When Jesus taught and lived that God is a loving Father, it meant that Jesus trusted that God is more committed to bringing about good for us than God is committed to avoiding personal hurt and pain. As Ben Witherington III remarks, “to say God ‘is love’ is to say that God is the most self-sacrificial being in the universe, and as such he was prepared to go to incredible lengths to set humankind right.” (Found that quotation in an Archaeology magazine of all places!) Do you find it encouraging, scary, or perhaps both to realize that God is vulnerable and can be hurt by what you do and do not do?
The God described in biblical writings is creative, good, relational, purposeful, responsive, and personal. God is the God who speaks things into existence and who is the source of the spiritually energized “word.” Complicated, confusing, and even easily misunderstood at times from our human perspective? Yes! Silent sometimes when we want to hear—right now? Yes! But, still always a relational God, bent on communicating with us humans, seeking to show us that God is for us, and hurt when we don’t accept that grace and mercy.
If we take the biblical claims about the One God seriously, we humans are invited to enter a great adventure with God. Austin Channing Brown calls this adventure a call to live “wildly holy and free.” Not a bad way to capture the security and risk involved in relating to “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus the Messiah.”
I love the two statements that ended with a resounding “yea “! You have a very Jewish way of thinking 😁. When we lived in Israel, I shared with some friends that some aspects of faith seemed yes and yes ( though opposed in written form). My friends declared that this was the way Jewish people thought, coming from the way of studying in Torah school.
Thanks Bev. I am honored to be learning to think more like a Jewish person. Great to hear from you. Blessings. Sorry to be a bit slow responding.
Most of us were brought up theologically to think of God as a Judge and as much as we tried to hold opposing ideas in tension the message of God’s condemnation overwhelmed our sense of a loving God.
The words of William Sloane Coffin delivered in the eulogy at his son’s funeral, killed in a car accident, helped settle this in my soul: “when the waves (of the Boston Harbor) closed over the sinking car, God’s heart was the first of all our hearts to break”.
AMEN! Hard to get through our hearts and heads isn’t it! Great hearing from you. Sorry to be a bit long replying.