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    The Image of God
    The Image of God
    The Image of God
    Ebook102 pages2 hours

    The Image of God

    By Glenn Sunshine

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    About this ebook

    The Image of God is the centerpiece of the Bible's teaching about what it truly means to be human. In this book, Glenn Sunshine discusses fourteen aspects of the Image of God, what it has meant in history, and its implications for today. By exploring the story of the creation in Genesis, Sunshine details what the Bible says about human purpose and abilities, the effects of sin on humanity, the impact of redemption, and the restoration of humanity's original calling in Christ. Questions offered at the end of each chapter make The Image of God ideal for personal or group study.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGlenn Sunshine
    Release dateAug 3, 2013
    ISBN9780989269216
    The Image of God
    Author

    Glenn Sunshine

    Glenn Sunshine is professor of early modern European history at Central Connecticut State University a Research Fellow of the Acton Institute and an instructor in the Centurions Program, a worldview training ministry of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview.An award winning author, Glenn has published several books and numerous articles on history, theology, and culture online and on both sides of the Atlantic. His book Why You Think the Way You Do: The Story of Western Worldviews from Rome to Home (Zondervan, 2009) received the 2006 Acton Institute Book Grant. He is also a regular columnist for the Worldview Journal of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview.Glenn has taught a variety of Bible, history, and worldview seminars and courses to churches around the U.S. and in Europe, as well as leading church retreats, seminars, and renewal weekends. He is featured on Acton Media’s “The Birth of Freedom,” a documentary released on DVD in 2008, and on “Doing the Right Thing,” an ethics curriculum released in 2011.Glenn and his wife Lynn have been married for over 30 years. They have two children, Elizabeth and Brendan. They live in Newington, Connecticut.

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      Book preview

      The Image of God - Glenn Sunshine

      The Image of GOD

      Glenn Sunshine

      Published by Every Square Inch Publishing at Smashwords

      Copyright 2013 Glenn Sunshine

      This book is available in print at most online retailers.

      This ebook is licensed for your personal use only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

      Table of Contents

      Introduction

      1—The Image of God and Stewardship

      2—The Image of God and Human Dignity

      3—The Image of God and Gender

      4—The Image of God and Marriage

      5—The Image of God and Spirituality

      6—The Image of God and Creativity

      7—The Image of God and Reason

      8—The Image of God and Work

      9—The Image of God and Science

      10—The Image of God and Free Will

      11—The Image of God and the Fall

      12—The Image of God and Jesus the Christ

      13—The Image of God and Restoration

      14—The Image of God and the Cultural Mandate

      Introduction

      Questions

      *What does it mean to be human?

      *Is there such a thing as human rights? If so, what are they?

      *How can we say that all people are equal when some are more intelligent, more athletic, better looking, wealthier, or have more opportunities than others?

      *Does work have any meaning beyond making a living?

      *How should human beings relate to the environment?

      *Are we different from animals?

      *What is marriage? What is family?

      *Does sex have any deeper meaning beyond personal pleasure?

      *Why is the world so messed up?

      *Is there any solution?

      *What is the meaning or purpose of life?

      So many questions ….

      God’s Definition

      The answer to all these questions and more are embedded in the answer to the first question, what it means to be human. For Christians, the place to find the answer is in the Bible. In the first chapter of Genesis, when God consults with Himself about creating humanity, He gives His definition of what it means to be human: Let us make man in our image, in our likeness (Gen. 1:26a).

      The first thing God says about humanity is that we are made in His image. Everything about what it means to be human flows from there. This concept has enormous implications for our lives, for our culture, and for society, yet we hardly ever talk about it. There was a time when the church understood this, in those bygone days when Christians believed that they should lead the culture rather than follow it. Until fairly recently, Christians worked to apply the biblical understanding of what it means to be human to the full range of human experience. The result was the transformation of work, the development of technology, the rise of science, the idea of human rights, the abolition of slavery, improvement in the status of women, promotion of monogamy, the creation of great art, and a host of other elements that shaped Western civilization and created the modern world.

      Unfortunately, we’ve largely forgotten all that, and so has our culture.

      The AWOL Church

      American society has lost sight of the meaning and purpose of human life. We give lip service to supporting people with disabilities, but when we find them we exterminate them in utero. We idolize sex yet have divorced it from its biological purpose. We have made children a lifestyle accessory available to pretty much everyone who wants one. So-called same sex marriage is increasingly considered an obvious human rights issue when it did not even exist anywhere in history prior to 2001. We view work as either a necessary evil rather than a positive good, or we idolize it. We have a consumerist mentality that says that Jesus was wrong and that life does consist in the abundance of our possessions. Young people live vicariously through video games rather than doing something with their lives in the real world. Contemporary art celebrates meaninglessness. More people are enslaved today than at any point in human history.[1] The list is endless.[2]

      The need in our society is thus great. The challenges raised by bioethics alone should drive us to examine what the Bible says about what it means to be human. Unfortunately, the church has not taught a message that is capable of addressing the unprecedented cultural changes that we are facing.

      Liberal churches have largely adopted an agenda indistinguishable from liberal politics. They have thus made themselves irrelevant: if I can do the same things and work on the same causes through a Political Action Committee, what do I need the church for? Conservative churches have reduced Christianity to the message of salvation, and the Christian life to spiritual activities (typically limited to prayer, Bible study, going to church, and evangelism) plus morality. These churches have essentially nothing to offer to the culture. Personal salvation, yes; cultural impact, no.

      But Jesus tells us that we are the salt of the Earth and the light of the world. If our culture is decaying and becoming dark, it is because we are not doing our job. And a big part of the reason we are not doing our job is we don’t understand the fullness of the Gospel, and that Christians are meant to be bring the Kingdom of God to bear on every area of life and culture.

      In other words, we don’t understand the image of God and its role in developing an integrated vision of life. We need to re-learn the idea that all legitimate work is a calling from God, that the work of the scientist, the artist, the teacher, and the auto mechanic is just as spiritual as the work of the pastor because all of these jobs can and should be done to the glory of God and the good of our neighbor. Once we understand that, the Gospel becomes far bigger than personal salvation, as important as that is. Rather, it offers a positive vision of culture, a good and compelling picture of the way things are supposed to be. Rather than being sellers of fire insurance, we have good news both for this world and for the next.

      This brief study cannot cover all of this in any detail, but the core of that cultural vision has to be a recovery of the full-orbed picture of what it means to be made in the image of God. Understanding this will help us navigate through the maze of issues raised by science and technology that are advancing faster than our ethics. It will help us recover the rich tradition of the arts where Christians once excelled. It will guide us through the social and cultural challenges that our society is throwing at us. And it will provide a firm foundation for continuing with the unfinished task of promoting human rights and freeing the slaves. In other words, it will give us a solid biblical foundation for addressing the issues we face.

      If you are reading but are not a Christian or do not accept the authority of the Bible, I’d encourage you to read it with an open mind. It will help you understand the impact the Bible has had in shaping Western culture, and it will present ideas you probably have not heard

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