Category: Theology

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Is God like an unjust judge? 

Luke 18:1-8  presents, when thoroughly examined, a number of interpretations depending on our context we interpret the parable as we read it.  Given that, I’d like to highlight just one important interpretation that warrants reflection on our part.  

That is, ‘God is not an unjust God’. It could be easy to conclude that the parable makes a comparison between the God and the judge. Indeed I think many of us feel that God is unjust and unhearing and this parable might strengthen our position. Yet that is not its intent. Rather its intent is mirrored in an earlier reflection on prayer (Luke 11:13) “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,  how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”  Continue reading “Is God like an unjust judge? “

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The art of intolerance

Rev Craig Mischewski reflects …
I have been spending a lot more time in prayer and reading Scripture of late, and in my time in the prophet Isaiah I read this text.  In light of the current proposals from the Assembly, I feel that the text speaks into this situation.

Isa 19:22  “And the LORD will strike Egypt, He will and heal it, they will return to the LORD and He will be entreated by them and heal them…” Continue reading “The art of intolerance”

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We Can’t Exaggerate His Goodness

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good;
blessed is the man who trusts in Him!    
Psalm 34:8

Either God is authentically good, or He is not. I would never suggest that we pretend He is different than He is. Nothing is accomplished by allowing our imagination to create our own image of God. God would then be no better than the gods made out of wood or stone, also created by human initiative. Inventing God in our minds or building Him with our hands is a similarity that is both vain and ultimately destructive.

Discovering who He is and what He is like in reality is the only possible way to discover His true goodness. This eternal journey into His infinite goodness is the one we are privileged to embrace. Continue reading “We Can’t Exaggerate His Goodness”

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Lets be clear about something ~ Part 2

The good news about what has happened looks ahead to the good news about what will happen. The same God who made the world in the first place will restore and renew it in the end.

‘The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them’ (Isa. 11:6).

Because ‘the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord [Israel’s God, the one they called YHWH] as the waters cover the sea’ (Isa. 11:9). Or, in Paul’s words, when even death itself has been overcome, God will be ‘all in all’ (1 Cor. 15:28). This is the ultimate good news. Nothing will be lost. All that is good and beautiful, and especially all that has been done out of love for God, out of the power of Jesus’s death and new life, and by the leading of the Spirit, will somehow be part of God’s new world. Continue reading “Lets be clear about something ~ Part 2”

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Let’s be clear about something

The God we worship is one true God is the creator of the world. That is really good news. We are not cast adrift in an alien environment. There’s an old hymn that begins, ‘This is my Father’s world.’ The strange beauty and power we sense in sunlight and starlight, in the majesty of a mountain or the tiny perfection of the smallest flower or insect – all this is the work of the Creator. The glorious sweep of his vast universe and the infinite attention to detail speak of one who has taken, and continues to take, delight in all that he has made. One psalm speaks of God making the entrance and exit of the day to praise him. Of course, the rationalist would have no difficulty explaining all this away, but the rest of us can quietly ignore such a shallow attitude and get on with enjoying the view. Continue reading “Let’s be clear about something”