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The Christ-hymn, or Christological Canticle from Colossians, contains several distinguishing features in its content and structure. One of the most unique elements, which has been a point of contention for Christians, is that the hymn points to Christ’s role in creation (cosmology), and Christ’s role in reconciliation (soteriology). The Canticle can be interpreted to show that Christ serves effectively as a “unifying principle, holding the universe together at its head,” (MacDonald, n.d., p. 65). Christ also holds together the church: positioning Christ clearly as the symbolic head and the Church as the body of Christ (MacDonald, n.d., p. 66). As MacDonald (n.d.) also points out, the cultural and historical context of the Christological Canticle informed some of its more mystical and symbolic dimensions. Extended to the global Christian community, the Christological Canticle from Colossians offers clear focus for how to worship, and particularly, how to worship within a Christian community. The hymn clearly underscores the ongoing sociological and psychological importance of communal worship, of ritual, of a vibrant social life guided by Christ and imbued with the Holy Spirit.Changes to social norms and culture have also altered the meaning and function of the Christological Canticle. Secularism...
Yet it is important to return to the Christological Canticle to provide meaning, focus, and ethical vision for all Christian communities. It is not so much that the sufficiency of Christ as God’s agent of creation and reconciliation is challenged, and more than the ritual dimension of the symbolic enactment of Christ’s sacrifice has been called into question. As Bergant (n.d.) points out, the hymn specifically focuses on Christ’s divinity, exalting Christ to the important cosmological and soteriological roles. Paul offers insight into the future formation of Christian theology and cosmology, allowing for a sophisticated understanding of the meaning of Christ’s mission. One must therefore return again and again to passages like these to reinvigorate understanding of the cosmic Christ.
Christ is presented as part of the architecture of the cosmos, as that which holds both macrocosm and microcosm together. Responding to challenges to the efficacy of the Christological Canticle requires a more in-depth and sensitive reading of Colossians, without even the need for comparing the hymn to other Pauline passages. For Christ is not typically presented or taught…
G) We hear this hymn in every act of Our Town. How might the circumstances of its being sung affect the listerner's interpretation? The Hynm is appropriate just because it is interpretive, like the Stage Manager, the Hymn is contemplative in its pathos and hope, its dual nature of pessimism and optimism, and its ability to celebrate life as well as comment on a clear path or dogma. H) What was
Render to Ceasar the Things That Are Ceasars Render unto the Caesar the Things that are Caesar's "Render unto Caesar what belong to the Caesars" is the beginning a phrase ascribed to Jesus in the synoptic gospel, which fully reads, "Render unto the Caesar what are Caesar's, and unto God what belong to God." This phrase has been a widely quoted and controversial summary on the relationship between the contemporary secular authorities
high degree of misinformation I had received from traditional teachings about the church and the beginning of Christianity. Moreover, I was struck by the notion that most other people in the Western world receive this same degree of intentional misinformation, so much so that I have even heard people defend the idea that knowledge of the historical church is irrelevant to modern Christianity. Reading through the class material, I
" (Kysar 27) Scholars at times forget that the bible is not only a work of theology but also a work of literature. Barnes also believes in this interpretation and its New Testament expression of the Trinity, "I am thinking, in particular, of the pivotal appeal to John 1:1-3 at de Trinitate 2.2.9, which resembles Tertullian's (and Hippolytus's) use of the Johannine prologue as the paradigmatic expression of the economy of
After considering the particular language of Philippians 2:5, it becomes clear that one may read this clause as containing either no verbs, a single repeated verb, or a verb and a noun referring to related concepts. In all likelihood, the most accurate interpretation of this verse is a combined reading of all three, because only by considering each interpretation can one begin to understand the multifaceted state of being it
Again, this feminine passivity outshines masculine action in its ability to experience divine and even human love. As Crashaw continues, the erotic imagery becomes more emboldened and perhaps slightly more ambiguous, not clouding or confounding interpretation but suggesting several alternatives that work towards the same end of demonstrating the purity of passivity in its relation to the divine. After setting up the concept of virginity, love, and an active passivity