Rebecca Stark is the author of The Good Portion: Godthe second title in The Good Portion series.

The Good Portion: God explores what Scripture teaches about God in hopes that readers will see his perfection, worth, magnificence, and beauty as they study his triune nature, infinite attributes, and wondrous works. 

                     

Sunday
May262019

Sunday's Hymn: All the Way My Savior Leads Me

 

 

 

All the way my Saviour leads me—
What have I to ask beside?
Can I doubt his tender mercy
Who through life has been my Guide?
Heav’nly peace, divinest comfort,
Here by faith in him to dwell—
For I know, whate’er befall me,
Jesus doeth all things well.

All the way my Saviour leads me,
Cheers each winding path I tread,
Gives me grace for ev’ry trial,
Feeds me with the living Bread.
Though my weary steps may falter,
And my soul athirst may be,
Gushing from the rock before me,
Lo, a spring of joy I see!

All the way my Saviour leads me—
O the fullness of his love!
Perfect rest to me is promised
In my Father’s house above:
When my spirit, clothed, immortal,
Wings its flight to realms of day,
This my song through endless ages:
Jesus led me all the way!

—Fanny Crosby

 

 Other hymns, worship songs, or quotes for this Sunday:

Friday
May242019

Selected Reading 

I read (or watched or heard) these recently and recommend them to you.

Scripture

Did the Church Decide Which Books Made It Into the Bible? 
Michael Kruger explains the Protestant view of the canon using an analogy from ordinary life.

Bible 

The Whole Bible in 12 Verses
Andrew Wilson chose 12 verses to summarize what the Bible teaches. 

Theology

Justification and Imputed Righteousness
Two more excellent five-minute explanations from Ligonier’s Simply Put podcast. 

Church History

The Messy-yet-Instructive Culture Surrounding the Canons of Dort
“They cared about their theology so much. There’s a story even in the Synod of Dort when one particular delegate was expressing himself—perhaps not very well—and was showing some Arminian sympathies and one of the leading delegates challenged him to a duel on the spot.

According to Kevin DeYoung, there’s something we can learn from this bit of history. 

English

“Run” Is the Most Complex Word in the English Language
But it hasn’t always been.

Tuesday
May212019

Theological Term of the Week: Cataphatic Theology

 

cataphatic theology
A method of describing God by saying what he is; a positive affirmation of God. (For example: God is love. God is holy.)1

  • From None Greater by Matthew Barrett:

    Cataphatic theology is affirmative by design, occuring whenever we assert what God is. Nevertheless, as long as God-talk remains analogical, our cataphatic excitement must be tamed the wisdom of its older sister, apophatic theology, which describes God by what he is not.  …

    All in all, there is a balance to be struck. We must carefully balance the discontinuity, lest we strip God of his infinitude and think that the image is the same as that which it images.2

  • From The Christian Faith by Michael Horton:

    [T]he communicable attributes are typically identified by the way of eminence (via eminentiae), by highlighting attributes in which creatures share analogically but in a qualitatively inferior manner, often identified by the “omni-” prefix (for example, omnipotent, omniscient).  …  Refusing to be an idolatrous projection of our own ideas of perfecion, God infinitely transcends all comparisons. Nevertheless, out of love for his creatures, God condescends to our finite capacity by selecting analogies that are appropriate but nevertheless fall short of his majesty.3

 

Learn more:

  1. Theopedia: Cataphatic Theology

 

Related terms:

 

Filed under God’s Nature and His Work

 

1From None Greater, page 248.

2 From None Greater, page 37-38.

3 From The Christian Faith, page 225.


Do you have a a theological term you’d like to see featured as a Theological Term of the Week? Email your suggestion using the contact button in the navigation bar above. 

Clicking on the Theological Terms button will take you to an alphabetical list of all the previous theological terms.