In the Hebrew Bible, the vowels are missing (YHWH) and this is often read as Adonai, which means “my Lord” as a mark of reverence. A bit like saying Your Majesty the first time you speak with The Queen.
In English translations of the Bible, the name Yahweh is commonly written as LORD (with capitalisation), this enables us to know when God was being called (or referring to himself) by name.
I have often heard it said that ‘Yahweh‘ is God’s name and that ‘God’ is His title. This is a bit like Elizabeth being The Queen’s name, but The Queen being her title.
Knowing Yahweh is God’s name, should now make the Yahweh email joke in the film Bruce Almighty a little funnier !
“I am who I am” should not be confused with “I am What I am”, the latter being a song sung by Dame Shirley Bassey!
In my working life I have often been required to travel to far flung places, sometimes for months at a time. I’ve had some amazing experiences and met some wonderful people. However, my travels would take me away from my wife and family, who I would miss. As much as I loved going away, I also loved coming home. After all Home is where your heart is.
I used to wish I could be a bit like a tortoise, travelling whilst taking my home with me.
Jesus’ instructions on love in the Gospel of Matthew challenge us to: Love the Lord your God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind. They also challenge us to: Love our neighbours as ourselves.
I’ve heard a lot of teaching on these verses. A common theme was that I should love God first, love my neighbour second and then finally I could love myself.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with prioritising God and others before myself, it teaches me not to be selfish and to be selfless. However, I have struggled with splitting my life into those three segments. I wonder if like the Heat Electric tortoise, it is too easy to create a spiritual life which is too easily “Turn off and on-able”.
I’d like to propose a different view on these verses which is more holistic. I’d like us to become more like spiritual tortoises! Let me explain…
In The Theology of Love, Part II we learnt that Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them (1 John 4:16). We need through love, to make God our home. After all, where our treasure is, there will our heart be also (Luke 12:34). We need to make God the shell in which we dwell. This should enable us to to live out Jesus’ first instruction on love.
So that’s loving God explained, but what about loving our neighbour? In The Theology of Love, Part IV we explored what it meant to love others, through Matthew 25:40. We learnt that to love our neighbour, especially the most vulnerable is to love God too.
So, I can love God and my neighbour at the same time, but what about myself?
I love to play the piano. It gives me pleasure and enables me to have so “me time”. Through playing the piano I can love myself.
However, my wife is a really good singer. Often I will play the piano for her to sing. Through this activity I can love my wife and myself at the same time.
Now, my wife and I often play and sing Worship songs together, sometimes at home and other times at our church. Through these Worship songs I can love my wife and also God. I could equally love God, others and myself though playing the piano for a group of people in some community singing.
God gave us all gifts and passions. We can use these to Worship him, love our neighbour and love ourselves at the same time. These activities can also help people to come to know Jesus for the first time.
There will obviously be times when we have to love God and others, without any thought about what we are getting out of it. For example, I don’t really like doing the washing up after a church lunch. But even though I am doing something I don’t enjoy, I am able to love God and others. In fact, I believe there is something self-loving about serving others and I don’t mean the kind comments I might receive from those I serve.
So, could we be more like spiritual tortoises? Could we make God the shell in which we dwell at all times, taking Him wherever we go and to whomever we meet?
Because we are Fallen humans, there will be times when we get it wrong and love ourselves at the expense of God and our neighbour. We should never forget to Repent of our Sin and receive Forgiveness from Father God.
Jesus gave us two instructions for love which can be found in the Gospel of Matthew. These were not new instructions, Jesus was quoting from the Torah, the Jewish Bible, which makes up part of the Old Testament. The first instruction was:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
Loving God with our heart, soul and mind could easily be interpreted as our loving God with our entire being. The best example to a Christian of someone loving with their entire being, is the love of Jesus when he died and rose again.
Do you remember the action song If You’re Happy and You Know it Clap Your Hands? The song is all about outwardly showing your happiness. Well loving God with your entire being is similar to that. One way to do that is through Prayer and Worship, this could be done corporately (with others) for example at a church, or individually at home or elsewhere.
Jesus said in Luke 12:34: For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The things we value the most are the things we love. If we love money, fame or success, then that is where our hearts will be. But if we love God, above all other things, then He is where our hearts will be.
In Part II, we learnt through 1 John 4:16 that Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. If our hearts live with God, because we love Him, then God lives in us. It is that very same love which Jesus wants us to show to others in his second instruction to: Love your neighbour as yourself. The Theology of Love, Part IV, we will be looking at what it means to truly love others.
In The Theology of Love, Part I, we looked at the different types of love in the New Testament and how Agapelove is by far the most commonly found type.
[Agape] Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
Christians believe this is how Father God loves all of his creation, including us.
Christians believe that God’s greatest act of love was shown through Jesus Christ’s death on the cross. This act of love happened to Atone for Sin and to bring us to Salvation.
Original Sin is the Christian Doctrine which holds that since Sin first entered the world with The Fall, all humanity (or every single person) is corrupted by this first, or Original Sin.
Picture the scene: An artist creates the most beautiful oil painting and gives it to a couple. They think that they can improve the painting and make a small tweak to it. Unfortunately, instead of making the painting more beautiful, the picture was tainted. Try as they might, the couple couldn’t improve the picture. The couple still loved the picture and it was passed down from generation to generation. Every person who owned the painting tried to repair the picture, but it was never restored to its former glory.
