The Neighborhood Podcast
This is a podcast of Guilford Park Presbyterian Church in Greensboro, North Carolina featuring guests from both inside the church and the surrounding community. Hosted by Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing, Head of Staff.
The Neighborhood Podcast
"Celebrating the 1700th Anniversary of the Nicene Creed" (October 19, 2025 Sunday School)
Presenter: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing
What if the best way to understand God isn’t a triangle or a formula, but a dance? We open with gratitude and laughter, then step straight into the Nicene Creed’s richest lines—“begotten, not made” and “of one substance with the Father”—to explore why the early church pushed back against Arius and protected the claim that Jesus is fully God, not a created helper. That single conviction changes everything about prayer, worship, and the kind of community the church is called to be.
We trace how Scripture, hymnody, and history converge: John’s “In the beginning was the Word,” the carol’s “Word of the Father,” and the council’s homoousios each insist that to see Christ is to see God’s heart without dilution. Along the way we name the common pitfalls—subordinationism that divides the Trinity, modalism that flattens relationship—and then offer a more life-giving vision borrowed from the Christian East: perichoresis, the divine dance. Picture a circle of mutual indwelling where Father, Son, and Spirit move in love, no one hoarding the top spot, each giving and receiving. That image doesn’t just rescue doctrine; it reshapes practice—shared leadership, patient discernment, and a church that welcomes rather than hardens.
We also center the Creed’s action words: for us and for our salvation he came down, was incarnate, crucified, buried, rose, and ascended. These past-tense events ground a present reality: his kingdom shall have no end. Not a pause between acts, but a living reign that stretches from eternity past to a future without sunset. If your prayers skew to one Person of the Trinity, if your view of church tilts toward hierarchy, or if theology has felt like math instead of mercy, this conversation will give you fresh language and a new lens.
Enjoy the episode, share it with someone who loves big questions, and leave a review to help others find the show. Subscribe for the next class as we turn to the Spirit and keep learning how to live inside the divine dance.
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Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Alright, folks, let's go ahead and get going. How are we doing today? Okay. Yeah? All of our football teams won yesterday? Some of them did. Some of them did. Why are you pointing your finger at me, Laura? Is that anything? I am happy, yes. I'm sure you never had any doubt. Alright, well, let's uh let's, as we've been uh doing every week, let's just start off with our gratitude. So, what are we grateful for today?
SPEAKER_03:For the children who built the parking lot.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. For the children who led worship this morning.
unknown:Nice.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. What else are we grateful for today? Lizzie, what are you thankful for today? I have a feeling you're thankful for something.
SPEAKER_03:I am thankful for what God brought us every morning. How's that?
SPEAKER_01:And I know you're also thankful for the sleepover, the slumber party you had last night, right? You told me all about that this morning, right? Alright, what else are we thankful for today? That the sleepover went properly. There we go. Alright. Fair enough, yeah. What else? What are the sets grateful for today?
SPEAKER_07:Well, I had carpal tone surgery two weeks ago, and uh this is healing very well. Good, good, good. Yeah. Something funny happened in the operating room, I have to tell you this. The uh when you have this, you don't have to have any anesthetic or anything, so you're awake. And the doctor that I have is a Christian. The first thing he did when he came into the room was to say, I've already prayed for you and for me. So, anyway, and I said well I don't say that. But during the operation, the nurse is sitting over here trying to get my attention so that I'm not thinking about what's happening over here. I had this on the table over here. And so she happened to ask me where I was from. And so we went through all these different places and I ended up saying, Georgia. And the doctor is a big Tennessee fan. And so he said, Georgia! Oh my gosh, they beat Tennessee. You know, it was a game a couple of weeks ago. And I said, Oh my goodness, I should have never mentioned that while you're on that. So we ended up laughing through the whole surgery. And I guess that's one of the things one of my friends said, all that positive is really helping us had too well. But we share George Stephen's love of Georgia or Dolls.
