The Lord

What is God like? What sort of being could create and sustain the universe? From atoms to parsecs. For billions of years. And ... why?

To contemplate the qualities of God is mind-boggling, and then to realize that God cares for us individually and is intimately present in our lives is also astounding.

The Lord communicates indirectly, in order to give us the freedom to opt in.

What can we learn about faith from one of the Lord's first disciples, Simon Peter?

Maybe it's obvious, but... one of the key things for a true understanding of life, the universe, and everything (hat tip to Douglas Adams) is to think hard and learn as much as you can about the nature of God. Here's a list that will spur your thinking.

New Christian teaching regards the Holy Spirit as a force, or activity, coming from God -- not a separate being. This aligns with our everyday understanding of "spirit" as the projection of someone's personality.

In this Bible study, we try to read Scripture from an angelic rather than earthly perspective to decipher what the Trinity is and why it is discussed the way it is in the Bible.

In which we look at what the Word says about Jesus and Jehovah...

Three times, in the Gospel of John, Jesus tells people to ask for something "in My name". It sounds very much like intercession, i.e. that Jesus and "the Father" are separate people. But we know they aren't. What does it really mean?

When Jesus died on the cross, the veil in the temple in Jerusalem tore in half, from top to bottom. It was a spiritual watershed.

Jehovah once calls Himself "I AM". It's one of the Bible's deepest statements about the nature of God.

Some of the old ways of thinking about this are... wrong!

As human beings, we're able to get just a glimmer of the ideas of forever - eternity - and infinity.

What happened with the birth, life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth? Was he the Messiah, the Christ, whose coming was prophesied many times in the Old Testament?

How can truth make something? How can truth sustain something? Imagine if you could mix elements of dreaming and being awake...

The Christian church took a wrong turn, at the Council of Nicea, in 325 AD. They debated the nature of Jesus Christ, and the majority opinion got it wrong.

The Divine needs to connect with what's been created, especially to what is human.

Part of the Christian message is the concept of redemption. What does it mean, to say that the Lord redeemed people?

"The Lord's coming does not consist, as the letter has it, in His appearing once again in the world, but in His presence within everyone." (Arcana Coelestia 3900, Emanuel Swedenborg)

Swedenborg uses the word “glorification” in relation to Jesus’s life on earth, as the Divine in Him was strengthened and developed.

Exinanition is a seldom-used word that means "emptying out" or "taking away." It can be used to describe some of the states of mind that the Lord experienced during his life on earth, when He felt separated from the Divine. We go through states like this, too, in our lives, when we feel doubt, emptiness, and disconnectedness.

The widely-known triad of philosophical concepts - ends, causes, and effects - is used to express a pattern that underlies everything that we do. How does it work?

Could there be reasons for the humble, vulnerable beginnings of Jesus’s life? Let's explore how the Divine design may have been at play from the very beginning of Christ's life.

"The people who walk in darkness" symbolize people who have faith -- they are walking -- but it's a dim faith, without much knowledge of the genuine truths in the Word. And yet, when the Lord is born, they are receptive.

The most important truth of the New Christianity is that there is a God - one God - who created heaven and earth.