The Painted Door Church - Chicago

What is a Person?/ John 17:1-11

July 28, 2019 Pastor Mark Bergin
The Painted Door Church - Chicago
What is a Person?/ John 17:1-11
Show Notes

We often think of ourselves as individuals, separate entities with individuated definition who then interact with one another in meaningful ways. Yet both the book of nature and the book of Scripture indicate otherwise. The more our scientists study the functions of the natural order, the more they discover how all things are contingent, how everything is interwoven, interdependent, interrelated. Scripture, likewise, testifies that in Christ all things hold together. The whole of the universe is a complex web of relationships. Nothing exists on its own. And why would we expect any different, given that the God of this universe is himself a web of relationships? He is Trinity, three in one. His world echoes this reality, nowhere more than among those who bear his image. Our very being, our personhood, is bound up in relationships. We are relationships. Therefore, when we reject or misuse relationship with God or others, our personhood is malformed, even lost. But in embracing relationship with God and others, we discover the path to fullness of personhood, even sharing in the divine life.