From My Theological Journal IX

This is an excerpt from my final entry in a journal I kept last school year. If my posts seem scattered and my thoughts seem incohesive, perhaps this will explain why:

February 18, 2007

... While listening to the sermon, I had an interesting thought: “What would it look like to examine Jesus’ death and resurrection (and the implications for our lives) from numerous perspectives—forgiveness, mercy, justice, reconciliation, etc.?” I don’t like that theologians tend to create whole, thoroughly cohesive theologies, forgetting that the Bible doesn’t always present a thoroughly cohesive message. Perhaps the Bible can speak to us in contrasting, but equally valid and powerful ways about a single subject. Maybe the issue of God’s forgiveness can be drawn out into a very beautiful whole that is different from the beautiful whole theology of mercy. Obviously these ideas will have a great deal of overlap, but they each have different emphases because each of them holds something different as vitally important. Can I find a passage (or few passages) to draw on to develop a theology for each? Will the messages for each subject speak a different word? I believe so. It is something I am very interested in pursuing. We shall see.