Sermon Illustrations for Trinity Sunday (2014)
Illustration
Object:
Genesis 1:1--2:4a
On November 28, 1660, a group of twelve men met at Gresham College in London to listen to a lecture by Christopher Wren. Afterward they decided to meet weekly to discuss scientific topics. Their organization, which continued to expand in membership, did not receive official recognition until 1662 when King Charles II granted them a royal charter. The group then became officially known as the Royal Society of London with the purpose of "improving natural knowledge." Most of the members were Christians and the society became a leading force for scientific inquiry.
Application: The Genesis story does not negate scientific inquiry. The real significance of the Creation story is to understand the place of man and woman in God's unfolding universe.
Ron L.
Genesis 1:1--2:4a
Trying to relate the Creation accounts in Genesis with modern science is tricky but not impossible. Long ago, Martin Luther offered sage advice on this matter:
... one must accustom oneself to the Holy Spirit's way of expression. With the other sciences, too, no one is successful unless he has first duly learned their technical language... Now no science should stand in the way of another science, but each should continue to have its own mode of procedure and its own terms.
(Luther's Works, Vol. 1, p. 47)
Theology (which is itself a science [the Science of God]) and the physical sciences each have their own legitimate realms and so need not conflict.
One such connection between theology and the physical sciences is evidenced in the text's account of light preceding the creation of the sun (1:3, 6). This could be compatible with the Big Bang Theory and its claim that the energy created by the Big Bang is still being transmitted, ever inflating the universe or even other parallel universes (Brian Greene, The Hidden Reality, esp. pp. 22-56).
If instead the Trinity doctrine is the focus of treatment of this text (on grounds that God speaks in the plural at some points in these accounts), Martin Luther cites a helpful image first written by Augustine: "The Father is the Mind; the Son is the Intellect; and the Holy Spirit, the Will" (Luther's Works, Vol. 1, p. 50).
Mark E.
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
That biblical word "perfection" has puzzled me. When I think of perfection, I think of a perfectly polished auto body or a precisely painted wall in a house or a polished piece of wood furniture. But when I went to the mountains on a retreat a few years ago, I sat and looked out a viewing window and saw the rugged mountain peaks and the valleys full of trees. I thought it was a "perfect" view. But then it occurred to me that those peaks were uneven and jagged. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason. The trees were also random and each tree was different, although I could tell if it were an oak or a pine. It did not conform to my idea of "perfection" in human terms.
So God must have a totally different idea of perfection than I have. We like to draw precise "perfect" lines, but where would you draw a precise line to separate the valley from the mountain. There was no doubt that there was a mountain and it was obvious that there was a valley, but there was no way to separate them on a precise perfect line. God's idea of "perfection" must be totally different than mine.
No two leaves were alike, but they obviously belonged to the same tree where they came from.
We humans are also very different. There are books on medicine and psychology, but they are very general. Like the mountain and the valley the difference was obvious, but the uniqueness of each was also obvious. But we are still commanded to be of one mind.
That was a lesson we must never forget. In our striving for perfection, we must keep in mind God's idea of perfection and not try to make all God's people look and act identically. Paul tells us that some will be prophets and some will be teachers and so forth. We are each parts of a body -- which is Christ's body. Our perfection means we fit perfectly into God's master plan.
Bob O.
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
As the Nicene Creed declares, there is one living and true God... And in the unity of this godhead there be three persons of one substance, power, and eternity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. This simply means that all of the godhead comes to our human aide when we ask. We may ask in prayer in the name of the Father, or in the name of Jesus, or in the name of the Holy Spirit; but we can rest assured that God in three persons comes to our side with all the power ever needed! Discouraged? There is power to be encouraged. Tempted? There is power to overcome. Convicted? The power to respond. Sinful? The power to break free.
Derl K.
Matthew 28:16-20
This account of the great commission in this text gets us thinking about evangelism. About this topic Martin Luther wrote: "The godly rejoice when the gospel is widely spread, many come to faith, and Christ's kingdom is increased in this way" (What Luther Says, p. 959).