SPEAKER_01:I heard a story once about uh two men who were on death row next to each other. Uh they were both scheduled to be executed at the same time or at the same evening. And one was a Tennessee fan and one was a Georgia fan. And they, you know, asked, asked the Tennessee fan, sir, what is your what is your final request? And of course the Tennessee fan said, you know what? I would really like to hear Rocky Top one more time. They said, okay. They asked uh they asked the Georgia fan, well, what's your final request? And he said, please let me go first. There you go. All right. So I hope you don't have any Tennessee fans in the room. So alright, what else? Anything else that we're grateful for? What about this half of the room over here? What are you all grateful for today?
SPEAKER_02:Laughter.
SPEAKER_01:Laughter? Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:I think when you're going through times, hard times, if you can laugh, find some joy in it. It gives you scatter.
SPEAKER_01:I'm thankful my um son-in-law got selected for special forces. Okay, very good. Is he gonna be stationed at Fort Bragg or is uh Liberty Liberty and the Untraged? Yeah, they're coming for Tennessee. Okay. Okay, good. Well, I know you're happy to hear that.
SPEAKER_00:I'm grateful that my my son-in-law had a procedure uh as we did uh it uh turned out for a bell for him.
SPEAKER_01:So all right, well, we are halfway through our um our time with the Nicene Creed. For those of y'all that uh were not able to be with us last week, we did a lot of singing. As we mentioned, the the the Nicene Creed is set up in a Trinitarian format, and the section on God the Father is by far the briefest, mostly because at the time who God the Father was really wasn't up for debate. That had already been pretty settled theology. So uh so there wasn't a whole lot for us to talk about, so I decided that we would sing together. And Jordan kindly sat back at the piano and we sang a bunch of hymns that talked a little bit about our theology of the first person of the Trinity. And now we're gonna turn our attention to the second person of the Trinity of the Sun. So if you uh have this copy of the Nicene Creed, that's great. If you don't, um, it just has a couple uh portions that are highlighted. If you all have had a chance to read this book here, you'll notice that Kevin De Young highlights different phrases. The first one that you see highlighted is We Believe, which is kind of what we sang about last week with all those different hymns and talking about our robust theology of God the Father or God the Creator. And today we're going to talk about the three underlined phrases in the second portion. Only begotten, one substance, and then for us and for our salvation. So I hope you all have had a chance to read the book. Um if not, that's okay, but I really do commend it to you all. It's very brief, it's only about 90 pages long. So even if you just get it this week and read through it, I invite you to do so. Um I do want to make a point. Um, Warner came into my office on Thursday and we had a nice little chat about um about the book. And I did want to highlight that um I I think he has some really great reformed theology. Um, and I also do want to highlight that I did know before I uh selected this book that he is on the more evangelical conservative side of Presbyterianism, which is fine. I think it's important that I'm not the only voice that you all listen to because I don't have all the answers. Um and if you all do read towards the end, um he has a uh on page 76, was that a Warner? I think it was 76. Um he he uh has some pretty harsh words for churches such as ours who are welcoming of our LGBTQ neighbors. Um and that's fine. He's he's certainly entitled to that belief. I trust that you all know that your pastor sees things a little bit differently. Um he talks about the the Catholicity of the church, which we'll talk next week in um the part of the Holy Spirit that talks about the one holy Catholic uh church. And he he kind of goes off on a little bit of a tangent that uh those of us who are open and welcome into the LGBT community have basically uh uh very arrogantly said that all Christians who existed before the mid-20th century didn't matter and that we're not a part of them. I don't take quite such a flippant attitude toward that, but but just know that we can have varying varying beliefs and and that's that's okay. We try to make room here at Gopher Park as best as we can for a variety of beliefs. Um but I do think that he does a really great job of giving some really succinct summaries of some really dense theology, which is which is I didn't want to give y'all a big, thick book that felt overwhelming with the uh course. If y'all want to read this and go a little bit deeper, I do recommend Shirley Guthrie's uh Christian Doctrine. It's just a really great foundational text. Um so, anyways, I just kind of wanted to put that out there. So uh we're gonna do a real quick exercise first, um, that I have no idea how it's gonna go, but I'm just going to yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER_03:Can I have one other shirt? Yes, absolutely. I think Anthony might be one.