I believe in God the Creator…
For a class, I am reading Karl Barth’s Dogmatics in Outline, which comprises lectures he gave on the Apostle’s Creed. Today, we discussed Barth’s chapter on “God the Creator,” and my professor drew our attention to this paragraph: We are not nearer to believing in God the Creator, than we are to believing that Jesus [...]
Fear of the Lord and Being Scared
I’ve often struggled to describe the meaning of the phrase “fear of the Lord,” and I usually end up describing something that skirts around the word “fear.” To an extent, this is good–God does not want us to be terrified of him. Still, my explanations fail to do justice to the phrase. I mean, if [...]
A properly ordered love of mammon
I just read a fascinating sermon by Augustine on the love of money for one of my classes. The sermon was given on the occasion of a feast of a martyr, and Augustine’s main goal is to undercut the idea that the martyrs were somehow super-human in their capacity for pain and self-denial. He does [...]
The Necessity of Factions in the Church
Edit, 1/22/2011: I have been going back through some old blog posts, and I wanted to write that I do not find this blog post persuasive at all any more. I want to leave it here, but I very much hear Paul’s words dripping with sarcasm, not with genuine zeal for creating proper divisions. I [...]
