If you enjoy beautiful relaxing synthesizer music, here is the arrangement of Albinoni’s Adagio:

And this is a composition called Blue Voyage:

If you like them, head over to Lantos Music for more…

© Bela Lantos 2010

Well, this must be one of the clearest passage that refers to Jesus as God. Perhaps we need to take a closer look.

Let’s read it together with the second verse as it has similar structure (and thankfully the NRSV drops the punctuation that doesn’t exist in the Greek):

2 Peter 1 (NRSV)
1 Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,
To those who have received a faith as precious as ours through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:
² May grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

Now take a glance of the Greek (more…)

A friend got confused by the Living Bible paraphrasing 1Peter 4:6 like this:

1Peter 4:6 That is why the Good News was preached even to those who were dead—killed by the flood—so that although their bodies were punished with death, they could still live in their spirits as God lives.

Sure, the problem is

1. he read a paraphrase
2. out of context.

Here is a better translation:

1 Peter 4 (NRSV)
⁴ Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same intention (for whoever has suffered in the flesh has finished with sin), ² so as to live for the rest of your earthly life no longer by human desires but by the will of God. ³ You have already spent enough time in doing what the Gentiles like to do, living in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry. (more…)

The question was asked if 1 Peter 3:20-21 means we have baptism because of the Flood. Let’s read it in context:

1 Peter 3:20-22 (NRSV)
²⁰ who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. ²¹ And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, ²² who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him. (more…)

I wrote this in answer to an email I received. I hope the following is not too confusing 🙂

I build my theology top down. There are two main laws (or categories of laws).

1. love your God
2. love your fellow being

The two cannot really be separated, for you cannot love God and at the same time hate your fellow being, and the love of God can be expressed via loving your fellow beings.

Some people may have never heard of the Creator, but through the love of their fellow beings they express the love of God.

For this reason you really only find one law that is in all ancient religions and philosophies: the Golden Rule. (more…)

So someone answered and said that Unitarianism adapts scriptures to suit their purposes, and that they fashion God “after their own whim and fancy”.

Let me answer these charges.

1. The God who secretly impregnates someone’s wife behind the husband’s back doesn’t seem to be the same God as the God of Abraham, who said,

Gen 18:
17… “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, 18 since Abraham will surely become a great and mighty nation, and in him all the nations of the earth will be blessed? (more…)