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Um I want you all to get into pairs just with the person who's next to you. Um if there's a third, that's fine. And we're gonna do a fun little exercise. Um first of all, so everybody get in pairs. Do we know who you're sitting next to? All right. And your first your first uh item of business is one of you needs to be a pumpkin spice latte, and the other one needs to be an apple cider. So right now go ahead and decide who's gonna who's gonna be the pumpkin spice latte and who's gonna be the apple cider. Do we all know who's uh which who is uh which autumnal beverage? Everybody knows that? Okay. So if you are the pumpkin spice latte, do we have any PSL fans in here? I'm I'm team apple cider, but I I have nothing against pumpkin spice lattes. If you are the pumpkin spice latte, I want you to pretend like you've never heard of the Trinity before. Right? Wow. I know, I know it's hard. If you are the pumpkin spice latte, I want you to pretend like you've never heard of the Trinity before, and you have no understanding of what Christians mean when they say that they believe in one God and three persons. So I want to try to put you in a mind, put yourself in a mindset of like, of just kind of lean into the incomprehensibility of the whole thing. If you are the apple cider person, I want you to try to explain to the pumpkin spice latte person as distinctly and clearly as you can what the heck it means when we say one God in three persons. What it means when we say one plus one plus one equals one. Explain it to them like they are a kindergartner. Uh, and that's no slants against kindergartners. I know some kindergartners that are smarter than the rest of us, but um, really try to have that conversation, and then I want you all who are the pumpkin spice lattes to come back afterwards and be like, okay, would you be convinced or not? Does that make sense? It's not going to be graded. It's just, this is just a fun little exercise, okay? So I want you all to take three minutes, and I want the apple cider people to explain to the Trinitarian newbie of the uh pumpkin splice latte how the Trinity works. Ready? And go.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, so it's not possible. The whole thing is it's kind of like a lot of things.
SPEAKER_01:Alright, let's uh let's reconvene. I can hear all the uh the apple ciders coming, oh thank god that's over. I don't know if you talk anymore. All right. Alright, so uh our pumpkin spice lattes, the people who started off this conversation with a blank slave, having never heard the about the Trinity before. Did the apples uh apple ciders uh uh was that a satisfactory answer or did it leave you feeling more confused than before? Let's say any um uh pumpkin spice lattes want to uh be kind to your partner. Let's not be me. Okay. Does any um does any uh apple cider want to explain like in 15 seconds what their what their approach was? Fair enough.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I I I generally uh explain it as a matter of fact. As a matter of faith. You know, some things uh we just have we can't fully explain, but we accept on faith. And uh that's one of the things that we generally have to accept on faith.
SPEAKER_01:So you leaned into the embracing the mystery part of it, right? Yeah, the idea, which I think is very true, that the Trinity is not so much an equation to be explained as it is a mystery to be preserved. Is that a cop out? Yeah, I'm sure there are people who over the millennium said, yeah, that's those Christians trying to have their taking in two. But I do think that there is something to say for the fact that our God does not fit into a nice tidy equation. Uh, that that in and of itself says something about the character of God. Very, very good. Thank you. Anybody else want to uh to take your your approach? Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. People have a better understanding.
SPEAKER_01:And in general, and we're gonna talk a little bit about Eastern Orthodox theology, but as it as it as it pertains to a really robust theology and celebration of the Spirit, a lot of our Eastern Orthodox siblings do a much better job of that than those of us in the Western Church. And we'll talk a little bit at the end of our time together and next week about this great order that I look called pericuresis, which is an idea of the Trinity that's that's heavily influenced by Eastern theology. So you're right, one can make the case that in many white mainline Protestant churches, we really do emphasize Jesus maybe disproportionately. The spirit kind of gets a little bit of a whereas if you go to one of our charismatic Pentecostal churches, you're you're gonna see they're not gonna leave the spirit out. The spirit will be there in some very strong ways. So, yes.
SPEAKER_07:I don't want to point out that we don't leave it out because if you look in the building and it says this is the 19th Sunday afternoon. After Pentecost. Yes, so we do celebrate Pentecost all that time so happen.
SPEAKER_01:So speaking of Christmas, we're gonna sing a song. I'm gonna send Jordan back to the piano. Jordan graciously agreed to play for us again. We're going to sing O come on ye faithful. I know it's a little bit early. I know you may be thinking, why on earth are we singing O'Come on Ye Faithful? Uh what uh that's why I forgot I printed there. So um it is you either have it on some of the sheets of paper, it's also uh number 139. Oh, if you want to be old-fashioned about it.
