This series on knowing God began with the ancient truth that God can be known but can never be fully understood or described using human concepts and language. Then, over the past few weeks, we've talked about the importance (and limitations) of symbols in talking about God, and worked through how these truths played out … Continue reading Three Movements in Knowing God
In the most recent post in the series exploring esoteric spiritualities, I touched briefly on Kabbalah and the Tree of Life. Today I want to use the Tree of Life as a jumping off point to talk about the language of ascent and descent, its philosophical history, and its impact on Christian spirituality throughout the … Continue reading Ascent or Transformation?
Because we are meaning-making creatures, it is no surprise that many cultures across the world and throughout history have extended this to finding symbolic meaning in numbers. Even in Western North American culture that doesn't have a historical numerological system of its own, we have a strong predilection for multiples of ten, and call the … Continue reading A Time for Every Matter under Heaven
The other week, in the post exploring the story of Moses and the Burning Bush, a theme that came up a couple times was sacred geography. There are ancient traditions in the Near East associating the wild and mountainous regions of the south and southwest — Midian, Horeb, and Sinai — with the dwelling place … Continue reading Geography of the Sacred
The final Bible story I want to explore in depth in this series on knowing God is Job's encounter with God in the whirlwind. The story of Job is as follows: Though a holy and honorable man, Job loses his health, wealth, and family in a series of calamities. Job must deal not only with … Continue reading Facing the Whirlwind
Matthew Root 