I apologize for the large image files on my blog here. The art of file compression is not one I have mastered.
This image was one taken at a little creative seminar at the Willow Creek Arts Conference back in June. One of my table-mates created the image and it came to mind as I was reading the Gospel of John for a small group study we're in. The light-dark motif in John's gospel is a prominent theme.
As we were reading the story of "Nic at night" and the conversation with Jesus, I was struck by the usage and translation of the "born again" phrase which is probably more accurately translated born from above. But Nicodemus misunderstood Jesus' words (palin in the Greek) and took the literal meaning. Crazy to think now that an entire approach to evangelism and explaining spiritual regeneration is based on Nic's misunderstanding.
As our group discussed this passage though, the real interesting debate was around the juxtaposition of flesh and spirit. In ways we don't even realize, we often equate our spirituality with things we can do, manifest, or accomplish in the flesh. Yet there's this mysterious "wind" blowing from above which is the real source of all that is spirit. And we are just to position ourselves to be acted upon by the Spirit so that our lives can be a living demonstration of what God is doing.
If we could just live in the light instead of darting around in the shadows finding occasional pockets of light to warm and illuminate us.
1 comment:
Your file size was good 16KB. Hope things are going well.
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