SPEAKER_04:Um and then as we sing, uh actually let's just sing uh what do I say versus loud right here?
SPEAKER_08:True guy from True.
SPEAKER_01:All right, we're gonna sing verses two and four. All right, and sing loud, because I know we all know this song. Verse two. So you may not have known it at the time, or maybe forgotten, that a lot of the verbiage in that hymn is is comes almost directly out of the Nicene Creed. There's some things that we just said that are pretty much directly from the Nicene Creed. God of God. God of God. Very good. What else? Very begotten. Begotten. Begotten, not, or created, as it is. Yeah, so that's what I want to talk about for a little bit here. Um what it means to be begotten and not made. So let's remind ourselves, uh, just I know a few of y'all weren't able to come to the first two um first two sessions. What got this whole school started with an Icing Creed was a heretic by the name of uh Arian, or Arias, excuse me, um, that really struggled with Jesus being co-equal with the Father, right? So he another fun exercise is to draw the Trinity. There's many different ways of doing it. Um this probably would have been the way that Arius would have drawn the Trinity, with who at the top, the Father, and then who at the bottom. So the Son and the Holy Spirit, right? So it wasn't that Arius had anything personally against Jesus. You know, I don't think he was some villain that was like, how can you know we can subordinate Jesus? He really wanted to protect the sovereignty of God the Father. And in his opinion, having Jesus be perfectly equal with God the Father was problematic because that threatened in his opinion the sovereignty of God the Father, if that makes sense. So, um he really notice I very intentionally cut the lines in one direction, right? They go in both directions between the Spirit and Jesus. I don't think Arius would have any problem with that. But he really wanted to subordinate Jesus and the Holy Spirit. And so his opinion was that Jesus was created. He was famous for a certain line that really got this start off. He said, There was a time when he was what? Not, right? He believed that there was a time when Jesus wasn't, right? So God the Father was doing all the creating in the Old Testament, and then in um Christmas, when we celebrate that, Jesus was what? Created, right? So no Jesus, no Jesus, no Jesus, no Jesus, Jesus, and from that point on, no Jesus. Um and the early church wrestled with this. Constantine was trying to unite the empire, and that's why he got this council together in 325 to call the question so that he could have a unified empire, which is what got this going. So they put language into the Nicene Creed that they knew Arius and his followers could not stomach to say. And um and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten, not made. Begotten, not created. So who can who wants to explain to me the semantic difference between those two verbs? Or beget and made. And can we come up with an example of like a modern example of a metaphor to create it? Don't feel bad, because I was once in your same seminary, and our professor has the exact same thing, and I guarantee you I did not raise my hand either in any way. So that is okay. Um the best way I can explain it in the most simplest of terms, and this is not a perfect metaphor, by the way, by any strategy. Any kind of explain the Trinity is some version of trying to have your candy into, okay? Because she is of a similar substance to us. This is not perfect because we cannot say that hazel grace is no eternal, right? Because there was a time hazel grace was not at Trisha and I were. So that's why I say this is not perfect at all. But there is something, there's a hazel grace by being our child has the stuff of us, right? Biologically. So DNA, blood, there's something that kind of, in a sense, the stuff that made her didn't exist before she began, right? My nutrition DNA was already a thing. So there's a similarity in substance. That's perhaps a good way to think of that verb yet, as opposed to create. Um, I can, if I want to. Because there's a station at the uh Greensboro Children's Museum where they can make airplanes. So this is a paper plane. I just what did I do? Did I get this or did I make it? I made it, trying to see how it possible. Not you. So, okay. Exactly. So the reason I say that I created it is one for one thing, well, it's not of the same stuff as me, right? It doesn't have any of my DNA in it. It doesn't have any of my personality or flesh or blood or values or whatever. And also, this was not always a paper airplane, right? What was it before? Just a regular old sheet of paper. So there was a time when this paper airplane was what? Was not the best way I can put it, um, is that by using the verb begat instead of create, they are making a case that Jesus is of the same self as God the Father, and that um Jesus was not created out of nowhere. And again, if this seems really hard to wrap your heads around, that's okay. But if we think that we ourselves are heretical and there's nothing in the Bible about this, it's actually all over the Bible. Specifically, and one of the other things that you all sang in verse 4, I don't know if you have the hymn open, but there is a specific line in verse 4 of Oh, come all ye faithful, that um pushes back against the notion that um Jesus that there was a time when he was not. Anybody want to guess what phrase in the fourth verse speaks about? I'll give you a hint. It comes to us from the Gospel of John. Word of the Father, right? Anybody remember how John's Gospel