If You Can't Say It About Jesus...

Beth shared a link to this article with me today: If You Can't Say It About Jesus, Don't Say It About God. Jason Micheli brings some fresh thoughts and new perspective to the theology of trinity:

Think about how many people you’ve heard, after a natural disaster or a tragic death or the diagnosis of disease, say something like: ‘It’s God’s will.’

     Trinity means that for that to be a true statement you have to be able to remove ‘God’ and replace it with ‘Jesus.’

     Trinity means that it’s not a true statement unless you’re able to say:

 ‘My mom’s cancer was Jesus’ will.’

 ‘Hurricane Katrina was Jesus’ will.’

 ‘9/11 was Jesus’ will.’

     For Paul, Trinity functions not as a philosophical concept but as a grammatical rule. Trinity binds us to the character and story of Jesus.

     We can’t say or think or act like God hates ‘sinners’ because we know Jesus didn’t.

     We can’t say or think or act like God doesn’t care about the poor because we know Jesus did.

    We can’t say or think or act as if God is against our enemies because we know Jesus loved them.

Click the link above to read the entire article. It tells a great story...one that also relates to the "fruit" of love that we've been discussing most recently.

Trinity and Monotheism

Check out Hebrew For Christians for some Messianic Jewish/Christian thoughts on the trinity. This follows up our discussion on how sometimes Jews and Muslims, those who also hold to a strong belief in monotheism, struggle with the idea of the trinity. From John Parsons article, The Trinity: Multiplicity in Oneness:

The idea of the "Trinity," however, is clearly implied in the Scriptures. From the first letter of Torah (i.e., the Bet in the word "Bereshit") through the last letter of the New Testament (i.e., the Nun in the word "Amen") -- the letters of which spell the word בּן ("Son") -- we see God as defined as One yet expressing Himself in different Persons. God the Son is "First and Last" (Isa. 48:12, 44:6, Rev. 1:17, 2:8; 22:13).

And this article here: Hebrew Names of God: Hashilush Hakadosh - Is the Trinity Biblical?

Although the word "Trinity" (Ha-shilush Ha-kadosh) does not directly appear in the Scriptures, it is an entirely Jewish concept, derived from both the Tanakh and the Brit Chadashah.

And from the same article comes this lovely quote...

Monotheistic systems that attempt to reduce God to absolute monism are not unlike the ancient Greek pagan philosophers who said things like, "Everything is Water" or "Everything is Number." These systems attempt to be "rational" but end up limiting the power of God Himself... God is LORD over all possible worlds - the great cosmos as well as the subatomic realms - and He can surely do whatever He wills with creation. The triune nature of the Godhead implies that what is most real and true about ultimate reality is community and love.

Take some time to read the whole articles when you have the chance! They're dense, but totally worth the read!!

Other analogies for the Trinity

The previous post contains a video of the children's book, 3 in 1: A Picture of God, describing the trinity as a an apple. In our last discussion, we mentioned several other analogies for the trinity, and I thought I would search some of them out and post them here in our blog. The trinity is a difficult concept to understand, one that the church has been wrestling with for generations. These are some ways that the trinity has been conceptualized:

Water:

This analogy has a couple of variations. Some say that the trinity is like a molecule of water: H2O (two hydrogens, one oxygen). These are three atoms but they make up one molecule.

The second variation is that there are three states of water, solid, liquid & gas, but they are all water.

Egg:

The egg is made up of the shell, the white, and the yolk. Together they form an egg.(The following illustration is from a great article about how God is like an egg, but not like an egg; like water, but not like water: God is like...)

Three Leaf Clover:

3 Dimensions:

From Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, Chapter 23:

You know that in space you can move in three ways - to left or right, backwards or forwards, up or down. Every direction is either one of these three or a compromise between them. They are called the three Dimensions. Now notice this. If you are using only one dimension, you could draw only a straight line. If you are using two; you could draw a figure: say, a square. And a square is made up of four straight lines. Now a step further. If you have three dimensions, you can then build what we call a solid body: say, a cube - a thing like a dice or a lump of sugar. And a cube is made up of six squares.

And...

In God's dimension, so to speak, you find a being who is three Persons while remaining one Being, just as a cube is six squares while remaining one cube.

  The Points of a Triangle:

A Pretzel?

This is actually kind of cute, from a page about teaching kids the Bible: Jesus Did It All.

3 in 1: A Picture of God

The subject of our last discussion was the Holy Spirit, and, by extension, the doctrine and meaning of "trinity." Last week Nora mentioned a children's picture book that describes the trinity like an apple. It looks to me like the book is 3 in 1: A Picture of God by Joanne Marxhausen. I was so excited to find a youtube reading of the book! Check it out: