Tom's Northwest Passages

“The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Ps. 103:8). The love of God is universal, persistent, ever present, and fiercely determined to set things right. I have read carefully through the entire Bible again and again, looking for all the relevant passages on the universal love of God. The survey you are about to read contains almost every place in the Bible on the love, kindness, pity, and compassion of God. I was especially interested in those passages in which God’s concern for all people is emphasized. I did not include many passages in which people are calling out to God to be gracious or merciful, although even those show an expectation, grounded in God’s experienced character, that God will, in fact, be so. We begin our survey with Genesis. I. The Old Testament A. Genesis Genesis 1-11 The Bible begins with the familiar words, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (1:1, TNIV) . It begins with God’s bringing into...

A Paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 13 As If It Were about God’s Love for Us 1 The love of God is more important than the Bible, spiritual talk, and theology. 2 It is more important than planning, prophecy, meditation, and miracles. 3 It is even more important than social justice and humanitarian service. All these things may be good, but if there is no God who loves us and all people, then they are just so much human noise. 4 God’s love is patient, it is kind, and it is not jealous of our other loves (like our families, baseball, and chocolate). God isn’t worried about how important God is or whether he always gets the credit he deserves. 5 God is someone you’d like to have coffee with, and he doesn’t wear a watch. He isn’t always telling you his stories, but takes the time to listen to yours, and doesn’t interrupt, except maybe to laugh. And you can’t make him mad, even if you aren’t always nice to him or forget his birthday. He doesn’t hold a grudge or even remember your screw-u...