begins? In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, right? In Greek we have this idea of the logos, this divine word of God that is co-eternal with God, right? So word of the Father is not something that um Arius would have been okay saying. Uh creation of the Father, sure. But begotten, no, could never make that uh never make that argument. According to Christian theology, yes. I mean, yes. I mean uh I mean again, if we take if we take John's gospel seriously, that is exactly what John is saying. In the beginning was the word, Jesus, the logos. Again, it's kind of borrowing from Greek terms, it's kind of heavily influenced by Greek philosophy. But in the beginning was God. And the word was God, and the word and the word was with God, and the word was God, right? Um that's because John's gospel uh to an extent that Matthew, Mark, and Luke don't do really Heavily emphasizes the divinity of Christ. That's one of the things that John's gospel is known about. Were you going to raise your hand? I think now. So, yeah, that's that is about the simplest way I can parse that difference between being begotten and being made. I am fully open if somebody else has a better metaphor that is less heretical. Let me know. I mean, do you want to take a take a whack at it, Dylan? What do you think?
SPEAKER_06:So it's not necessarily a metaphor, but to address any understandings of, well, if Christ was begotten, then clearly there was a time that Christ wasn't. I believe St. Athanasius argued that while in our minds that's true, so eternally that's not true. Because God is not bound in time like we are. We can't value that there was a time before his grace. There was. That's not the case of Christ. It was a God. It came from the Father, the Son of the Father. But it is not bound in time like we are. God is larger than what our eyes can understand. I think that was the point that he brought into Council of Diocle is understanding that we can understand.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Exactly. I mean, for us, we tend to think of time as purely linear, right? And that there are many theologians that have said, well, we may think of time that way, but God isn't bound to that understanding of it. Is that a way for us to have our cake and eat it too? Maybe. But again, this kind of shows you the struggle that Christians have had over the millennia of trying to explain the unexplainable.
SPEAKER_02:I was going to say two things. When we say the world was created in seven days, well, the rest of it is seven days. A day. And then the creation, God created man. So if you look at the way he created into dirt, he had to blow it in the breath of light. That's creation.
SPEAKER_01:So again, the word that they use to try to describe this idea of being co-eternal or the same substance of God is a really fun Greek word called homoousias. Can someone verify that I spold that directly? No, I'm not sure. I think I did. Yeah, that's right. So I don't know if y'all can read it, but uh, homoousias is the uh is the um where it says one substance in the second part of the nice and cream. That's the Greek word. Let's parse that out a little bit. Um this it's two words. Can you mind tell what the first word is? What does homo mean? Maman. No, homo means same. Safian. Safium means man. So homo sapience. Homo sapien. Homo means the same, right? Um and then oostias, oostias means substance or yeah. So uh homo homoousias means one substance or same substance. Some people argued and said, well, we really like this version. Homoiusias. You might want to take a whack at what homousias means. Well, I'll give you a hint. The next one is heteroousias. So if on this end of the spectrum is same substance, what does hetero mean? So if this means same substance and this means different substance, what do you think in the middle is? Similar substance. Yeah. Similar substance. Or like substance. Homousias, like, yeah, there's some similarity there, but it's not really different, but it's also not the same, too. So probably Arius would have been in favor of heteroousius, right? Because he really wanted some comfortable difference between them. Some people wanted to have their cake in you too and say, well, it's if we say this, we can kind of make both sides happy, right? But instead of making both sides happy, it just pissed off both sides. Um they ended up going with homoousias, the idea that God is the same, uh God the Father is of the same substance as the Son and the Holy Spirit. But that can get you into some problematic territory as well, if you're not careful, because you can get to a point where something can still be of the same substance, but be completely different. I think the uh the metaphor he uses in here is Plato, right? So if you take a lump of Plato and you cut it in half and tear it apart, those two things are still technically homoousias, right? It's still the same stuff, but what are they now? They're two completely different, separate um entities, which is somewhat problematic because we've talked about how what's what's the biggest tension in any conversation of the Trinity is how do you maintain two seemingly irreconcilable things, that the three persons are distinct on one hand, but also what? United or the same. How do you hold those two things in tension with one another, right? Umrius would have settled on the um on the different side, the distinction part of that equation. He really wanted to keep the father distant from everything else, which is why there's this. If you really want to protect the unity of it at all costs, then you would use