(Yes. That’s the BIG word of the day.)
Exegesis (EGGs -eh- Jesus) is this definition here. It’s not a variant, or French spelling of “Eggs and Cheeses” which we may be tempted to think at first blush, right? (click photo to find its source)
Tomorrow’s post–
“Does your Breakfast (and your deity) make you AWESOME?”
Posted in Bible, Christianity, Christians, Food, Jesus, Quotes, Response to Reader, Scriptures, Spiritual growth, Theology
Tagged Bible, bowels, cheese, Christianity, decisions, desires, eggs, emotion, exegesis, feelings, Food, food for thought, foodie, free will, French, ghost, ghosty, guts, heart, Hebrew language, hermanutics, Humor, Jesus, language, Linguistics, lost in translation, mind, Old Testament, passions, reason, snacks, soul, translation, will