Helpful, excellent and uplifting explanatory sermon, Canon Harmon. May I encourage you to post your sermons and other worship from South Carolina regularly?j
Great sermon! You really preached! I knew you could teach, but I’m glad to hear you preach. Very powerful stuff, the reality of the Trinity and its implications. You conveyed it well. I wish I could hear you preach more often.
Let me echo what Pageantmaster and Langley say, and thank you for having the courage to preach on the Trinity on Trinity Sunday. You are in a distinct minority of priests and ministers.
Yes, worth preaching on. I do think, looking ahead, that the Trinity ought to be talked about more in terms of its necessity to explain what is going on in the life and ministry of Jesus. That is, I have come to think it is (strategically and materially) most important to focus on this aspect–the history of Jesus–not so much the 1 in 3 and 3 in 1 analogies or diagrams, though that has a place. Focusing on the historical part in a trinitarian way keeps us close to scripture, avoids merely conceptual issues, and can keep us properly suspicious of the move from, say, a social model of the Trinity to implications which forget things like our estrangement from God, sin, redemption, and incoroporation via the economy of salvation, as if, say, mutuality in the eternal being of God endorses and legitimates simpliciter mutuality (in whatever form) here and now.
And we are created in three parts, spirit, soul and body in God’s triune likeness (I Thessalonians 5:23) and the soul is has three parts as Dallas Willard, in Renovation of the Heart, sees it: mind, will and emotions. Our job is to cooperate and allow God to bring these two inner trinities into God’s Kingdom and divine order, attuned to and ruled by the trinity that Jesus is, the Way of Love, Truth and Life (John 14:6). Doing so is a process, a lifelong one.
Remarkably good sermon on a subject that too many shy away from. I was disappointed this Sunday not to hear preaching on the trinity so this was more than welcome. Thank you
I was surprised by the intensity with which you spoke. In most of your public appearances you are so soft spoken. I must commend for your clarity of expression. Your quote of Chevy Chase Theology made us laugh; my wife often uses that one.
Two minor quibbles: The Isaiah (pronounced Isaiah) quote is “here am I, send me” not “here I am” which would a presumptuous assertion of equality with God. The other is an appeal to the visual vs auditory learner which is ‘education’ theory nonsense. People may be habituated differently but qualitatively different things are learned in different modes. I refer you to Elluls “the Humiliation of the Word” as an example.
I do wonder what you make of the quantum mechanics dilemma of light being both light wave and particle without extinguishing either property.
Thank you for that wonderful sermon and explanation of the Trinity. You preach with passion and love. Great stories too.
God truly is the only real home some of us have ever known…and if you find a loving healthy church family where Jesus is Lord and first love, that can be a surrogate healing family too.
You needn’t worry about the quibbles, Stefano; your comment on Isaiah is apt. I refer to my wife’s family correctly as Irish catholic and then a few sentences later change it to Italian. Urgh.
I do think people have differing learning approaches which better suit them the way God put them together, but, as you say, they are by no means mutually exclusive.
As for the science mention, remember I am a chemistry major; quantum mechanics has been a life long fascination.
Helpful, excellent and uplifting explanatory sermon, Canon Harmon. May I encourage you to post your sermons and other worship from South Carolina regularly?j
Great sermon! You really preached! I knew you could teach, but I’m glad to hear you preach. Very powerful stuff, the reality of the Trinity and its implications. You conveyed it well. I wish I could hear you preach more often.
Let me echo what Pageantmaster and Langley say, and thank you for having the courage to preach on the Trinity on Trinity Sunday. You are in a distinct minority of priests and ministers.
Yes, worth preaching on. I do think, looking ahead, that the Trinity ought to be talked about more in terms of its necessity to explain what is going on in the life and ministry of Jesus. That is, I have come to think it is (strategically and materially) most important to focus on this aspect–the history of Jesus–not so much the 1 in 3 and 3 in 1 analogies or diagrams, though that has a place. Focusing on the historical part in a trinitarian way keeps us close to scripture, avoids merely conceptual issues, and can keep us properly suspicious of the move from, say, a social model of the Trinity to implications which forget things like our estrangement from God, sin, redemption, and incoroporation via the economy of salvation, as if, say, mutuality in the eternal being of God endorses and legitimates simpliciter mutuality (in whatever form) here and now.
Also, the Trinity allows us to say God IS love.
And we are created in three parts, spirit, soul and body in God’s triune likeness (I Thessalonians 5:23) and the soul is has three parts as Dallas Willard, in Renovation of the Heart, sees it: mind, will and emotions. Our job is to cooperate and allow God to bring these two inner trinities into God’s Kingdom and divine order, attuned to and ruled by the trinity that Jesus is, the Way of Love, Truth and Life (John 14:6). Doing so is a process, a lifelong one.
Remarkably good sermon on a subject that too many shy away from. I was disappointed this Sunday not to hear preaching on the trinity so this was more than welcome. Thank you
I was surprised by the intensity with which you spoke. In most of your public appearances you are so soft spoken. I must commend for your clarity of expression. Your quote of Chevy Chase Theology made us laugh; my wife often uses that one.
Two minor quibbles: The Isaiah (pronounced Isaiah) quote is “here am I, send me” not “here I am” which would a presumptuous assertion of equality with God. The other is an appeal to the visual vs auditory learner which is ‘education’ theory nonsense. People may be habituated differently but qualitatively different things are learned in different modes. I refer you to Elluls “the Humiliation of the Word” as an example.
I do wonder what you make of the quantum mechanics dilemma of light being both light wave and particle without extinguishing either property.
Thank you for that wonderful sermon and explanation of the Trinity. You preach with passion and love. Great stories too.
God truly is the only real home some of us have ever known…and if you find a loving healthy church family where Jesus is Lord and first love, that can be a surrogate healing family too.
You needn’t worry about the quibbles, Stefano; your comment on Isaiah is apt. I refer to my wife’s family correctly as Irish catholic and then a few sentences later change it to Italian. Urgh.
I do think people have differing learning approaches which better suit them the way God put them together, but, as you say, they are by no means mutually exclusive.
As for the science mention, remember I am a chemistry major; quantum mechanics has been a life long fascination.