concepts to challenge your mind

I've had this filed away for some time now but I thought that in light of my last post, it may be appropriate to drag it out. I perceive Brian McLaren (and many others) struggle with some of this specifically and moreover, with the problem of trying to rewrite God's intent to fit our human capacity to understand. I may be wrong on that but I like this list by John Piper regardless.

According to Piper, these are a examples of biblical truths that most fallen minds have no conceptual categories for conceiving.

1. All persons are accountable for their choices, and all their choices are infallibly and decisively ordained by God.

• [He] works all things according to the counsel of his will. (Ephesians 1:11)
• On the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak. (Matthew 12:36)

2. It is not sin in God to will that there be sin

• “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it [the evil acts of Joseph’s brothers] for good. (Genesis 50:20)

3. What God decrees will come to pass is not always the same as what he commands that we do, and may indeed be the opposite.

• For example, he may command, “Thou shalt not kill,” and decree that his Son be killed: “It was the will of the Lord to crush him” (Isaiah 53:10).

4. God’s ultimate goal is the exaltation and display of his own glory, and this is at the heart of what it means for him to love us.

• And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” (John 17:5)
• Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory.” (John 17:24)

5. Sin is not primarily what hurts man but what belittles God by expressing unbelief or indifference to his superior worth.

• My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. (Jeremiah 2:13)

6. God is perfectly just and orders the complete destruction of the inhabitants of Canaan.

• Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just? (Genesis 18:25)
• But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes. (Deuteronomy 20:16)

7. The key to the Christian life is learning the secret of acting in such a way that our acts are done as the acts of Another.

• Walk by the Spirit. (Galatians 5:25)
• Put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit. (Romans 8:13)

8. Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh.

• And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. (Galatians 5:24)

9. “The virgin shall conceive and bear a son.” (Matthew 1:23)

10. “Before Abraham was I am.” (John 8:58)