You write with an amazing clarity, in a refreshing way that quiets the soul. And you are discussing some very central truths that are profound, in ways that are very understandable. Thank you!
Thank you so much for all your kindness and encouragement. I pray that some of my thoughts might help us move forward in understanding Him, one another, and ourselves. Thanks again, Bill!!!
it's taken me a while, but I think I'm finally grasping what you've been saying. I'm a right brain 'requisite' thinker (regions developed in my right hemisphere to compensate for damage in my left that happened in the perinatal period; fifty years in adult interactions in academics, for most of it, showed me that my brain thinks 'differently' than others :) ).
I begin to see something profound that you've helped me see by your writings. I processed through the first grappling with it, the way I have learned to do in the academic environment i served in, after seeing the delightful 'academic exchange' between you and Sam, after you posted your academic paper on Aimee's wordpress site.
As I've done for decades, I simply 'explained what I had learned' but expanding on what you said by posting in a detailed statement, the foundation of man and woman being made BOTH to represent the image of God and to carry out the mandates given in Genesis 1; which then is given in more specific detail in Genesis 2.
I'm beginning to see a 'whole' that is coming clearer, but not yet fully visible to me. And what I've done when that happened in medicine, was to find colleagues with understanding that I could dialogue with who had overlapping knowledge in the area of interest, but whose expertise extended into areas of my ignorance, so that together, our understanding might provide what we needed to grasp the area not year clearly in view.
And then I'd posit something as clearly as I could frame it...
I see that there is something intriguing God wants us to understand about both 'man' and 'woman' being 'made in the image of God', but also about 'maleness' and 'femaleness' informing us about the nature of God, as well, but in a way different from what we see in the image of God in 'man' and (versus-i.e, adding something more when we understand 'woman'.
In dealing with the 'nature of God', we of course, will find ourselves 'confronted by Mystery' and unable to express things in ways that bring us a full explanation and understanding.
I am systematically working my way through the work you've published on academia. There is much that is edifying to digest.... thank you!
I didn't mention some of the many other things your writing has been helpful and illuminating. Of course, I'm 'writing to the choir'; the information about the Hebrew use of 'side'; the descriptions of women and their call to serve in various ways throughout scriptures, and other work you've written, I've skimmed through and gained illumination from; I am working through your other academic papers currently, because I think i have grasped enough of your core paradigm, that I can begin to understand what you're contributing to our understanding, more completely.... my goal is always to learn, and help others understand what I've learned, so that they benefit from it as I have...
Anna, I'm going back to reread your articles in order to absorb your thought better, so you may be seeing more comments on older articles.
This view of "image of God" proved a turning point in my practice of counseling. Some influences in my life gave me the sense that it was somehow my responsibility as a Christian to exude an air of disapproval around non-Christians. How awfully backwards! One day I was discussing our Christian counseling presuppositions with some colleagues and said, "Well, we must always start with our sin nature." My colleague said, "No! We must start with the image of God in each person." Of course I was familiar with the phrase and the idea, but now the implications pressed themselves on my heart. I was free to love and appreciate every individual who walked through my door! My first task is not to help them see how sinful they are, but to welcome them as God welcomes us poor sinners, as the father welcomes the prodigal son.
However, it also poses the issue you raised: “It seems odd that the image is the reason we are called to preserve our neighbor’s life in Genesis 9:6, if that very image consists in hostility to God.” Very briefly, my thoughts are tending in the direction that it is not “the thing” (image) that is damaged, but rather that the orientation of “the thing” is radically altered, from toward God to away from and hostile to God. I see this reflected in the many metaphors the Bible uses to describe the essence of humans, such as the heart. As you have said, “I have thoughts and desires that tell me both that “you created my inner being” and “sin indwells me.” And that we must not confuse anthropology with soteriology.
In addition, I just appreciate so much the beauty and vitality you bring to the study of women, and by necessary extension, to all humans and to God himself in all his glorious unity and diversity.
