Wednesday, April 29, 2009

A Trinitarian Worldview - Part VI: The Imago Dei in Relationships

How does the Trinity impact our worldview of relationships? How are we to take the attributes of the Godhead and candle our actions within our spheres of activity?

Looking at three areas: family, church and society you see some commonalities that enable you to develop a trinitarian worldview in a way that can be used consistently across your relationships.

Starting with family, you need to start with marriage. The marriage relationship most closely models the Trinity of all human relationships. You seek to make the other partner known within the context of the marital bond, which should be the strongest of all human bonds. You look to communicate with each other in the most intimate, honest and vulnerable of fashions. You enjoy each other in companionship, fellowship and friendship. You make audible expressions of love, expressions of pleasure and make known your desires to please each other. You give honor to your mate, you give gifts.You work with and for each other, you seek to submit yourself to your partner knowing the same is being done for you. You become part of each other, learning to trust and abide in each other during good times and bad, pleasure and pain, success or suffering.

You see in the marriage relationship all these coming through when one honors a partner the way the Three within the One give honor to each other. As you step into familial relationships, these become writ large on a family unit, you may lose the marital intimacy between a man and wife, but these actions are still there in a God honoring family situation.

As you move to the church setting you continue to stress the honor of others, less intimate perhaps, but with a continued mutuality. In providing glory to God and a witness to a Christian walk, these continue into societal relationships in general.

In all of these you look to avoid headship abuse, a leader must have a servant's heart, an attitude to servitude in order to effectively model biblical leadership. There should be willing submission to leadership not hostility in having to submit. If the honor and trust inherent in the Trinity are showing forth in human relationships, that should not be a burdensome ask. There should be an honoring of biblically based law and orderliness. Anarchy is not God glorifying.

As you look at your relationships, are you modelling these behaviors. Are you willing to take the first step towards a trinitarian view of how you can be a part of a bigger whole in joy and peace with God?

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