An Eden Project Podcast
Waking us up to the width, length, height, and depth of God’s love.
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As we saw in part one of this series, not every theologian begins from the same theological starting point.1 Different historical and cultural contexts have produced different questions and shaped the theological emphasis on a given era, over time influencing theological development. Some theologians build their doctrinal framework off the foundation of the Bible, others western philosophical concepts of God, others the Trinity, others sovereignty, etc.2 Very few of them have as the foundation and controlling principle the love of God. As Kevin Vanhoozer observed: “It is exceedingly odd that Christian theologians have themselves been somewhat indifferent–inattentive, neutral–with regard to the concept of the love of God, if we are to judge from their often oblique, indistinct, or awkward treatments of the subject.”3 This is strangely suspicious, given the entire metanarrative of Scripture has the love of God as its primary message.4 First John 4:8 and 16 state in no uncertain terms: “God is love.” From a grammatical standpoint, my friend Dan Wallace makes the critical point that the way this sentence is constructed gives the predicate nominative (love, agape) a qualitative sense, or is describing what the subject is like. This, coupled with the fact that the noun agape is abstract, what you see is an emphasis on the essence of the subject, as opposed to a definite (“the love”) or indefinite (“a love”) noun. In other words, the grammar is intentionally constructed to show unequivocally that the essence, . . .
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I’ve always been fascinated by the way John begins the first of his short letters: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, . . .
In Princess and the Goblin, George MacDonald shares a beautiful story of a grandmother who deeply loves her granddaughter. Wishing her granddaughter to walk in . . .
As we bring this series to a close, it is imperative we address what is for many the elephant in the room, so to speak. . . .
As we’ve seen in this series, love as the controlling center of theology traditionally has either been neglected or ignored.1 But it hasn’t always been . . .
Waking us up to the width, length, height, and depth of God’s love.
Discipleship at the intersection of neurobiology, psychology, and attachment.