Yes, the orientation. IMO, we mirror God's unity and diversity as well as his personal distinctions (processions). My neighbor cannot help but be like God in this sense. He is the natural image of God, from, through, and to God (Gen. 1-2). Under the fall, we continue to image God as stamp and impression, but our desires are corrupt. We no longer desire or even acknowledge the one we were made to fit. Renewed by the Spirit, we are again compelled to draw near to him, recognizing that we are the impression of his stamp, made for him. As Augustine wrote, our souls our restless until we find our rest in him. By nature as image-bearers, we cannot help but be one of two things: restless or at rest in him. We cannot love our neighbor as ourselves if we see our neighbor first and foremost as the enemy or God and our enemy. We must begin where God begins in Genesis 1 with the image of God, which is the basis for the command not to murder, and by Jesus's extension, to rain down that love on the "righteous" and the "unrighteous," being "perfect . . . as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt 5:48). My neighbor mirrors to me the wonder of the triune God, and for that reason, I love him sincerely from the heart. We start with our neighbor's likeness to God, not his enmity against God. His enmity with God compels our witness, not our disgust.
Maybe there is something else as well. We are not only fitted to God, but to one another in our unity and diversity (in all our individual differences, male and female, from all tribes). We were made to fit with our neighbor. I think this is often missed as an impulse for loving and proclaiming. When I picture myself in Zion, I am shoulder to shoulder with my brothers and sisters from all tribes and tongues and nations. I am in an ocean of diversity. And it is fitting, because we fit. It seems to me that our neighbor's salvation translates to exponential never-ending joy for us. We are fitted to one another, and this was ordained by God as the reflection of the "fittedness" of three divine persons and means our never-ending joy in union and communion with one another.
I believe that marriage is a foretaste of the intimate unity we will enjoy with all of our brothers and sisters in Christ in the new heavens and new earth. We do not yet have the capacity to handle that, but marriage gives us the picture of it.
You write with an amazing clarity, in a refreshing way that quiets the soul. And you are discussing some very central truths that are profound, in ways that are very understandable. Thank you!
Thank you so much for all your kindness and encouragement. I pray that some of my thoughts might help us move forward in understanding Him, one another, and ourselves. Thanks again, Bill!!!
it's taken me a while, but I think I'm finally grasping what you've been saying. I'm a right brain 'requisite' thinker (regions developed in my right hemisphere to compensate for damage in my left that happened in the perinatal period; fifty years in adult interactions in academics, for most of it, showed me that my brain thinks 'differently' than others :) ).
I begin to see something profound that you've helped me see by your writings. I processed through the first grappling with it, the way I have learned to do in the academic environment i served in, after seeing the delightful 'academic exchange' between you and Sam, after you posted your academic paper on Aimee's wordpress site.
As I've done for decades, I simply 'explained what I had learned' but expanding on what you said by posting in a detailed statement, the foundation of man and woman being made BOTH to represent the image of God and to carry out the mandates given in Genesis 1; which then is given in more specific detail in Genesis 2.
I'm beginning to see a 'whole' that is coming clearer, but not yet fully visible to me. And what I've done when that happened in medicine, was to find colleagues with understanding that I could dialogue with who had overlapping knowledge in the area of interest, but whose expertise extended into areas of my ignorance, so that together, our understanding might provide what we needed to grasp the area not year clearly in view.
And then I'd posit something as clearly as I could frame it...
I see that there is something intriguing God wants us to understand about both 'man' and 'woman' being 'made in the image of God', but also about 'maleness' and 'femaleness' informing us about the nature of God, as well, but in a way different from what we see in the image of God in 'man' and (versus-i.e, adding something more when we understand 'woman'.
In dealing with the 'nature of God', we of course, will find ourselves 'confronted by Mystery' and unable to express things in ways that bring us a full explanation and understanding.
I am systematically working my way through the work you've published on academia. There is much that is edifying to digest.... thank you!
