Spiritual Maturity
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Five Signs of a Spiritual Narcissist
While the spiritual narcissist has much in common with your regular garden variety narcissist, a spiritual narcissist tends to hold sway over more people. You can find them in just about any religion and denomination. Religion is often a big draw for narcissists. Spiritual authority is nebulous; many people who claim to have it, do not. But with enough bluster and authoritarian posturing, it can sure seem like others have spiritual authority. Pastors are not the only ones who often qualify as spiritual narcissists. I have seen many Bible studies putter out as a member stage a takeover. Often church splits are a result of the maneuvering of this or…
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What’s So Extraordinary about Mary?
I have often heard it said in church circles that the Catholic church makes too much of Mary while the Protestant arm of the body makes too little. Not until I really looked into the life and decisions of Mary did I begin to realize how subversive, brave, and significant Mary is to the church, particularly women. She contributes some incredibly important and often overlooked encouragement to the role of women within the church. 1: Mary accepts God’s call on her life without consulting the men in her life. Mary doesn’t ask Gabriel to wait while she consults Joseph on this new development. She must be well aware that becoming…
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How the Bible Reads You When You Read It
The Bible is intertextual. In literary theory, the term intertextuality refers to the interrelationship between texts, especially works of literature; the way that similar or related texts influence, reflect, or differ from each other. And just as many works of literature reference the Bible, whether knowingly or unknowingly, we, too, are texts that interact with every book that we read. Think of it this way. I am a collection of experiences, memories, and acquired knowledge. I have a library in my mind. As I read any work, I access this library of the mind and interact with whatever I am reading. In a sense, everything I read is now understood in a whole new way. I create a new book that no one has ever read before, at least not…