something that was known as modalism, which is the idea that the Trinity is actually just one person that plays three different roles at different times, right? Um you can kind of think of this heresy that maintains the unity of God as um uh well, what's this? Water, right? Water comes in three different forms. What are three different forms of water? Ice, water. Ice, water, or ice, liquid, and vapor, right? So when I had my ice water in the steam room at my gym a few days ago, um I was simultaneously, I was surrounded by a lot of water, right? Frozen, hot steam, and then liquid. Um but so that emphasizes the unity of the Trinity, right? But it doesn't, there's not really much distinction, right? Because no matter whether water is in the form of vapor, um, ice, or liquid, it's all still this molecularly the same, right? It's still two molecules of hydrogen and one molecule. Yeah, it's two of them, exactly. So um, so we're gonna talk a little bit towards the end about pericuresis and how we try to kind of combine those two and get rid of their tough parts and putting the best together. Um, I also want to mention before we get to that, is um so we've talked a little bit about the phrase only begotten. We've talked a little bit about of one substance, and that's where a lot of the emphasis in the Nicene Creed gets when we talk about it, because those are semantically two really tricky things to parse out. But notice in the very middle of the creed is this pretty sizable part that's indented twice. You see, I very purposefully put over there, that doesn't talk so much about what Christ is or who Christ is, but rather what Christ does, did, does, came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit, of the Virgin Mary, was made man. Again, that phrase right there was made man is something that Arius would have said, No, if you're gonna say that, it can't be the same as God the Father. Was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, was suffered and was buried. Third day he rose again according to the scriptures and ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He shall come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead, whose kingdom will have no end. So note here that in the Nicene Creed it sets up a theology that not only is Jesus Christ co-eternal, again, I know we're talking about time in a linear fashion, and that's that has its limitations, but when we say that Christ is co-eternal with God the Father, it means, to put it very simply, that Jesus is just as old as God the Father. So it goes back that way as far as it gets. But notice that that little line, whose kingdom shall have no end, is from a time perspective, is pointing what? In the opposite direction. Saying not only is Jesus co-eternal that way, Jesus and Jesus' kingdom is also co-eternal that way. In other words, Jesus' kingdom was not just this temporary thing that happened when he was here and then got transported up into heaven and he'll come back someday, but until then the kingdom's kind of on hold. Yeah, no, that's not what the Nicene Creed is saying. It's making a very articulate case that all of that work that Jesus did, again, there's all of those are in past tense, was incarnate, was made man, was crucified, all that's in the past tense reminds us that whose kingdom shall have no end, that that work is eternal, that that kingdom is eternal. Right? So again, kind of pushing back the Nicene Creed on this, because if the kingdom of Jesus Christ is only here in the middle, where is it not? Not really at the end, it's not really at the beginning. So the Nicene Creed is making a case, um, again, trying to have its cake and eat it to you, uh, that Jesus is co-eternal in the past and the kingdom is also co-eternal in the future.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah, George. Your chart up there reminds me that uh God created, begot, begotten, he created the Son. It was a miracle as one of the miracles of creation. You know, who has ever had a child with no with no uh man involved and so forth? So that's a miracle. Same thing that era down to the Holy Spirit. He created God created the Holy Spirit, even though Jesus said, I'm leaving that with you on behalf of God, I guess he might have said. So anyway, yeah, that's a nice chart to help me think about.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, um, like I said, uh, if if y'all weren't here the first time or two, um, you know, my my religion professor, Peter Hobby in college, would always start off the week that we would spend on the training that's saying, basically saying, if you're trying to find a definition of the Trinity that isn't in at least some way somewhat heretical, good luck, because it does not exist. Um but so one of the ways, and we'll talk about this a little bit more next week, um, that we can try to hold these things together is in a form of uh talking about the trinity that's called Pericrisis that tries to take the best of both of these heresies and combine them into one that's less forgetable. Okay? So I'm gonna ruin this and this. So again, this is Arianism and it focuses the distinction, it tries to protect the distinction of the persons of the Trinity at the detriment to the unity, right? This is modalism and it does the opposite. It tries to protect the unity of Christ while budging the distinction. One of the ways that our Eastern Orthodox Christian friends have started for a while, is um look something like this. How is that different? Just visually. I don't even have to give the wings theologically, but just visually, what's different with that?
