The doctrine of the Trinity attempts to describe how the one God is revealed as three distinct persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and yet is one substance. The language of Father and Son could be viewed as implying a hierarchy within the Trinity. In this paper I will outline the problems with this interpretation and the use of figurative language when describing the orthodox understanding of the Godhead. After briefly presenting the historical and theological background to the doctrine of the Trinity and describing three common heresies I will explain how the language used to describe God can be regarded are hierarchical, and briefly touch on the problems of using everyday human language to describe the transcendent Trinity.
God
Evaluate N.T. Wright’s ‘five-act’/kingdom hermeneutical lens and use it to offer a contemporary interpretation of a biblical concept of your own choosing.
The question of how to read the Bible today is one of how we view the authority of Scripture. Can the stories in the Bible be applied to our present situation, and if they can how should we interpret them today? N.T. Wright has suggested that the Bible is a drama in five acts – Creation, Fall, Israel, Jesus and the Church. The fifth act is unfinished and it is for the reader to enter into the drama and then to complete the story.
Threads of Love – Rivers in the Bible
There are many themes or threads that run through the Bible. In this post we are going to think about the theme of rivers. We are going to look at seven rivers in the Bible. 1) Rivers as a place of creation: Genesis 2:10-14 Genesis 2:10-14 Gardens need water. Eden may mean “well-watered place”. The Tigris […]
YHWH, Jehovah, Yahweh, The LORD. The divine name of God.
When Moses first encountered the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the desert God revealed his name to Moses. The account is recorded in Exodus 3. Moses had fled Egypt because he had killed an Egyptian while defending a Hebrew slave. He was now living with his father-in-law, a priest of Midian called Jethro, […]
