chore: autopublish 2024-12-30T21:36:03Z

src/en/ss/2025-01/introduction.md

@@ -6,14 +6,6 @@ In this and many other ways, how we understand God’s love has massive implicat
 
 For example, Christians offer different answers to the following questions:
 
-Does God’s love only give but never receive? Is divine love purely self-sacrificial, or might God also delight in and be pleased by humans? Is God’s love emotional? Does God really care about humans? Can God’s love be rejected or forfeited? Does God enter into a back-and-forth love relationship with creatures? Is anger incompatible with love? How do love and justice go together? If God is love, why is there evil in this world, and so much of it? Can humans love the way God does? If so, what would that look like?
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-The answers to some of these questions might seem obvious but are often disputed God is love. So says 1 John 4:8 and 16. The entirety of the Bible testifies to this fact. The Christian faith is centered around God’s character of love. Love is at the core of who God is, at the core of everything that we believe, and should be at the core of everything we do. Accordingly, the way we understand love affects the entirety of our faith and practice. If, for example, one believes that God’s love must be earned or merited, a person might think that God does not love them because they are sinful and unworthy. And, in relation to others, one might expect others to merit love—a recipe for disaster.
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-In this and many other ways, how we understand God’s love has massive implications for our faith and practice. Yet, what is love? If you ask ten people to define love, you might get ten different answers. Even among Christians, there are many myths and misunderstandings about God’s love.
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-For example, Christians offer different answers to the following questions:
-
 _Does God’s love only give but never receive? Is divine love purely self-sacrificial, or might God also delight in and be pleased by humans? Is God’s love emotional? Does God really care about humans? Can God’s love be rejected or forfeited? Does God enter into a back-and-forth love relationship with creatures? Is anger incompatible with love? How do love and justice go together? If God is love, why is there evil in this world, and so much of it? Can humans love the way God does? If so, what would that look like?_
 
 The answers to some of these questions might seem obvious but are often disputed in Christian treatments of divine love. And many answers that are sometimes taken to be obvious turn out on closer inspection to be incompatible with what Scripture teaches about God’s love.
@@ -26,4 +18,4 @@ Throughout the Bible, God is repeatedly grieved and pained by evil and suffering
 
 The God of the Bible, who is love, is often portrayed throughout Scripture as brokenhearted and grieved by love rejected and love lost. The entire story of Scripture is about what God has done and is doing to restore love to every corner and crevice of the universe. This and much more is the topic of this quarter’s lessons.
 
-_John C. Peckham is an associate editor of the Adventist Review. At the time this guide was written, he was a professor of theology and Christian philosophy at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University._
+_John C. Peckham is an associate editor of the Adventist Review and a professor of theology and Christian philosophy at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University._