How is God invisible? / Is history an endless, dismal cycle? / Common lies young girls believe about beauty

For the audiovisual version of the bulletin (YouTube, about 3 minutes, read by Chase Mackintosh), click here. 

Good morning from Istanbul! I’m in this part of Turkey for a conference on the Seven Ecumenical Councils (AD 325-787), and another marking the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicea (325). More on this conference next week. In the meantime, you’ll find below more pictures from the Seven Churches conference/tour, as well as from Nicaea.

In today’s bulletin:

• Two new Q&As

• Common Lies Young Girls Believe about Beauty

• Are US Christians the “spiritual smiley button of suburban America”?

Q&A 1697: How is God Invisible?

What does 1 Timothy 6:16 mean? Paul says no one can see God. But don’t we see Jesus?

In the New Testament, the word God almost always refers to the Father. The Father is invisible. But Jesus is not. The Son of God became human; the Word became flesh. The Father could not have done this, since no one can see him. Consider the following scriptures:

• “You cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live” (Exod 33:20). In the presence of the consuming fire (Heb 12:29), we’d be incinerated. We couldn’t possibly bear to see God in all his holiness! That’s why Moses is permitted to see only God’s “back” (Exod 33:18-23).

• No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known (John 1:18). Although we cannot see God (the Father), we can know him through Jesus.

• Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” (John 14:8-9) In the incarnation we know God; we see the Father. See also John 1:14.

• Paul makes the same claim in Colossians. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation (Col 1:15). For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily (Col 2:9).

• To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen (1 Tim 1:17). It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honour and eternal dominion. Amen (1 Tim 6:16).

So yes, we do see God through Jesus. But we can no more directly behold the Father than we can stare into the sun.

Q&A 1698: History an endless, dismal cycle?

I read in my study Bible that the original audience for 1–2 Kings was probably the Israelites carried off into exile in Babylonia. With Jerusalem burned to the ground, they were struggling to make sense of it all—to maintain some kind of hope. Why did this happen? Is the Lord unfaithful? Or is Yahweh weaker than the gods of Babylon? 1–2 Kings provides a clear answer to these questions: the exile came as a result of Israel’s and Judah’s obstinate disobedience to the Mosaic covenant. I think I'm genuinely starting to believe that this cycle will never actually end. — S.F.

The notes are correct about the audience. Even Genesis seems to have been written from Jews in Babylon! Consider the strong theme of displacement from the land—Adam and Eve, Cain, the patriarchs settling in Egypt, etc.

But if we’re seriously examining biblical history, we accept that these cycles will eventually end. Time itself is linear, not cyclical. History is linear. There will be a new beginning for all—a new heaven and a new earth!

More Incisive Thoughts from Renaissance

”In recent times American evangelicals, in their foolish failure to learn from Protestant liberalism and their passionate desire to escape any taint from their recent fundamentalist past and to be ‘relevant’ and ‘seeker sensitive,’ have largely forgotten the required doubleness or the deliberate ambivalence of this stance. Evangelicals little realize how they have become the spiritual smiley button of suburban America” (85).

“Carl F. H. Henry, the great Evangelical theologian and leader used to say of his fellow believers in the United States, ‘Earlier, it was next to impossible to get Evangelicals out into the culture. Now it is equally impossible to get the culture out of Evangelicals.’ In its shallow and noisy worldliness, much Evangelicalism has become little more than the culture-religion of the declining Christian consensus that once dominated America” (120).

Common Lies Young Girls Believe about Beauty
by Kristen Wetherell

It is so easy for girls—young or old—to believe worldly lies about beauty. The world will tell us that our beauty is found in the way that we look, and we better look a certain way. The world will tell us that our greatness is found in what we can achieve. And the world will tell us to rely on people and their affirmation for our self-worth. KEEP READING

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