Serious Ministry

Part of Christian parlance is to speak of “the ministry” or “the minister” to refer to a set of professional religious activities and the professionals so employed. That’s a rather unfortunate happenstance of how religious terms develop, because ministry refers to everything Christians do to build up the body of Christ: “…the work of ministry…

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Sober or Sombre Worship?

Sober and sombre are differentiated by just one letter, but they mean very different things.1 “Sober,” in modern usage, means “not drunk”. Its fuller meaning is “clear-thinking, serious-minded, respectful, wise”. In Scripture, to be sober-minded is to be without the flippancy, silliness, irrationality, and impulsiveness so common among those who are inebriated. A sober person takes life seriously…

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Serious Children’s Ministry

Let’s imagine we took children seriously. What would that look like? To be serious-minded regarding our children would be to fully understand their nature and their destiny. A clear-headed approach to children recognises that these are image-bearers, responsible and accountable to their Creator. As small, cute, and amusing as they may be, they are immortals,…

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Seriously Unserious

You can learn a lot about your culture by what it mocks. Mockery is a great way to teach what is to be avoided and despised. Scorn also has the advantage of avoiding explanations or argumentation. The group of laughing scoffers don’t offer reasons for why they point and laugh – it’s just assumed that…

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I AM: Salvation

The ancient Hebrews were not shy to include portions of the Sacred Name in their own names. Every Hebrew name that ends with the suffix “-ah” or begins with the prefix “Jeho/ Yeho” is some form of God’s name. Micah means “Who is like YHVH?” Jehoshaphat means “YHVH is Judge”. Perhaps the most important of…

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I AM: Infinity

The name of God reveals much of the kind of being God is. The sheer simplicity of the term “I AM” or “He is” belies how many layers of meaning it has. Aseity,1 eternity, immutability, simplicity, and tri-unity are implicit in the term. So, too, is the idea of infinity. To say I AM THAT…

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I AM: Trinity

“The Trinity is in the Old Testament present but concealed; The Trinity is in the New Testament present and revealed.” True enough, and equally true of how much the covenant name of God reveals of the Trinity in the respective Testaments. When Moses first learns God’s name, there is something implicit in the conversation that…

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I AM: Ineffability

When God declares “I AM THAT I AM”, He is explaining to us, as best as human language can communicate, what He is. Philosophy, and specifically that branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, studies the nature of reality. It breaks things down into their component parts, hoping to reach the final essence that makes up the substance of…

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I AM: Immutability

The covenant name of God communicates profound depth with a two-word simplicity: I AM. The hallowed Name of God contains a wealth of truth, if we will stop to peer into its depths, and not merely notice its surface. I AM THAT I AM reveals a God who is immutable: unchanging and unchangeable. To say…

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I AM: Eternity

“I AM THAT I AM” communicates an eternal timelessness inconceivable to human experience. We exist in a fractional, fleeting, unquantifiable moment that we call “now”. But “now” becomes past as quickly as it arrived from the future. Most of our life, considered from the point of view of experience, is either past or future. Memory…

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