Bill
I didn't mention some of the many other things your writing has been helpful and illuminating. Of course, I'm 'writing to the choir'; the information about the Hebrew use of 'side'; the descriptions of women and their call to serve in various ways throughout scriptures, and other work you've written, I've skimmed through and gained illumination from; I am working through your other academic papers currently, because I think i have grasped enough of your core paradigm, that I can begin to understand what you're contributing to our understanding, more completely.... my goal is always to learn, and help others understand what I've learned, so that they benefit from it as I have...
Anna, I'm going back to reread your articles in order to absorb your thought better, so you may be seeing more comments on older articles.
This view of "image of God" proved a turning point in my practice of counseling. Some influences in my life gave me the sense that it was somehow my responsibility as a Christian to exude an air of disapproval around non-Christians. How awfully backwards! One day I was discussing our Christian counseling presuppositions with some colleagues and said, "Well, we must always start with our sin nature." My colleague said, "No! We must start with the image of God in each person." Of course I was familiar with the phrase and the idea, but now the implications pressed themselves on my heart. I was free to love and appreciate every individual who walked through my door! My first task is not to help them see how sinful they are, but to welcome them as God welcomes us poor sinners, as the father welcomes the prodigal son.
However, it also poses the issue you raised: “It seems odd that the image is the reason we are called to preserve our neighbor’s life in Genesis 9:6, if that very image consists in hostility to God.” Very briefly, my thoughts are tending in the direction that it is not “the thing” (image) that is damaged, but rather that the orientation of “the thing” is radically altered, from toward God to away from and hostile to God. I see this reflected in the many metaphors the Bible uses to describe the essence of humans, such as the heart. As you have said, “I have thoughts and desires that tell me both that “you created my inner being” and “sin indwells me.” And that we must not confuse anthropology with soteriology.
In addition, I just appreciate so much the beauty and vitality you bring to the study of women, and by necessary extension, to all humans and to God himself in all his glorious unity and diversity.
Yes, the orientation. IMO, we mirror God's unity and diversity as well as his personal distinctions (processions). My neighbor cannot help but be like God in this sense. He is the natural image of God, from, through, and to God (Gen. 1-2). Under the fall, we continue to image God as stamp and impression, but our desires are corrupt. We no longer desire or even acknowledge the one we were made to fit. Renewed by the Spirit, we are again compelled to draw near to him, recognizing that we are the impression of his stamp, made for him. As Augustine wrote, our souls our restless until we find our rest in him. By nature as image-bearers, we cannot help but be one of two things: restless or at rest in him. We cannot love our neighbor as ourselves if we see our neighbor first and foremost as the enemy or God and our enemy. We must begin where God begins in Genesis 1 with the image of God, which is the basis for the command not to murder, and by Jesus's extension, to rain down that love on the "righteous" and the "unrighteous," being "perfect . . . as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt 5:48). My neighbor mirrors to me the wonder of the triune God, and for that reason, I love him sincerely from the heart. We start with our neighbor's likeness to God, not his enmity against God. His enmity with God compels our witness, not our disgust.
Maybe there is something else as well. We are not only fitted to God, but to one another in our unity and diversity (in all our individual differences, male and female, from all tribes). We were made to fit with our neighbor. I think this is often missed as an impulse for loving and proclaiming. When I picture myself in Zion, I am shoulder to shoulder with my brothers and sisters from all tribes and tongues and nations. I am in an ocean of diversity. And it is fitting, because we fit. It seems to me that our neighbor's salvation translates to exponential never-ending joy for us. We are fitted to one another, and this was ordained by God as the reflection of the "fittedness" of three divine persons and means our never-ending joy in union and communion with one another.
I believe that marriage is a foretaste of the intimate unity we will enjoy with all of our brothers and sisters in Christ in the new heavens and new earth. We do not yet have the capacity to handle that, but marriage gives us the picture of it.
This is beautiful, Anna.