The Transforming Trinity Study Guide

The word Trinity is never mentioned in the Bible. And yet evidence for one God in three persons is found throughout the Scriptures. When the Israelites fled from Egypt, Moses taught them about the uniqueness and unity of God - 'Hear O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one' (Deuteronomy 6:4). This vital message was to ground their faith and be passed on to their children. And as the storyline of the Bible unfolds, the different persons of the Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - are revealed, each with different roles but one in essence and purpose. As Christians we say we believe in the doctrine of the Trinity but in practice we often ignore it. For many of us this exclusive claim of Christianity has become irrelevant and unimportant, a topic reserved for theologians. So, unintentionally, we focus on one person of the Trinity, excluding the others. We fall into the trap of seeing the Father as the God of the Old Testament and Jesus as the God of the New. We make a distinction between Word and Spirit, assuming it's OK for some Christians to be open to the Spirit while others rely on the Word. We need to rediscover the Trinity because 'in the confession of the Trinity throbs the heart of the Christian religion' (Bavinck,'Doctrine of God', p. 281). In this study we will find out why the Trinity is central to our beliefs and fundamental to the working out of our faith. We will never exhaust the riches of the Trinity - it is a mystery.

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