God clearly shows his power in everything that he has made. The universe more and more looks like a mind instead of an accident. God carefully constructed the universe to run as it does to show his magnificent power to us. Unfortunately, humanity has made mistakes in interpreting God's great power. In the past, people would worship the works themselves instead of the all-powerful God behind them. They made God's works into gods themselves and ultimately missed God completely. Now, people look at the great universe that God has powerfully created and look at the means that God uses to run the universe. They then come to the conclusion that the means exist in and of themselves for no virtually no reason at all. Once again, they miss God completely. Blessed is the one who can look at and study the universe God created and worship God himself because of it.
“For the heavens and the highest heavens cannot contain Him.” (2 Chronicles 2:6)
God is so far above us that we cannot even comprehend it. He is infinite, he cannot be contained. Everything else is finite and can be contained which instantly makes God infinitely greater than everything else. Just as the biggest number that you can think of is infinitely smaller than an infinite number, we are infinitely smaller than God. It makes no difference whether we are greater than another finite being or object because in comparison to God we are all in the same place. If we call God a friend or "homeboy" we are instantly losing sight of his infinitude and have replaced God with a false god created by us. Now this does not mean that God will not befriend us but we should always approach him with the utmost respect and awe and adoration that is necessary. "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name."
God is everywhere. We can interact with him anywhere, anytime. This is what the Romans passage brings out. We dont have to go to great lengths to finally find God because he is right around us all the time. God has blessed every human being with his presence every day of their life. But there is a small catch. God is spirit. He is not visible on a day to day basis through our eyes like so many other things around us are. This means that we must seek him in ways that are not very familiar to us. We must seek to find him in the invisible realm in which he dwells. This is what the Acts passage brings out. He is so close to everyone but we must reach out of the material world in which we live in order to find God. Is this unfair of God. Of course not because "hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?" In the end it is simple, we forsake the usual means that we use to seek things and draw near to God through faith and confession and he promises that he will also draw near to us.
Essentials: the attributes of God, the teaching of the Trinity, and Christology.
Corey,
ReplyDelete1. Competent thinking here. You did handle the thought of Romans. However, I would have liked to see more direct handling of the word itself.
2. Good response. I like the creative use of the verses. Don't be afraid to "unpack" them, though. Let their content become your response. Try not to cimply cite verses to back up what you are saying, but spoon feed the listener straight from their inherent logic.
3. Again, I believe your response is fine, nothing objectionable, but you could have stayed with the flow of logic in Romans until it played out, then handled Acts separately. Both of the passages make big points.