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Gospel centred sermons, based on the lectionary often in advance.

May 27, 2012

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Focus Readings: Romans 8:12-17, John 3:1-17

The Trinity – What’s it all about?

It seems impossible but I am at least three people in one. I am a Dad, I am a husband and I am a son. It sounds ridiculous and impossible doesn’t it. How could I be all three at the same time?

What I’ve just described is a way of understanding the nature of God. It’s not a perfect way, because the church’s understanding of the Trinity is that there is one God but three distinct people who can even talk to each other. I think though that it’s better than the ice, water, steam analogy that some of you may have heard.

It’s better because it helps us to understand that God is personal. God relates to us as a good parent to a child or as a friend who gets alongside us – God also seems to share those same relationships with God- Father, Son and Spirit.  

From its Jewish Heritage and the Old Testament the church believed God was One, but in the early church and the New Testament, Jesus and not just the Father is worshipped as God, the Spirit is said to be the Spirit of Jesus and the Spirit of God. All three are also referred to in personal terms. The Trinity was the church’s way of describing what they experienced of God and heard in the teaching of the Jesus and the Apostles.

One way of looking at our faith is to see it as God sharing with us the personal relationships that Jesus, the Father and the Spirit share. We are children of a loving parent, companions with the Spirit and brothers and sisters of Christ.

Questions for thougt and discussion.

What do you think of the notion that the best way to understand the trinity is in terms of relationship rather than theory?

Why do you think Jewish people who fiercely believe there is only one God, could worship Jesus as divine? 

How do you react to the idea that we share in the relationship between the Father, Son and the Spirit?

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