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what on earth is a trinity

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[Music]

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on sundays we started a series called

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the forgotten god and we're looking at

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the idea specifically of spirit

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a commons we talk about being

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intellectually honest and spiritually

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passionate that's always our goal

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but often it can feel like spirit is

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secondary to intellect around here

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that's largely due to my own baggage and

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experience with charismatic christianity

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but still

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we do want to remind ourselves of a more

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healthy balance from time to time

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however

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to talk about spirit i thought it was

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important to talk about trinity as a

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foundation for that conversation

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and the interesting part about that is

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just how fraught with theological terror

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trinity can be

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i mean there are just so many ways we

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can get this one wrong

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yet i really have no interest in talking

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about the nature of god as a gatekeeping

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exercise

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now truth is all of our god talk is

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provisional or at least it should be

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we're talking about the nature of god

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after all and we're using language

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that's drawn from our experience of the

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world granted god has offered us

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language and metaphors

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images and ways to think and talk about

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the divine but to imagine that our

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theology can ever contain god seems at

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least a little naive and probably more

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than that quite arrogant

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that said trinity is really important to

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my conception of god and i wanted to

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talk a little bit about why

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now the first two sermons of that series

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are available here on the channel that

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you can check them out if you're

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interested but here are a few thoughts

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about trinity

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first of all doctrines of trinity should

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at their best i think help us to be more

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creative about the divine not to close

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down our imagination of god

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here's an example of how that works

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theologically

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we could say god is like water because

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water is a liquid but if you freeze it

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it can become a solid and if you boil it

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it's a gas it's one molecule with three

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different realities just like god

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that's nice helpful even maybe except

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it's also technically heresy

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this is a form of what we call modalism

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and that's the idea that god isn't

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really three persons

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but just that god appears or seems that

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way

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now you can use modalism as a doctrinal

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club and call someone a heretic and get

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angry at them if you want to i suppose

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but what we're really trying to protect

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by ruling something like modalism out of

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bounds

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isn't so much a description of god that

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we can hang our hat on

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it's actually about protecting the

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mystery of divine love

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see the christian conception of god

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imagines a divine community of shared

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love within the godhead from before

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there was anything else

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god is the singular source of all that

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is

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and god is an eternal dance of gift and

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reception

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so when we say that modalism has a

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reticle we're not saying that we

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understand god and you don't we're good

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people and you're not

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as much as we're saying that we have to

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hold on to we want to protect this

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mystery of divine love

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to believe that god was loving that god

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could be loving

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before there was anything else to love

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and not only that that is this divine

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love shared and expressed in community

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that sits at the foundation of

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everything in the universe

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to say that we believe in trinity is to

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say that expressed love defines god

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and this is why the specifics of trinity

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are far less important to me than that

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we hold this mystery tightly in our

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imagination

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and we have these beautiful images of

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father son and spirit or creator

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redeemer sustainer that's good and

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sacred language gifted to us to speak of

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the divine

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but the point is not to get hung up on

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father and start picturing god as a man

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or to fixate on some specific hierarchy

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within the godhead

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the point is to always come back to the

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expanse of imagination of god as loving

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community from before there was

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anything

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and one of the most

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important implications of this

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comes from the 1960s with a catholic

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theologian named carl rauner

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he formulated what later became known as

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rauner's rule and it went like this the

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economic trinity is the imminent trinity

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and the imminent trinity

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is the economic trinity

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now he's using some technical

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theological language here so let's parse

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it out quickly when he says the economic

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trinity he's talking about god as god

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works in history so god with a mission

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or god with a purpose everything that

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god does in the world to save humanity

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any time we are talking about atonement

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or creation or salvation we are talking

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about the economic trinity

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on the other hand the imminent trinity

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sometimes you might come across this

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named as the ontological trinity

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is who god is within god's self

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so whoever god was or whatever god was

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doing before there was a universe

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and what ronner says is that however we

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conceptualize god in history however we

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make sense of the cross for example

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that has to be coherent with or

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consistent with who god is within god's

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self who god has always been as this

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perfect community of gift and reception

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and if you let that be the foundation

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for how you make sense of the divine

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that inevitably begins to shape how you

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read your bible

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how you experience a sense of god in

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your life how you understand god woven

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throughout the text of human history as

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we have all of us tried to find our way

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back to god

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god is shared love

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period

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and this is why our theology is at its

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best

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not when it's trying to explain god to

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us but when it is doing just enough to

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help us learn to love like god in

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community

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and so this is also why in the second

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part of the series when

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we wanted to talk about listening to the

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voice of spirit in our lives i wanted to

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talk about listening for that gentle

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welcoming invitation of the spirit

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now everybody's experience is different

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but early in my christian story i was

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around the charismatic movement now i'm

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not sure that was really ever my bag but

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i was in that orbit for a time

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and i certainly don't want to

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characterize that all as bad it wasn't

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and there are a lot of things that added

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to my journey from that period in my

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life things that i want to hold on to

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but i did also see witness expressions

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of toxic authority and manipulation that

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were associated with sometimes even

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attributed to spirit

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there was a sense that spirit could be

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used as a trump card for anything

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but again here's where our conception of

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god rooted in trinity becomes really

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helpful

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because if god is an eternal dance of

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give and take if god has only ever known

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perfect community

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it seems to me likely at least that the

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voice of spirit in our lives should

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reflect that divine reality

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the way to distinguish the voice of

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spirit from all of the other voices that

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vie for your attention is to train

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yourself to listen for the most peaceful

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the most gentle voice you can possibly

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distinguish

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the voice of spirit is the voice that

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gently listens back to you

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and i don't mean by that that god never

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speaks clearly to us or that god never

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tries to correct us

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very clearly there are times we fall

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short of love our actions do not promote

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justice and healing in the world and god

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continues to call us to repentance in

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these areas that's part of what spirit

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does in our lives

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but what i mean by this

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is that i'm not sure the christian

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imagination of god makes room for a god

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that speaks

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outside of the context of loving

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relationship

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that's all god knows that's what god is

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so god doesn't speak at you god speaks

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to you god doesn't demand from you god

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invites you to become

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more

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and sure

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god is angry at sin but the nature of

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god reminds me that god is angry at what

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sin does to me and what sin does to

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those around me god is not angry at me

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god isn't love expressed in relationship

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god is against therefore

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anything that damages relationship

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and this is why even though in my life

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and my career and my ministry i tend to

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focus on the way of jesus in the world

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how we live toward each other by

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following jesus

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i think it's very helpful from time to

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time to jump out of that into the exotic

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world of discussing the nature of god

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as long as that orients us back toward

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each other in love and it doesn't leave

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us debating theology endlessly

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so god is an eternal dance of gift and

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reception from before there was

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anything we call this perikeresis

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but god is also the singular source of

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all that has been made the foundation of

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universe and those two concepts together

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in the mystery of how they coexist

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this is what we call trinity

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this is also what calls us back to

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loving relationship with everyone we

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encounter in god's world