Wednesday, May 20, 2009

What's Love Got To Do With It?

I'm a nerdy type person and LOVE to study...so funny that I haven't gone to college yet huh? Yeah, I think it's strange too, but He has His timing. (hopefully His answer won't be "Never" to me)
I've been listening to a lot of theological material recently ( sermons, lectures {go Reformed Theological Seminary Online!} and conversations with various church-related small groups) and I'm coming to the realization that defining your terms is VERY important.
Here's a couple examples of what I mean:

Food-kids think candy, anorexics shudder, addicts salivate, I think of my food favs

Sad- some think pathetic, pet lovers think dead kitten, refugees think of their dead family members and war-torn country

Love- kids think parents always saying "yes", teenagers think constant togetherness or maybe sex, males think sex, females think emotional needs met. 

That last word is one that I've been considering lately. We toss around the phrase "God's Love" often without defining what that means. Why do we do this??? Why do we give people something so profound as the infinite truth of His glorious love with no context and no Biblical definition. 

This was brought to my attention in the passage 1 John 4:7-21. I have always taken the word love in this passage to mean kindness to those around me. But, if you read the passage carefully the love he's talking about is only given to those who are believers (know God). So, it can't be kindness. 
If you look at verse 9 I believe it holds the answer of what Love means. In this passage love refers to God saving those He's written in the Book of Life from deserved death! That realization caused me read the whole passage in a new light. Whew! I would love to go on and on about how cool this passage is, but this post would get very rambly.

I fly home from Nicaragua tomorrow...I've been here visiting Dawn since Sunday. Ah, nothing like flying standby.

This was brought to my attention in my own reading of Scripture a couple of weeks ago. 1 John 4:7-8 is often quoted without context and I've often heard it implied that it means: 

Monday, May 11, 2009

Gone But Hopefully Not Forgotten?

Hey all,

Life keeps getting in the way of me posting. I have so much life that blogging about it would take too much time away from it right now.
Highlights:

-I found out my son get FREE all day kindergarten next year! He's psyched and I'm mixed since I was planning on having him home half day...but, God knew this would happen when He put Caedmon in that school, so I trust it's the right choice.
-This means I could clean more houses (again mixed feelings) and I could stop being a lazy parent and maybe start volunteering around my kid's awesome school.
-Might be going to Nicaragua next Sunday-Thursday to see our one missionary that's still down there.
-I finally got our clothesline up! (woo hoo!) But the posts aren't in solidly enough yet to hang many clothes on it. (boo!)


That's all for now...how are you? I miss hearing from you my lurkers!