The artist was God The Fatherand the first couple were Adam and Eve. The tainting of the painting was Original Sin. The other owners of the painting are all the people who have lived throughout history, each suffering the effects of Original Sin.
Because of The Fall our relationships with God, other people and the environment have been damaged like the oil painting.
Of course, Christians believe that there is a picture restorer who will restore the painting and take away every blemish from it, if he is asked to. That restorer is called Jesus Christ.This is Salvation through Atonement. (see also Atonement Part II)
According to oxfordditionaries.comAtonement is the ‘action for making amends for a wrong’. In terms of Christian theology it is ‘the reconciliation of God and mankind through Jesus Christ.’
Sin in short is not living in a manner which honours God. This can take many forms, but it is doing wrong in God’s eyes, not ours. This sin separates us from God. Sin entered the world when Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil, which God had told them not to do (see Genesis 2-3). This is called the fall. Imagine God on one side of the river and humanity on the other. Until the fall there was a bridge between God and humanity. The Fall caused the bridge to collapse and humanity and God were separated. We could sing “London bridge is falling down.”
Christians believe that humans cannot rebuild the bridge between God and humanity. They believe that God the Father sent God the Son (Jesus) to die on the cross and that he rose again on Easter day. It is Jesus’ death and Resurrection which rebuild the bridge between God and humanity. This is Atonement. As we sang London Bridge, we could now song “build it up with Jesus Christ.” Some Christians like to remember Atonement as ‘At one ment’ as it brings God and man back to one place.
There are varying, but legitimate Christian views on Atonement which I will examine in Atonement Part II.
Unitarianism is a version ofSubordinationism (see The Trinity for more details).It is the belief that God is one person, that God is not Triune (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). This belief holds that Jesus is the Son of God, but not God himself. Unitarianists hold that Jesus was fully human, not Divine. At best Jesus is seen as a demigod (or lesser God). They do not believe that Jesus was physically resurrected from the dead. Because Unitarianism does not recognise the Trinity, it is not compatible with mainstream Christianity.
One way of looking at this is as God as Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber. Imagine He wrote Jesus Christ Superstar especially for Jesus in the leading role. Jesus was an ordinary actor, who would have otherwise spent the rest of his life waiting on tables in London, just like most other actors waiting for their big break. Jesus gave a “For one life only” performance. The musical finishes on Good Friday, with no resurrection. Lloyd Webber and the actor called Jesus never met before the performance, nor have they met since. Whilst there will never be another performance of the musical, people still study the script as they feel they can learn a lot about Lloyd Webber.
WARNING: This post will be written as simply as possible. BUT you probably still won’t understand what I’ve written!
Trinitarianism is the Christian understanding of God as three persons, known as the Trinity. These persons are: 1. God the Father, 2. God the Son (Jesus Christ) and 3. God the Holy Spirit. So, Christians believe that God is one being , who is worshiped as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, each of these are equally God.
It could be said that: God is one “What” and three “Whos” (Olsen, 2002, Pg. 147)
It is worth pointing out that there is no one illustration which does the concept of the Trinity justice. However:
Just before playing the Rachmaninov 2nd Piano Concerto in C minor, a concert pianist sits at the grand piano on the stage of the Royal Albert Hall in London. The pianist plays the note “A” on the piano for the orchestra to tune to. The pianist plays the note just once, so the orchestra hear just one sound.
Before the concert, the piano was tuned. The tuner, having stripped back the piano to its workings went to tune each individual note. He gets to the “A” note, like he has the 87 previous notes and finds three strings, each he tunes to the correct pitch. When the pianist plays the key on the piano, one hammer strikes three strings. These strings are of equal importance and three strings are required to make the characteristic sound of the piano.
Each string is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the one note sounded is God.
Modalism is the belief that the Trinity are not three distinct persons, but is one person acting in different roles. God can only be in one role at a time. Image watching a Punch and Judy show; the audience see, Punch, Judy and the Crocodile, but they are just played by one puppeteer. The puppeteer can only give voice to one puppet at a time.
Subordinationism is the belief that God is the Father and that the Son and the Holy Spirit are Subordinate (or of lower rank) to the Father, but are still divine. The Father is the Field Marshall, whilst the Son and the Holy Spirit are both Generals. Christian understanding of the Trinity holds the view that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are equal, i.e. all hold the rank of Field Marshall.
Adoptionism is a version of Subordinationism; it is the belief that Jesus was not the true Son of God, rather he was a mere prophet and Messiah.
Jesus was adopted by God as His Son. Picture the scene: God is Daddy Warbucks in Annie and Jesus is Annie. Warbucks is not Annie’s true father, but Warbucks adopts her and she becomes his heir and lives with him. Christians believe that Jesus, the Son was with God from the beginning, known as The Word; therefore Adoptionism is not compatible with Christianity.
Arianism is also a version ofSubordinationism. It is the belief that Jesus Christ is not God, or equal with God. Arianism holds that Jesus was created to live on earth and that He has not been since the beginning. Arianism is not compatible with Christianity for similar reasons as Adoptionism.
Tritheism is the belief the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three separate Divine beings or gods. This is not compatible with Christianity which believes in monotheism.
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