University of Arizona...
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University of Arizona psychologist Matthias Mehl conducted a 2009 survey indicating that the happiest people engage in twice as many substantive conversations as those less happy. French renaissance author Michel de Montaigne is right about the pleasures of conversation. He writes: "In my opinion, the most fruitful and natural play of the mind is conversation. I find it sweeter than any other action in life."
Our lesson reminds us that God likes to talk, and his word is creative (for he made the world by speaking). You really get to know someone in conversation, especially with talkative friendly partners. Martin Luther claimed that God is someone you can really get to know from his word; it is who he is (Complete Sermons, Vol. 1/1, p. 179). Luther also talks about this God as very talkative, suggesting that the Trinity is itself an internal conversation. The Father is the speaker, the Son his word, and the Spirit the listener (Luther's Works, Vol. 24, pp. 364-365). When we hear God's word, engage it, and believe it, we become part of that conversation. Christian life is a lifelong conversation with God. What a nice way to think about life! This is a conversation that brings us to the very depths of his personality. And as John Calvin once noted, in his depths our divine conversation-partner is "an inexhaustible fountain of grace and truth" (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. XVII/2, p. 48). When you spend time in conversation with God, the topic keeps coming back again and again to love (that he has for us) and creativity (his work in making things new and better). The great Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards was right: Good conversations with God (interactions with his word) lead to intimacy with God (Works, Vol. 2, p. 148).
Our lesson reminds us that God likes to talk, and his word is creative (for he made the world by speaking). You really get to know someone in conversation, especially with talkative friendly partners. Martin Luther claimed that God is someone you can really get to know from his word; it is who he is (Complete Sermons, Vol. 1/1, p. 179). Luther also talks about this God as very talkative, suggesting that the Trinity is itself an internal conversation. The Father is the speaker, the Son his word, and the Spirit the listener (Luther's Works, Vol. 24, pp. 364-365). When we hear God's word, engage it, and believe it, we become part of that conversation. Christian life is a lifelong conversation with God. What a nice way to think about life! This is a conversation that brings us to the very depths of his personality. And as John Calvin once noted, in his depths our divine conversation-partner is "an inexhaustible fountain of grace and truth" (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. XVII/2, p. 48). When you spend time in conversation with God, the topic keeps coming back again and again to love (that he has for us) and creativity (his work in making things new and better). The great Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards was right: Good conversations with God (interactions with his word) lead to intimacy with God (Works, Vol. 2, p. 148).