SPEAKER_02:The father is down below.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I did that on purpose. Um, it's a circle instead of angles. So it's not a line, it's not a rigid line or a rigid triangle, it's a circle, alright? What's what else is different as far as the lines go? The movement goes both ways. There you go. The movement goes both ways. So remember in this one I only had arrows pointing down because Arius would have wanted the Son of the Holy Spirit to stay in their place, so to speak. Notice that there's movement in this, right? No one is, and if it is moving, if you can think of it as constantly moving, is anybody on top? Or at least permanently? No. No. Right? If you can think of it, you can think of this as well, let me just tell you what it's called. I've already used the word. It's called perichoresis. You'll say that with me. Pericuresis. One of my favorite words in the world, and I think y'all can figure out what it means.
unknown:Perry is around.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. Alright. Perichoresis, just like homousius, is two different words. What do you think the first word is? Around. Yeah, so peri, right? Yeah. And choresis. Alright, so uh peri is probably the easier of the two. It means what? Something you already said. Somebody said. Around. It means around, right? Yeah, what is a perimeter? A perimeter is the distance around something, right? That's where we get that Greek word perimeter. I will say, after I learned Greek, I did a much better job on the New York Times crossword puzzle than I ever did beforehand for reasons like this. So, first one is peri, which means um around. Now, here's the trickier one that I promise you know, Bill and you can't answer this. I think you already know this. Um take a whack at what choresis means. Within? No. Oh no. Connected. No. Good guess. I'll give you, I'll give you a hint. Um Hazel Grace uh about a year ago started doing ballet. And at this at ballet, she's teaching me all about first position, whatever that. We call that choreography. What is choreography? Movement is dance. Movement is dance. Choreography is how you plan out a dance. Um, so choresis is where we get that root choreography. So you can kind of think of it very rudimentary as around dance or dance around. You can also call it the holy or the divine dance. Um, our Eastern Orthodox Christian siblings. This is kind of how they try to preserve both the distinction of the three persons of the Trinity and have their unity at the same time. Again, it emphasizes the unity because notice there's no strict hierarchy, right? Um at any point in the divine dance, one of the persons can be on top or not. Um, so it kind of gets rid of that Western hierarchical calculus, um, but it also seeks to protect the distinction of the three persons because it's it's you need a dance partner, right? You don't technically need a dance partner, but it's making a case that the very definition of God is community, right? We cannot understand God, we cannot understand Trinitarian, healthy Trinitarian theology without understanding that community and reciprocity, and dare I say, even egalitarianism, is part of who God is, right? Um, at least that's what our Eastern uh Christians would would say.
SPEAKER_02:Also, it's not rigid.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly, it's not rigid, right? It's it's it's playful, maybe a tad bit unpredictable. Maybe it leaves some room in there for some uh some improv. Uh so it kind of seeks to kind of protect that idea that God is unfathomable and God can do what God wants, but there's also this beautiful community that gives and takes and leads and follows. And one of the reasons this is probably not a surprise, your pastor's favored uh heresy of Trinitarian theology, is that if we emphasize this mutuality, I think that says a lot about the church and who we should be, right? Um that part of that is reflected in our theology as Presbyterians. How many of you all in this room are ordained elders, have served as ordained elders? Okay. You all know that when we go to Presbyterian meetings, does my vote count more than yours? No? Every pastor's vote counts just the same as any other um uh ruling elder as we call them in the Presbyterian church. Um so again, an emphasis on the Holy on the Trinity as this, um, I think says a lot about who we are and who God is calling us to be.
