When We Think of God
The Secret to Understanding The Bible
Lesson #1 in Studying The Bible – Part 1
This first piece you have heard before, God in three persons. God is a being that is not a human-being. God is a being that is made up of three parts that operate as one as well as independently. Therein lies the first challenge when we think of God.
You may be wondering what this has to do with studying the Bible. We will get to that because in order to understand The Bible, one must understand God or at least one of the pieces of God. This idea is what I like to think of as a next level view of God. To begin picking this apart, let’s focus on what we know, God in three pieces. If you’ve been in the church community, you have, many times, heard people refer to this as the trinity. God is a tri-part being.
The Three Pieces that Makeup God
Because of our lack of a good understanding of how The God-being works, we lack the words to express how God can operate as three parts separately and then operate as three in oneness. You may not know this, then again, you might, but it bears restating. Church-people often say that God has three attributes, or three parts, or three personalities, or there are three persons to the being that we call and refer to as God. So, what are these pieces and parts? If we were to leave the religious definitions of God behind for just a moment, how would you describe God’s three parts?
The Unlimited Being
If we think outside of the normal words used in describing the three parts of God, what would we call the first part known as God, The Father?
Most people outside the church-community don’t know God as Father, but rather as the supreme being. In fact, they may use qualifiers that limit God. For example, they might say God of the universe, God of Heaven, or God of Earth. Ordinary people in their humanity (or human-beings) by default, limit God because frankly human-beings are limited. God, however, has no limits. God isn’t just God of the universe because that implies someone else might be the God beyond the universe. Therein lies the next uncommon idea about God. He is the unlimited being. This is important when we read the Bible or study the Bible. We must remember that what we are about to read is that of a limited being interacting with a limitless being. Next, let’s keep tracking.
The One who unites Earthly with Heavenly
If we think outside of the normal words used in describing the three parts of God, what would one call the second part known as The Son?
I must emphasize this over again. People outside of the church-community don’t understand this son part either. However, they have heard that Jesus is the son of God. There are two challenges here. One, in order to understand the son of God, a person must know what or who God is. Secondly, why does God need or have one son? In fact, that second question is one that requires “next level” thinking that not even most people in the church-community have. Allow me to explain without going into the details behind it. Said simply. This son is The One who brings Heaven and Earth into alignment or together. [1] This Son is The One who unites Earthly with Heavenly and Human-beings with The Unlimited-being. [2] We will get into this a little more later. Let’s continue to part three of God.
The Invisible Force of God
One final time, if we think outside of the normal words used in describing the three parts of God what would a person call the third part known as The Holy Spirit?
The final part of who God is, is the most mis-used and misunderstood part followed by The Son as close second. Most church-goers find it difficult to explain this piece because of how the church-community has used and described attributes of this third part to God. However, being that this is a lesson in Bible study and not theology, allow me to provide this insight. The Spirit of God is the invisible force that operates in both the physical (Earth) and spiritual (Heavens) that’s brought into alignment by The Son. One of the prophets said it this way, the Spirit [of God] will be poured on us from Heaven. [3] In other words, this invisible force from Heaven will impact the earth. The witnesses of Jesus’ baptism saw this invisible force descend from Heaven like a dove landing upon Jesus. [4] In other words, a force never before seen came down from the sky and landed on a human-being, Jesus. Just allow that to penetrate your thoughts as we will speak to this further, later in this series.
Now that we have a little better picture of God, what we need to gain from this knowledge is that one cannot simply think of God as supreme-being, as aligner of Heaven and Earth, or as an invisible force operating between the two, but rather all of this. By the way, it’s only by faith can a person believe such a thing. [5] In this way, we leave behind the thoughts of imagining God as human in the way that we are. Whenever we try to humanize God, we have simply reduced Him to being human and therefore misunderstood. With that out of the way, I have so much more to share with you about the parts of God that have been misunderstood for ages, specifically part two of God. I will save that conversation for next time.
Question: which of these three parts of God have you misunderstood and why?
[1] John 14:6 NLT, Bible.com, accessed July 8, 2024, https://www.bible.com/bible/116/JHN.14.6.NLT
[2] John 10:7-9 NKJV, Bible.com, accessed July 8, 2024, https://www.bible.com/bible/114/JHN.10.7-9.NKJV
[3] Isaiah 32:15 NLT, Bible.com, accessed July 8, 2024, https://www.bible.com/bible/116/ISA.32.15.NLT
[4] Luke 3:21-22 MSG, Bible.com, accessed July 8, 2024, https://www.bible.com/bible/97/LUK.3.21-22.MSG
[5] 1 Thessalonians 2:13 NLT, Bible.com, accessed July 8, 2024, https://www.bible.com/bible/116/1TH.2.13
All Scripture references used by permission, see our Scripture copyrights.
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