Like humility and meekness, biblical gentleness is not a human personality trait. It is a spiritual awareness of our one-ness with each other in weakness. It is a quality that understands and lives from a relational awareness of mitigating circumstances. It does not demand its just due from stark legal, quid-pro-quo dynamics. Gentleness is like mercy. It is a tempering quality to the severity that is always inherent in naked justice.
Copyright 2021. Dr. Stephen R. Crosby. www.stevecrosby.org. For video and audio resources, sign up as a student here. You will find a mix of both free resources and those with cost. This ministry is sustained by the freewill offerings of those believe in the message of a radical grace in a new covenant understanding. If this blog article has been a blessing to you, would you prayerfully consider making a contribution through our Paypal button to help? Stephanos Ministries is NOT a 501-c-3 corporation Click here to understand why. Thank you and God bless you.
Biblical meekness, like humility, is also not a personality type. It has nothing to do with an external demeanor of diffidence. It does not involve being an emotional eunuch. It is about being fully alive, experiencing all range of emotion, but having those emotions under the rein of the governance of Christ. It does not mean I live as a doormat for others to abuse or degrade me.
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Copyright 2021. Dr. Stephen R. Crosby. www.stevecrosby.org. For video and audio resources, sign up as a student here. You will find a mix of both free resources and those with cost. This ministry is sustained by the freewill offerings of those believe in the message of a radical grace in a new covenant understanding. If this blog article has been a blessing to you, would you prayerfully consider making a contribution through our Paypal button to help? Stephanos Ministries is NOT a 501-c-3 corporation Click here to understand why. Thank you and God bless you.
This episode briefly explains how the early church redefined the Greek idea of humility of “largeness of soul” or “magnanimity” to “littleness of soul” before a great God. Humility is not chronic self-awareness of one’s personal short-comings. Insecure and timid people are always intimidated by someone who is truly humble, biblically defined. Jesus was gentle, meek, and full of humility. Yet He was crucified by good, conservative, religious people (Roman and Jewish). If we think gentleness, meekness and humility are qualities that are going to make us well-liked or popular “Church-folk”, we are in for a shock.
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Copyright 2021. Dr. Stephen R. Crosby. www.stevecrosby.org. For video and audio resources, sign up as a student here. You will find a mix of both free resources and those with cost. This ministry is sustained by the freewill offerings of those believe in the message of a radical grace in a new covenant understanding. If this blog article has been a blessing to you, would you prayerfully consider making a contribution through our Paypal button to help? Stephanos Ministries is NOT a 501-c-3 corporation Click here to understand why. Thank you and God bless you.
We all bring filters to the Scriptures when we read them. Our cultural values and ethics always intrude into and conform the text to what makes us comfortable. This is especially the case when it comes to what many believers think constitute the virtues of humility, meekness and gentleness. They are not just pleasant human personality traits. This episode introduces the topic that will follow on for the next five weeks.
The significance of God in the flesh often gets lost in the familiar parts of the Christmas narrative. Why was the incarnation necessary? Just so someone could die to “satisfy” the Father? Jesus as God incarnate, fully human, is more than a metaphysical commodity to sustain an atonement theory.
Simplicity in Christ
Jesus is simple. The Bible isn’t. Jesus is deeply, profoundly, unknowably, unfathomably, costly, and painfully–simple.
Copyright 2020. Dr. Stephen R. Crosby. www.stevecrosby.org. For video and audio resources, sign up as a student here. You will find a mix of both free resources and those with cost. This ministry is sustained by the freewill offerings of those believe in the message of a radical grace in a new covenant understanding. If this blog article has been a blessing to you, would you prayerfully consider making a contribution through our Paypal button to help? Stephanos Ministries is NOT a 501-c-3 corporation Click here to understand why. Thank you and God bless you.
It is human nature to react to a reaction with a reaction, swinging from extreme to extreme. Because the Body of Christ, the Church, is made up or human beings, that tendency is common in the Church universal and local churches. One “new insight” [sic] that ends up being over-emphasized creates and equal and opposite reaction that is over emphasized! What I call the “sweet spot” or the “radical middle” can be elusive. Viewing God, the Scriptures, and the Christian life in static categories rather than a living dynamism, is part of the problem. Even the mildest shift in emphasis to someone whose identity is at an extreme, is perceived as a threatening compromise. It doesn;t matter which ditch we end up in, we are neutralized in either.
Photo by Sunrise Photos on Unsplash
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Copyright 2020. Dr. Stephen R. Crosby. www.stevecrosby.org. For video and audio resources, sign up as a student here. You will find a mix of both free resources and those with cost. This ministry is sustained by the freewill offerings of those believe in the message of a radical grace in a new covenant understanding. If this blog article has been a blessing to you, would you prayerfully consider making a contribution through our Paypal button to help? Stephanos Ministries is NOT a 501-c-3 corporation Click here to understand why. Thank you and God bless you.
Money Can’t Buy Me Love
The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls . . . So wrote Simon and Garfunkel in their 1966 hit song, The Sound of Silence. If we pay close attention, we will find that the secular artists (poets, musicians, authors, etc.) of a culture often speak kingdom values and insights to the people of God with a clarity not found among the people of God.