Our first response to God’s goodness and greatness is worship. In fact, Calvin says that our first priority in life is to seek to be worshippers: “We should consider it the great end of our existence to be found numbered among the worshippers of God.”[1] We exist in a Christian culture where worship is often… Continue reading God’s goodness and greatness: Implications for worship
Tag: systematic theology
God in the dock: objections to his greatness and goodness (part 2)
The second big objection to God’s goodness and God’s greatness we are going to look at is atheism. This says that if we have a problem with saying that God is good or that God is great, then the better option is to deny both: to say that God is neither good nor great. In… Continue reading God in the dock: objections to his greatness and goodness (part 2)
God in the Dock – challenges to His greatness and goodness (Part 1)
We can choose to believe either truth or lies about God. Earlier, we named the lies: that God is not good and/or God is not great/ sovereign. That if there is a God, then he must be either infinite and all powerful, but therefore distant, impersonal, disinterested or even cruel, but certainly not loving, good… Continue reading God in the Dock – challenges to His greatness and goodness (Part 1)
God is holy
What happens when you put God’s goodness and sovereignty together? The answer is that you get a sense of God’s glory and holiness. What is holiness? Well, it is something to do with being distinct and different. When applied to people and objects, it means they are set apart as special, precious, God’s personal possession.… Continue reading God is holy
The goodness of God
So God is sovereign, he is infinite, all powerful, knows everything and is in control. But that still doesn’t answer the question ‘what is God like?’ This all-powerful God could be a sort of gentle giant or a mean ogre. In fact, for many people, the description of an all-powerful God is likely to suggest… Continue reading The goodness of God
God is sovereign
As we think about who God is and what He is like, we keep coming back to those two big lies we can end up believing: that either God is not good or God is not sovereign (and sometimes both). In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were presented with this twin temptation and… Continue reading God is sovereign
Simple
God is simple. That might be a surprising thing to say – shocking even. We tend to use the word pejoratively. In our world, simple is associated with inferiority and stupidity. In our world, things move from simple to complex. So we had better sort out quickly what we mean by simple and complex in… Continue reading Simple
What is God like?
A little while back, we opened up the question about “Who is God?” We saw that people can either believe the truth about God or lies about God. It is when we believe lies about God that we end up in a mess. Believing lies leads to sin and idolatry; believing lies about God means… Continue reading What is God like?
The Trinity and broken friendships
We now come to Precosia, the last of the group of people we met a little while back. With each of the scenarios, we have seen that what we believe about God and specifically about the Trinity is relevant to how we handle pastoral situations in the life of the church. The Doctrine of the… Continue reading The Trinity and broken friendships
Relationships and the Trinity
Remember Juliet? We left her sitting in a coffee shop gazing into the eyes of Romeo. So, a few days later, you meet up with Juliet for coffee and you broach the subject: “So who’s the guy?” She tells you that they met at work, they really like each other and have been on one… Continue reading Relationships and the Trinity
