Category: Advent

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Advent Recent Posts

Expectancy or Expectations? Ready Or Not For God’s Work

I was fully of expectancy when our first son was born.  I had expectations when our second son was born.  With our first I had no idea what was going to happen, how it was going to be, or what he would be like.  I just knew I needed to be ready—for anything.  Because the […]

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Advent Recent Posts

Rupture in Our Relationship (Advent with Isaiah)

Holiday parties are the times when you run into people you haven’t seen in a while.  Maybe people you have been avoiding, people that just rub you the wrong way.  And parties also have unexpected guests.  Those uninvited intrusions that just throw everything off.  While Christmas is something people look forward to, Advent reminds us […]

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Advent

1 Thing about Advent We Usually Forget

We lose sight of the Spirit of Advent—and I don’t mean what you think. Advent is training in the art of waiting, learning to anticipate and long for the coming kingdom of God. Advent is learning to say, “Come, Lord Jesus, come.” Advent reminds us of the glorious coming of the Son in the first […]

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Advent Christology discipleship ecclesiology Epiphany God Recent Posts Tabernacle Temple

Being the Temple for the World #1

On Sunday we started new class on “God with Us: Being the Temple for the World”

I know that not everyone at Life on the Vine could make it, and perhaps others on the inter-webs might be interested, so I’m going to try and write up quick summaries of each class.

We started with the question of “What does the phrase ‘God with us’ make us think about it”? Answers ranged from this being a comforting promise to it being a truth that can seriously let us down. Is God ‘with us’ in our ideas, opinions, our community, the world? And really, how, when, and where is God ‘with us’? Is “GOD with us” or “God with US”? And what does this have to do with “salvation”, and “eschatology”, and all those other theological words?

God With Us

After this discussion I began to set the terms and outline for the class. The first is “God with us.”

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Advent Recent Posts

God With Us, #1: From Garden to Garden.

New Jerusalem, by Gustave Doré

The season of Advent prompts me to think on the coming of Christ, of Immanuel, God with us.  It makes me think of the deep mysteries of the Incarnation and the doctrine of Christology (that Christ is both God and human).  And yesterday was the first Sunday of Advent, the day in which we remember […]