Author: Michael Salsaa
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What do you want me to do for you?
Our question for today comes from Mark chapter 10. I’m going to read two consecutive stories in which Jesus asks the exact same question in two very different situations. As you listen, pay close attention to the question Jesus asks—and to the very different answers he receives. The Request of James and John 35 Then James…
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Why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?
We have been examining the questions God asks throughout Scripture. Again and again, God asks questions whose factual answers seem obvious. This raises an important question for us: why does God ask what He already knows? Are these questions merely rhetorical, or do they have a deeper purpose? Do they change the way we see…
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Do You Want to be Made Well?
We have been reflecting on the questions God asks throughout Scripture. On the surface, some of these questions seem almost unnecessary. The factual answers are often obvious. When God asks Adam, “Where are you?” or when Jesus asks, referring to the dead Lazarus “Where have you laid him?” it is not because God lacks information.…
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The Longing That Leads Beyond: Romantic Love, Eros, and the Desire for God
We have been talking about love, and throughout this series I have tried to steer us away from thinking about love primarily as a romantic feeling. Instead, we focused on the actionable aspects of love—the kind of love expressed in service, forgiveness, and care for others. In other words, the kind of love the New…
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Beyond Fairness: Learning the Logic of Grace Through Forgiveness
We have been talking about love and trying to understand its actionable dimensions. Last time, we discussed community and saw how love and grace shaped the early church as it moved from a pseudocommunity into a true community. Today I would like to turn to one of the practices without which love and community simply…
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The Path to True Community: How Love Shaped the Early Church
We have been discussing love, and today I want us to talk about how love is essential in forming true community. Love and community are existentially important for us as humans. Without them, none of us could survive or flourish. So I want us to look at how community actually forms and how love shapes…
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Self-love In Practice
Last time, we looked at the theory of self-love. Today, I want us to consider the practice—how it works in action. I think we often fail to understand self-love because we lack role models who truly embody it. Today, I want us to look at Jesus as a model of self-love. Yes, Jesus—who gave His…
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As Yourself: The Spiritual Work of Self-Love
Matthew 22:34–40 — The Greatest Commandment34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with…
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Love as Gift: God Gives, We Receive
I would like us to move forward with attempting to find a definition of love. In that regard, I will invoke the help of Erich Fromm. The social psychologist Erich Fromm, writing in The Art of Loving, approached love not as a feeling but as an art to be learned. He believed that genuine love…