A Word For Thought

The Bible passages about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not difficult.

The word ‘trinity’ and all the other created words surrounding it are impossible.

If we just skipped the word ‘trinity’ and ‘co-equal’ and ‘co-eternal’ and ‘is’ and ‘is not’ and ‘same’ and ‘different’ and ‘three-dimensions’ and ‘tri’ and ‘unity’ and ‘essence’ and ‘1+1+1=3’ and ‘1+1+1=1’ and ‘persons’ and ‘water, ice, and steam’ and ‘light, heat, radiation from one sun’ and ‘no illustration is perfect’ and ‘triangle’ and ‘pyramid’ and ‘height, width, depth’ and ‘look like, sound like, behave like, but not . . .’ and ‘not three gods’ and ‘one god’ and . . . and . . . and . . . , then we could focus much better on encouraging people to read what is actually in the Bible.

The above collection illustrates the point of ridiculous futility created by inventing the word ‘trinity.’

All that came from just one article titled,

“The following clearly and briefly explains the Trinity . . . three gods or one?”

I must say, “absurd.”

And, ten videos with the following titles “How I Explain the Trinity,” “How to Explain the Trinity to An Unbeliever,” “The Trinity Explained,” “Share Jesus: the Trinity Explained In Under 3 Minutes,” “Explaining the Trinity to Children,” “Christian ‘Trinity’ Explained In 3 Minutes (Father, Spirit, Son) Part One,” “3 Minute Theology 1.1: What Is the Trinity?” “What Is the Trinity?” “How Can I Best Explain the Holy Trinity to a Child?” “How to Explain the Trinity: by Jeff Durbin” were sufficient to make me quit without watching any.

To make my point of ridiculous—I simply typed “explain the trinity,” and over 38,000,000 results showed up—that’s thirty-eight million—besides the eleven I refer to here.

Theologians have created lots of ridiculous stuff, but I think this tops them all.

Why doesn’t anyone else see the obvious, like the kids’ book, The Emperor Has No Clothes?

The article then went on to quote a lot of Bible verses about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Not one of the verses was complicated or hard to understand or believe, just as written.

So why don’t we just use the Bible verses, and not the man-made gobbledygook?

If we could simply let go of the invented word ‘trinity’ and the unbelievable time and effort and umpteen millions of books and articles and illustrations unsuccessfully ‘explaining’ the word ‘trinity,’ it could so free the church for the mission of the church, that it would rival the revolution of the Reformation.

No credible case can be made for maintaining the use of the word ‘trinity’ and its monumental mystic manipulations by man, that get us not one step closer to God—EXCEPT that “we’ve always done it this way,” the ‘trinity,’ that is.

Well, actually, we haven’t always done it that way.  Some theologians had a meeting and came up with the word ‘trinity.’

Not Jesus, not Paul, not in the Bible, not helpful at all, not defensible at all.

I believe a very strong case can be made for the damage caused by creating the word ‘trinity’ and the distractions it has caused, as a great deal of time, wasted time, is spent explaining and defending the ‘trinity’ as a given assumption without question—precious time borrowed from sharing the simple Word of God.

Profound, theological, Biblical summary:

God does not fit in a three-sided box.

(Analogy—if you teach enough public school students that evolution is a fact, you end up with generations that believe it is a fact.)