The noblest and greatest work and the most important service we can perform for God on earth is bringing other people, and especially those entrusted to us, to the knowledge of God by the holy gospel (Ibid., p. 958).
We need these insights badly in view of the inertia about evangelism among American Christians. Largely stoked by a sense of the relativism of all values, a U.S. News & World Report 2002 poll reported that 7 in 10 of us disapprove of seeking to convert people to Christianity. Little has changed about these attitudes in the last decade.
Some good reasons can be cited about how much we help people in bringing them to Christ. A 2011 Gallup poll found that religiously inclined people who worship frequently are happier than the population as a whole. This is not surprising if we are acquainted with the latest research on the human brain. It seems that in spiritual exercises we exercise the brain's prefrontal cortex and so receive more generous quantities of the brain chemical dopamine, which results in positive, joyful sensations (Dean Hamer, The God Gene, pp. 72ff; Daniel Amen, Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, p. 81).
If the Trinity doctrine is the focus of treatment of this text, early church theologian Gregory of Nyssa offers an intriguing image. If we think of evangelism as bringing light and fire to the world, he speaks of the three persons of the Trinity as three distinct torches, each transmitting the same light (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 5, p. 317). The three persons each bring one light to the world, but together the flame is more intense.
Mark E.
Matthew 28:16-20
James Edwin Orr was born on January 15, 1912, in Belfast, Ireland. His birth date seemed to constantly reoccur in his life, for on that date he was converted to Christianity under the influence of his mother, was married, was ordained into the Baptist church, and became a chaplain in the U.S. Air Force during World War II. But what is more significant than the date of January 15 is that Orr traveled the globe as an evangelist. It would be easier to list the countries that he did not hold revivals in than to recount all of those countries that he did. In his later years of life he became a professor at Fuller Seminary's School of World Missions. Dr. Orr died in 1987. One of the lasting contributions that he made is his study of revivals. It was his conclusion that all revivals originated from prayer meetings.
Application: And Jesus instructed us to go and make disciples of all nations.
Ron L.
On November 28, 1660, a group of twelve men met at Gresham College in London to listen to a lecture by Christopher Wren. Afterward they decided to meet weekly to discuss scientific topics. Their organization, which continued to expand in membership, did not receive official recognition until 1662 when King Charles II granted them a royal charter. The group then became officially known as the Royal Society of London with the purpose of "improving natural knowledge." Most of the members were Christians and the society became a leading force for scientific inquiry.
Application: The Genesis story does not negate scientific inquiry. The real significance of the Creation story is to understand the place of man and woman in God's unfolding universe.
Ron L.
Genesis 1:1--2:4a
Trying to relate the Creation accounts in Genesis with modern science is tricky but not impossible. Long ago, Martin Luther offered sage advice on this matter:
... one must accustom oneself to the Holy Spirit's way of expression. With the other sciences, too, no one is successful unless he has first duly learned their technical language... Now no science should stand in the way of another science, but each should continue to have its own mode of procedure and its own terms.
(Luther's Works, Vol. 1, p. 47)
Theology (which is itself a science [the Science of God]) and the physical sciences each have their own legitimate realms and so need not conflict.
One such connection between theology and the physical sciences is evidenced in the text's account of light preceding the creation of the sun (1:3, 6). This could be compatible with the Big Bang Theory and its claim that the energy created by the Big Bang is still being transmitted, ever inflating the universe or even other parallel universes (Brian Greene, The Hidden Reality, esp. pp. 22-56).
If instead the Trinity doctrine is the focus of treatment of this text (on grounds that God speaks in the plural at some points in these accounts), Martin Luther cites a helpful image first written by Augustine: "The Father is the Mind; the Son is the Intellect; and the Holy Spirit, the Will" (Luther's Works, Vol. 1, p. 50).
Mark E.
