Family and Relationships

God helps people through other people. The world will not get well overnight. Only by the slow process of education, and by the ever-widening influence of those who do put the Lord first in their lives is it possible for the world to progress, for from the Lord alone can this power come.

Becoming a "good" person is a process. You invite the Lord into your life and trying to live according to His will instead of your own selfish will.

"Charity" is an English rendering of the Latin word "caritas", which is the root of the verb “to care.”

Didn’t Jesus say that marriages don’t exist in heaven? Here's a short video explaining the New Christian perspective on the topic.

The modern understanding of chastity isn't really correct.

The Bible doesn't go into a whole lot of depth on the topic of marriage, but if you dig around, you can find some interesting references. Rev. John Odhner has done exactly that in this article.

"Девица, сгодена за мъж..." В тази кратка фраза се съдържат много важни истини. Това е един наистина добър коледен урок по вероучение!

We need to marry a desire for good to a true understanding of how to be good. The search for this union is the basis of spiritual rebirth.

What part does friendship play in a marriage, melding the hearts of two people into one?

There are good ways to use your judgment, and bad ways, too. This article is about the bad ones.

Good judgment... is a good thing. How do you cultivate it?

It's nice to be loved. What about the reverse?

Love is God, love is life, love is the goal of every person, love is what takes us to heaven or hell, love is the actual source of all matter and energy in the universe...

Freedom -- what is it really? As far as we can tell, our level of freedom is pretty new, at least in this neck of the cosmos.

Covenant, Reciprocation, and Conjunction are three parts of the process of our spiritual rebirth.

As human beings, we get stuck all the time in conflicts between what we want and what we know. We want to eat that extra piece of pie, but we know over-eating is bad for us.....

Swedenborg describes temptation as an assault or an attack on what we spiritually have come to love.

Repentance doesn’t just mean confessing our sins, being forgiven, and then forgetting about it and going right back to what we were doing before. In order to truly repent, we need to change our ways.

Imagine a society where everyone is always "looking out for #1".

This was the guiding philosophy of the great man, and great Chicago Bears running back, Gale Sayers.

Sometimes, when someone doesn't live up to their professed standards, we think "there's another hypocrite." Is that fair? The answer is: It depends.

Here are some excerpts from the Bible about forgiveness.

The "as-of-self" is a key doctrinal concept in New Christian theology.

Swedenborg uses the term, "to appropriate", in a distinctive way.

What do you do in situations like these? Can you forgive them? Should you forgive?

What does the Bible say about abortion? It actually says a lot. Sometimes you hear people say that the Bible doesn't address it, and... really, that's not true. Here's one passage that is well known, in which it's very clear that Elizabeth's baby, in the womb, already has spiritual awareness: "When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit." (Luke 1:41)

God is often described as angry or jealous in the Old Testament. How does this fit into our idea of God being loving and forgiving? The answer is in understanding the difference between anger and zeal.

People in this world who think and speak well of others "are like the angels" (Arcana Coelestia 1088)

These ideals are for people of all time. Every angel who comes into heaven will know the blessings of marriage, and realize its highest ideals.

The purpose of baptism is not well understood in the world today. Some people view it in almost magical terms--as something which will automatically bring grace to the one who is baptized. What does New Christian teaching say about it?

When a person becomes a church, he has found a dwelling place, a home inside his heart and mind where the Lord can dwell.

In the Holy Supper, or communion, the bread stands for the Lord's good, and the wine stands for His truth. When we eat and drink, there's a correspondence between these natural acts and the spiritual acts of reception.