The (Lieben)GOOD LIFE

Here are some notes to a talk I have given about the way in which solitude can be thought of as an act for community. Perhaps this will be helpful in our time of social distancing and isolation. May we take advantage of this time to be alone with the Lord. Time Alone for the Sake of Others Kelly Liebengood How do we build up one another? How do we become a community in which iron sharpens iron? Counterintuitively, we must be alone in order to be a blessing to our community.  A lesson from Bonhoeffer (“The Day Alone” in Life Together ) a.                    “Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. Let him who is not in community beware of being alone.” (p. 78) “The person who comes into a fellowship because he is running away from himself is misusing it for the sake of diversion... Let him who cannot be alone beware of communit y. He will...

A People of the New Exodus There is actually more texture to the story of 1 Peter 1.1-2.10 than first meets the eye. To appreciate this, we must recall the most important and foundational event in the Old Testament, the Exodus—in which God demonstrated His faithfulness and power by redeeming Israel from the grip of Pharaoh of Egypt. The Exodus story becomes the paradigm for a future restoration that will not only impact Israel but also the entire world. In a variety of ways, Old Testament prophets like Isaiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Micah, and Zechariah spoke of a day in which God will again redeem His people from exile and slavery and fulfill His covenant that He made to Abraham (Genesis 12.1-3), Moses (Exodus 19.1-6), and David (2 Samuel 7)—a covenant that was intended to bring peace and restoration to the whole world. In the first section of the letter (1.1-2.10), Peter describes what Jesus has accomplished on our behalf in terms of a New Exodus; and he characterizes the readers as...

In his Theological Anthropology: A Guide for the Perplexed , Marc Cortez underscores that in the long-standing debate about what "image of God" means, most agree that the term has to do with humans "reflecting" divine reality in some form or another.  As he traces the history of that discussion (the structural image, the functional image, and the relational image), Cortez notes that the challenge comes when we try to explain more precisely what is reflected, where this is reflected in humanity, and how this reflection actually takes place. In his assessment, the nature of the imago Dei remains an important and unresolved issue in contemporary theology.  Cortez does his part to offer a way forward by characterizing the imago Dei as "representational presence". But what is it that is being represented? 1. As image-bearers, humans represent the presence of divine reality in symbol while at the same time affirming a real difference between the tw...