I was preaching at our church tonight as our pastor is on holiday. I preached on God as Trinity making sense of God's plans being "for the praise of his glory". Father glorifies Son etc, so "self"-glorification is an ultimate example and basis for human humility, rather than being divine inconsistency.
But my own ego, which might just have experienced some inflation from the opportunity to preach, was held well and truly in check. The congregation was almost a third of normal evening attendance. (Normal evening attendance is really low anyway!).
In such a small group (11 folk plus myself), preaching seems a bit strange. Perhaps it would've been better to have a discussion. I did offer ... but I think folks felt they had come to church and sothe correct thing would be to listen to a sermon, or maybe they felt it was hard enough for the "kid", never mind having folks heckling him too ... But it was fun ... Talking of egos, my wife bought me a T-shirt for Fathers day (from the kids obviously !) with the slogan "Admire the view" across the chest. So how does one wear a T-shirt like that? Wearing a mask I guess...
Image: The Trinity and All the Saints, by Jean Fouquet (15th c.)
2 comments:
Last time I preached, the congregation was noticeably thin on the ground...
Which came first - everyone's holiday plans or the 'guest preacher'..?
I understand the bit about the Trinity helping us to understand how God can be pleased with Himself, but can you explain a bit more about how God's self-glorification is a basis for human humility?
You couldn't resist the gravitational pull of the blogosphere. Good to hear from you.
God's self-glorification ... what I meant was that in Eph 1:1-14, arguably the three persons of the Trinity are each given glory through the outworking of the eternal plan of God. In John we read that it is the Father who glorifies the Son, the Son who glorifies the Father etc in this plan. So God's self glorification is actually self-emptying, and therefore totally consistent with Jesus commands to the disciples to put others first. God is glorified by self-emptying rather than by self-agrandisement (is that even a word?)... No read this Brash blog ...
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