Although not the first scholar to examine the idea of religion, Jones utilizes the concept from the study of Self Psychology in order to determine if “transformative religious experience is mature or unhealthy” (Jones 2002). In chapter 5 of his text, Jones
Furthermore, Sunday was constrained by an obsession to tell others how he had finally found inner peace and a more purposeful life. At first through lectures and then in sermons, he related how Jesus Christ gave him a new life of meaning, peace, and hope. This same gospel, he said, would similarly transform others. The evidence is overwhelmingly that it did.
In his approach Snyder utilizes seven themes from the Old and New Testament that he say’s help reveal the meaning of the kingdom of God. The themes presented are interrelated and not disconnected or segmented from each other. Rather, each theme is a partial expression of the whole, in other words, the kingdom of God is this, but it is also that. The challenge that the Western (US) reader faces is that one has been conditioned by “National Idealism,” to think that we are a Christian nation. Therefore, as a nation of God, we live out the biblical principles that are important to Christian values. This is important to state, since this type of thinking permeates throughout our churches and is expressed as kingdom living.
The books that we were required to read for Bible 115 class were Engaging God’s World – A Christian Vision Of Faith, Learning And Living by Cornelius Plantinga Jr. and The Call – Finding And Fulfilling The Central Purpose For Your Life by Os Guinness. Both books offered very useful advice for today’s Christians. Engaging God’s World is written for students and will help them make sense of their education in a Christian perspective. Both authors use scripture, humor and common sense to validate their points.
New: John G Lake book report. This book has changed my life. It contains the stories of a man who fully gave his life to knowing God and bringing God's nature to this world. It also contains biblical truths that will transform your very core. Every word on the pages beckon you to step into the righteousness and wholeness that is available to you. John G Lake's life and his revelations make me hungry, hungry for his connection to Papa God and hungry to be overtaken by who God is and therein who I am.
The Bible and its text is trustworthy and reliable to its fullest, but on this journey in seeking the word of God can using it in how daily life is where arises an important question; How now is to understand the idea of the ‘Word of God” and its implications for how Christian theology is to be done. Karl Barth (1886-1968) a Swiss Protestant theologian who is one of the most substantial and influential recent works of Christian Theology in the twentieth century. In this text analysis of one of Barth teaching he breaks down in explaining what he means by “reflection” on the Word of God. Barth first address this three part: “the Word of God in a First Address in which God himself and God alone is the speaker, in a second address in which the
In this text titled GOD by Simon Blackburn, the protagonist agues of beliefs and other things. I am going to argue that there does not exist a super or godlike being who is all good, all knowing, all powerful. (40 words)
Johannine literature has a number of underlying themes and uses its many symbols to express to the believer how one is able to obtain the Truth and gain sight in order to experience God. One theme which uses symbols with the expressed goal of bringing people closer to God is discipleship. Disciple is found through the totality of John’s writing and incorporates symbols, biblical figures, and divine instruction in order to bring people into relationship with God. The Gospel of John, the Epistles, and the Book of Revelation make present the theme of discipleship in their own specific and distinct ways. Discipleship in the Gospel of John is elaborately described and acknowledges that one is only a disciple by divine initiative. The Epistles
With nobody to turn to, John faced the New World alone. Isolation became his salvation. “Laboriously turning up the substance of his thought.” (page 254), finally John can think by himself.
In these brief three pages, there is a bold calling for spiritual authority, and ways friends of Jesus can authentically experience and acquire that authority. In the beginning, Anderson explained that spiritual authority is manifested from personal experiences and not “secondhand authorities” (pages 50-51). Next, he addressed certain characteristics that “make one fit to be a minister of the gospel” (pg. 51). Finally, he provided a glimpse on what it takes to be an Authentic Child of Light by walking well in the Light. In these three pages, I felt like Margaret Fall in which these words cut to my heart and I wept.
The painting on the left with the African American man sitting down reading a Bible is called The Lord Is My Shepherd and it was painted by Eastman Johnson in the year 1863.
When studying the Bible, one encounters different details from seemingly identical narratives and passages. These narratives and passages are called doublets. In biblical scholar, Richard Friedman’s book Who Wrote the Bible?, he states that a “doublet is a case of the same story being told twice” with variations in specific details (22). Some examples of doublets in the Bible are two different stories of creation, the covenant between God and Abraham, Joseph sold into slavery and more. The doublet focused on in this paper is the stories of creation. Instead of being spread apart in separate books of the Bible or being completely intertwined, these narratives are told right after the other.
Dean Thompson, president of Louisville Seminary, looks at the verses in a slightly different light; he refers to the passage as "a summary of our Christian theology of hope." (Thompson 423)
Johannine literature truly portrays Jesus as God, with the theme of His deity interwoven throughout numerous passages. In this respect, John’s style differs from the other four gospels, as Bickel & Jantz (1998) point out that the other three had been written prior to John’s gospel, therefore, “he wasn’t interested in just retelling the events” (p. 222). Since Jesus is the focal point of Scripture, a scholar of the New Testament with uncertainty concerning Jesus’ oneness with God will fail to perceive the crux of Christianity. Therefore, in spite of its importance, John does not focus on Jesus’ entrance into the
This essay will show contrasts in views on the Gospel of John regarding authorship,dates, and the relationship between John's Gospel and the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. Some comparison of thought, concerning composition and life setting, will also be presented.