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
That biblical word "perfection" has puzzled me. When I think of perfection, I think of a perfectly polished auto body or a precisely painted wall in a house or a polished piece of wood furniture. But when I went to the mountains on a retreat a few years ago, I sat and looked out a viewing window and saw the rugged mountain peaks and the valleys full of trees. I thought it was a "perfect" view. But then it occurred to me that those peaks were uneven and jagged. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason. The trees were also random and each tree was different, although I could tell if it were an oak or a pine. It did not conform to my idea of "perfection" in human terms.
So God must have a totally different idea of perfection than I have. We like to draw precise "perfect" lines, but where would you draw a precise line to separate the valley from the mountain. There was no doubt that there was a mountain and it was obvious that there was a valley, but there was no way to separate them on a precise perfect line. God's idea of "perfection" must be totally different than mine.
No two leaves were alike, but they obviously belonged to the same tree where they came from.
We humans are also very different. There are books on medicine and psychology, but they are very general. Like the mountain and the valley the difference was obvious, but the uniqueness of each was also obvious. But we are still commanded to be of one mind.
That was a lesson we must never forget. In our striving for perfection, we must keep in mind God's idea of perfection and not try to make all God's people look and act identically. Paul tells us that some will be prophets and some will be teachers and so forth. We are each parts of a body -- which is Christ's body. Our perfection means we fit perfectly into God's master plan.
Bob O.
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
As the Nicene Creed declares, there is one living and true God... And in the unity of this godhead there be three persons of one substance, power, and eternity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. This simply means that all of the godhead comes to our human aide when we ask. We may ask in prayer in the name of the Father, or in the name of Jesus, or in the name of the Holy Spirit; but we can rest assured that God in three persons comes to our side with all the power ever needed! Discouraged? There is power to be encouraged. Tempted? There is power to overcome. Convicted? The power to respond. Sinful? The power to break free.
Derl K.
Matthew 28:16-20
This account of the great commission in this text gets us thinking about evangelism. About this topic Martin Luther wrote: "The godly rejoice when the gospel is widely spread, many come to faith, and Christ's kingdom is increased in this way" (What Luther Says, p. 959).
The noblest and greatest work and the most important service we can perform for God on earth is bringing other people, and especially those entrusted to us, to the knowledge of God by the holy gospel (Ibid., p. 958).
We need these insights badly in view of the inertia about evangelism among American Christians. Largely stoked by a sense of the relativism of all values, a U.S. News & World Report 2002 poll reported that 7 in 10 of us disapprove of seeking to convert people to Christianity. Little has changed about these attitudes in the last decade.
Some good reasons can be cited about how much we help people in bringing them to Christ. A 2011 Gallup poll found that religiously inclined people who worship frequently are happier than the population as a whole. This is not surprising if we are acquainted with the latest research on the human brain. It seems that in spiritual exercises we exercise the brain's prefrontal cortex and so receive more generous quantities of the brain chemical dopamine, which results in positive, joyful sensations (Dean Hamer, The God Gene, pp. 72ff; Daniel Amen, Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, p. 81).
If the Trinity doctrine is the focus of treatment of this text, early church theologian Gregory of Nyssa offers an intriguing image. If we think of evangelism as bringing light and fire to the world, he speaks of the three persons of the Trinity as three distinct torches, each transmitting the same light (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 5, p. 317). The three persons each bring one light to the world, but together the flame is more intense.
Mark E.
Matthew 28:16-20
James Edwin Orr was born on January 15, 1912, in Belfast, Ireland. His birth date seemed to constantly reoccur in his life, for on that date he was converted to Christianity under the influence of his mother, was married, was ordained into the Baptist church, and became a chaplain in the U.S. Air Force during World War II. But what is more significant than the date of January 15 is that Orr traveled the globe as an evangelist. It would be easier to list the countries that he did not hold revivals in than to recount all of those countries that he did. In his later years of life he became a professor at Fuller Seminary's School of World Missions. Dr. Orr died in 1987. One of the lasting contributions that he made is his study of revivals. It was his conclusion that all revivals originated from prayer meetings.
Application: And Jesus instructed us to go and make disciples of all nations.
Ron L.
