Posted in textures, tagged 1 John, biblical reflection, John, textures on December 5, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Only rarely does human language capture such a rich swath of reality in a short declaration as here:
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.
Human experience could almost be considered a fleshing out of this fundamental dogma. (more…)
Posted in textures, tagged 1 John, biblical reflection, John, textures on November 5, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Among the strongest claims that the New Testament makes bold to present is the idea of our divine parentage and, therefore, our family likeness to Jesus. Awash in the notion of love as the foundational component of Christian life, the first Johannine letter discerns divine initiative at the root of this familial inclusion. Paul would have called it ‘adoption’. The Johannine tradition captures the same objective while avoiding that distinctive Pauline vocabulary:
See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.
Canter Bridge 