God the Father, Mentor's Guide, MG06

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G O D T H E F A T H E R

alone redeem a universe out of control. As one has characterized this state: “the God of many churches is a good pal, but doesn’t seem to be the great God and our Savior, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We seem to be just a little too friendly with him who is a consuming fire.” Imagine that the Lord has called you to be a minister of music and worship in a church. List out eight different emphases or things you could do to help believers in your church gain a greater, richer, and more biblical appreciation for the greatness of God in your worship and life together. The doctrine of the Trinity is a biblical doctrine which asserts that God’s nature is a tri-unity of three persons who share the same essence as God. The Bible claims that God is one God (Deut. 6.4), and yet this one God exists in three distinct yet co-equal, co-eternal persons, each of whom is referred to as God in Scripture, and are said to share the glory of the divine nature. The Holy Trinity (i.e., God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) is the name given to affirm Scripture’s own assertion of the unity, diversity, and equality of the members of the one Godhead. God the Father Almighty, the first person of the Trinity, possesses attributes which speak powerfully and definitively as to his greatness. As God, the Father is spirit, possesses life in himself, has authentic personality, is infinite in his divine nature and character, and his essence never changes. If you are interested in pursuing some of the ideas on the nature of the Trinity and the greatness of God the Father Almighty, you might want to give these books a try (be warned, these are not easy readings!): Charnock, Stephen. The Existence and Attributes of God . Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1996. O’Collins, Gerald, S. J. The Tripersonal God: Understanding and Interpreting the Trinity . Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1999. White, James R. The Forgotten Trinity: Recovering the Heart of Christian Belief . Bloomington, MN: Bethany House Publishing, 1998.

Restatement of the Lesson’s Thesis

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