Patrik Olterman Rodhe's Blog, page 15

As you love yourself

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophet...

Loving the earth is not satanic

In the beginning when god began creating the heavens and the earths manifestations of god’s self of gods love, and god saw that it was good. And god created humans as embodied manifestations of gods consciousness, god’s glory and god’s love. God charged humanity to be stewards of the earth, to love it and care for it.

It should not be a big surprise to us that we as gods image bearers also have a deep love for the creationthat we are a part of. We are hardwired to be awed and swept away by god...

Tattoos are not evil

It is funny how a single verse in the bible can become so important to some people, important enough not to read or understand the context.

You shall not eat anything with its blood. You shall not practice augury or witchcraft.27You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard.28You shall not make any gashes in your flesh for the dead or tattoo any marks upon you: I am theLord. (Lev 19.26-28)

Right, first of all the verse before deals with not cutting the hair on...

There is no us and them

Someone once told me that all dichotomies are false dichotomies. And maybe this is the most sinister but also the most widespread of them all. The very idea that there is us and them, the idea that we are somehow different *better” that them, whomever they are.

In what may have been one of the most important books I read this year, Disunity in Christ by Christena Cleveland, Christena lifts up the dangers of group-think and how we form our identity and belonging based on mutual disdain for them...

The world is not without hope

I don’t know about you but I hear a lot of hopelessness out there when I put my ear on the wire. The internet is buzzing with naysayers and doomsday prophets telling us that it is too late, that there is no hope left. We might as well just hold on and enjoy the ride into whatever cataclysmic disaster awaits us in the near future.

I am not trying to pull the wool over your eyes here, the situation is dire, the state of the planet is sadly really bad. There are wars and worldwide injustice being...

Life is not a warm-up for heaven

The whole idea of heaven, while hope inspiring, often corrodes and hollows out our everyday life. It is interesting to note that Jesus rarely spoke about heaven. To him, it seemed much more important and urgent to deal with life here and now. Heaven in the here and now.

“Repent, for the kingdom of god is at hand”

So what did he mean?

Turn around, because you are all about to die?

No, Jesus clearly instructs his followers that “the kingdom is not here or there so one can point at it, rather the k...

Sex is not filthy

IT’S TRUE!!

Not even when it’s really good! Not even when it’s long or loud, wet and rowdy. Sex is not even filthy when it is public or outside or taped. Sex is not filthy when it is between two men or two women. It is not filthy no matter what clothes we dress up in or not.

Sex is sacred

We need to remember this. our sexuality is agift from the divine source. It is sacred, it is a sacrament, it truly is. The word sacrament comes from the latin translation of Pauls letter to Collosi in the first...

Falling upwards or sin is not that bad

So this week we are talking about sin. It doesn’t happen a lot around here. I abhor the notion of sin, not because of what it means but because of the cultural baggage that we have attached to the idea.

Let me just say outright that the whole concept of a catalogue of sin, certain actions being in themselves sinful, is a very unhelpful way of thinking about sin.

Sin in the scriptures

In the holy texts there is no one word for sin! This is important. We believe that sin is a single thing. But rea...

Science is not secular

We live in a secular society, which for most people means separation of church and state. We have this idea that church simply should not be political or involve itself in matters of state. In the same way we have this notion that church has nothing to do with science and that science have nothing to do with church. Christians in most peoples minds are a backwards people not interested in or even working against science.

The word secular comes from latin seculare which means temporal as oppose...

Love

Solet’stalk about love. What could be easier, love is after all the foundation of the Christian faith right! Love is the cornerstone, Love is the air that we breath, all you need is love!

Then again for as long as humans have walked the earth we have tried to define love and make sense of why love is so essential to us even though we can’t really put our finger on how or why.

All we now is that love is addictive like a drug, love lifts us up where we belong, all you need is love.

But we also kno...