SPEAKER_02:And maybe the church, I said the church shouldn't be so rigid. Maybe the church shouldn't be so rigid. And probably the times. But we love our rigidity, Joyce. No, no, I think that's turning a lot of people away from the church.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. So if we all if we if that was our go-to definition, I I guess that that's what I want y'all to be curious about this week before we close, is um if whenever we think of God, we see God through that lens of a divine dance, how would that change the way we do things? As a church, as individual disciples? Um, and also think it's important for us to always ask um, you know, in your prayers, I'm not trying to say there's a right or a wrong way to pray, but when you are praying, who do you tend to pray to more? Do you tend to pray more to? Do you just say God? Do you just say Father? Do you just say spirit? You know, it's again, I'm not trying to police anybody, but I think it's helpful sometimes to think, oh, I really don't pray to the Spirit that much. I don't use that sort of language as much. Um, that would that would be my my invitation for you all this week. Um, and the only other thing that I would um mention, if you haven't read this and you're going to, is he does make a case that God only chooses to explicitly refer to himself in masculine terms. Um I disagree with that somewhat. I think that's an overly simplistic take take. In fact, one of the uh hymns that we sang in worship today, I forget which one it was, the very last hymn, uh used language directly from Isa from Isaiah that talks about as does a mother's hand tend to us by something else. But um so I there are a couple points that I disagree with him in here, and you may agree or disagree, and that's okay too. Like I said, I think I would be I would not be doing my job well if I was encouraging me to be the only voice that you all listen to. That would that's called a cult, and we don't want to do that here. So we encourage uh we encourage questioning and wrestling, as we might say. So all right, real quick, any prayer concerns this day that we can lift up as we uh close ourselves in prayer? Yeah, don't.
SPEAKER_06:It's ridiculous, but I have a new term today on church history, and I care.
SPEAKER_01:Alright. We will pray for uh you said on you said on church history? Church history. Fun stuff. All right, everybody say, Dylan, you got this. Dylan, you got this. There you go. What else? Any other prayers?
SPEAKER_02:Let's do Pat Neeby.
SPEAKER_01:Pat Neeby.
SPEAKER_02:It's a ongoing trouble.
SPEAKER_01:Um I visited last week with uh Bill and Gloria Fuller, and they've given me permission to share with you all that Bill has Parkinson's disease. He was diagnosed a few months ago, had a back surgery, um, and and he's he's not doing well. But but he is home from the hospital. They they give me um there's less things to share with you. He so they are back together at Friends Home West. Um, so I bring greetings from the Fullers and um who else did I see? Oh, uh Lillian Barnes. Uh I saw Lillian Barnes last week. I gave her her certificate for 50 years of membership. Um, and her her dementia is pretty pretty uh pretty advanced that she still speaks so with so much love about this church. And um, yeah. All right, let's pray and be on our way. Gracious God, trying, God, dance partners, we give you thanks for all the different ways that we can speak of your majesty and your mystery. We pray that you would be with us as we seek to wrap our heads around it all. Uh, we give you thanks for those who have gone before us this day, who have done this work to try to explain the unexplainable. So help us to dwell in the mystery and be curious about what it says to us about the way that we love one another, the way that we serve one another, and how we can participate in your holy work of creation, redemption, and sustaining of a world that is uh that is very weary. We pray this day for Dylan as he uh does as his midterm and church history. May he do well, and may he also be reminded that how well he does is not a measure of his belovedness or his qualifications. We also are mindful this day of those who need healing. Pat, E. B., Bill, and Gloria Fuller, and for the many others that are on our hearts. This we pray in the name of your Son Jesus, who taught us to pray, saying, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Not to temptation, but deliver us from evil. So we have one more week next week, and then uh Dylan and I are still working out the details, but Dylan has expressed interest in um teaching a couple classes on prayer at some point, either in November or December. George, I need to talk to you about that here in a second, okay? Just got it all my stuff under your toes, all right? All right. Thank you, everybody.
SPEAKER_08:I I I have a question. Why did you stick the ghost? I think it's not a spirit, I could.