Posts Tagged 'theology'
Here is a test – does the subject line above strike you as intriguing or uninteresting? Well, believe it or not, if you identify yourself as either Jewish or Christian, you should find it interesting. Monotheism and monolatry both have to do with how the people of the Old Testament / Hebrew Bible (and also today) viewed God. How many gods are there? What is his (their) nature? How should he be worshipped? Those are pretty big questions!
I reviewed a great book a couple of months ago called Jesus and the God of Israel, in which the author (Richard Bauckham) described the similarities, differences and relationship between monotheism (the belief in the existence of one God) and monolatry (the exclusive worship of one God). Fascinating book. In Bauckham’s opinion (which I agree with), the Old Testament reflects both, and somehow, the two wind their way together in both Judaism and early Christianity, and they influenced how Jesus was understood and responded to in the first century. If you like to “think deeply” about the nature of God and Jesus, you may enjoy this book!
Interesting question, isn’t it? I was asked that question a few days ago, and I pointed the person to one verse and then made one observation (just a summary of our discussion!). The practice of cremation is not specifically mentioned in the Bible. However, a section in the Bible that talks about how a Christian’s “eternal” body will be different than his/her “physical” body is 1 Corinthians 15:42-44 (make sure you read it in context). The eternal does not seem to be limited by the physical. Also, the physical body starts to decay the moment the person dies, so whether the process takes a few minutes (eg, cremation) or a few years (eg, burial), the end result would seem to be the same, wouldn’t it?
What do think about cremation?
For those of you who are taking the second four-week Foundations course at Westwood, a pdf of yesterday’s PowerPoint presentation is available here (just in case you weren’t able to write the notes down fast enough!). 
Have you have wondered what exactly it is that people are talking about, when they use the phrase “Christian spirituality”? The word “spirituality” pops up all over the place (for example, if you search for “spirituality” on Amazon.com, it returns over 174,000 books!) and it is certainly one of the current buzz words in North American Christianity. But what does it really mean? Let me offer an answer to the question in two ways.
First, I think we can contrast “spirituality” with “theology”. Perhaps we can do it like this: The primary goal of good Christian theology is to fully and accurately understand biblical truth, whereas the primary goal of good Christian spirituality is to effectively and sustainably integrate theology into everyday life. Do you see how they fit together? They complement, not contradict, each other.
Another way to “wrap our heads” around what Christian spirituality is, is to use the model of seven metaphors suggested by
For those of you who are taking the first four-week Foundations course at Westwood, here are some resources you can refer to if you want to study the topics some more:
Have fun!
Time for another Q&A from the days of yore …
Question - “Was Jesus “Son” from eternity-past (i.e. before creation of time-space) or was he “Word” until he became flesh at his incarnation and then he became “Son”?”
Reply - While it may not be possible to arrive at a definitive response to the question, I think the answer is inherently connected to one’s understanding of the Trinity. That is, modalistic monarchianism suggests that Jesus’ “Sonship” was realized upon the incarnation, whereas orthodox trinitarianism argues that the Son is co-eternal with the Father and Holy Spirit. I tend to fall on the side of Athanasias and orthodox trinitarianism, until someone can suggest a better concept of the Biblical model. Theological systems aside, however, my initial reaction is to refer to Colossians 1 where the Son (vs 13) is referred to as the creator of all things (vs 16, see also Heb 1:2-3,10), a designation that certainly precedes the introduction of him as the “Word” in John 1:1. However, although the Colossians pericope seems to deal with part two of your first question (ie, “Son” prior to incarnation?), it does not explore the first part of the same question (ie, “Son” prior to creation?). For that aspect of his divine characteristics, Jesus seems to refer to his own eternal nature in John 8:58, but he does not explicitly reference it to his “Sonship” but just his being. Also, the references in Hebrews 1 appears to indicate that the Son has the same nature (creator, eternal-future, etc) as the Father, so would seem somewhat logical to conclude that eternal-past (ie, pre-creation) is also the same as the Father.
Does that make any sense?
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