We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
God is Not a Monster
God is not a monster. There are monster god theologies, but they are mistaken.
Accusation and scapegoating, the ravages of war and the wages of sin, these are monsters. The cruel vagaries of chance — until they are tamed by Christ in the age to come — may fall upon us as monsters. But God is not a monster. God is love. Jesus reveals this to us. If we move against the grain of love we will suffer the shards of self-inflicted suffering — and we can call this the wrath of God if we like — but the deeper truth remains: God is love.
So don’t sit in the dark with the tormenting idea that God somehow harbors malice and ill-will toward you. It’s all a cruel fiction. Turn on the light of Christ and realize that the monster you imagined does not exist. Who exists is Jesus. And he is the one who says to you, “It is I, be not afraid.”
You can find the whole post here.
Photo credit: ScottSimPhotography / Visualhunt.com / CC BY-NC-ND
Category: General
Tags: Attributes of God, Character of God, God is Love, Jesus
Related Reading
The Distinctive Mark of Jesus Followers
Jesus’ teaching to love our enemies was understandably shocking to his original audience—just as it is to us today. Jesus expected much, which is why, after telling his audience to love their enemies he added that if we only love those who love us and do good those who do good to us, we’re doing…
Sermon: Diaper Power
In this short clip from Greg Boyd’s Sermon Diaper Power, he introduces the theme of the sermon where talks about how the poverty of the manger exemplified the power of God. In this sermon, Greg shows that God really is like the baby swaddled in clothes in the manger. The kind of power that God…
Is God Immutable? Part II
Yesterday, we looked at the common understanding of divine immutability and the problems inherent to it. Click here to read that post. Today, let’s look at what the immutability of God actually means. Instead of accepting Plato’s misconceived ideas about perfection, followers of Jesus should keep our eyes focused on Jesus and thus view all…
Drum Roll Please: Greg’s Final Critique of Bart Ehrman’s Article
This is the ninth and final of several videos Greg put together to refute Bart Ehrman’s claims published in the article What Do We Really Know About Jesus? Thanks for hanging in there for this last one. I know it was a long wait, but the holidays got inordinately busy for Greg. In this segment, Greg talks…
Why Did It Take SO Long for God to Reveal Himself in Jesus?
Greg talks about why it took God so long to reveal himself in Jesus. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0048b.mp3
Is Your Christianity Shaped by Plato or the Bible?
The Timaeus is a work that Plato wrote that addresses the questions: “What is that which always is and has no becoming, and what is that which becomes but never is?” (Tim. 28a)? These questions contain one of the most influential – and, in my opinion, one of the most disastrous – philosophical ideas of…