Bob Webber

God’s story is the brief interpretation of everything. It is . . . a true picture of the world and our place in it. And through this picture we hear the voice of God who says . . . “I opened the way for you to live in my embrace of you and the world. Through my Son Jesus and by my Spirit I have embraced you so that now, united with me, you may embrace me as a child learns to embrace a mother because the mother first embraced the child. Now go and live the spiritual life, embrace me and my purpose in creating you and putting you in this world to be the priests of my creation. Make your life and this world the theater of my glory.”

-Robert E. Webber, The Divine Embrace: Recovering the Passionate Spiritual Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2006), 142.

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• The Online Catalog
• ATLA Journal Index & Full-Text Database
• The Turabian Style Guide
• Zotero–Citations made easy!

Direct questions or reserve a space by emailing the librarian.

Friday, June 14 4:30 – 5:30 pm

Place: IWS Conference Room (DWS 703/704)
Instructor: Carol Sittema
Finding books through the Online Library Catalog / How to use ATLA / ATLAS Religion Database

Saturday, June 15 4:30 – 5:30 pm

Place: IWS Conference Room (DWS 703/704)
Instructor: Carol Sittema
Conquer Chicago/Turabian Style: Learn about the Chicago/Turabian citation style according to the 7th edition of Kate Turabian’s A Manual for writers of research papers, theses, and dissertations: Chicago style for students and researchers. If time permits we will also have a high-level look at how to get started with NoodleBib.

Tuesday, June 18 4:30 – 5:30 pm

Place: IWS Conference Room (DWS 703/704)
Instructor: Ken Polsley
Zotero Workshop–Citations Made Easy: Tired of spending hours crafting citations for research papers? Minimize the time you spend on your bibliography with the help of Zotero! Bring your computers!

Bob Webber

God is doing a new thing. It is complex, and yet it can be summarized in a single word. The ancient church called it recapitulation. The word means, “to do over again.” In Jesus Christ, God does creation “over again.” Jesus Christ is the second creation, the new beginning of creation and creatures. God’s embrace of us in Jesus Christ recapitulates the human situation.

-Robert E. Webber, The Divine Embrace: Recovering the Passionate Spiritual Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2006), 137-138.

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Photo (c) Paul Lowry

Download the May 2013
Edition of the IWS Bibliography.

Bob Webber

Creation is ongoing in the sense that God is involved in creation with his own two hands—incarnate Word and Spirit—embracing the world to bring it into its final destination, the new heavens and the new earth. Christ has conquered sin and death by his death and resurrection, and in his return, he will put evil away forever, and heaven and earth and all that is in them will be united to God, fulfilling God’s eternal purpose for creation. The vision is: paradise lost; paradise regained.

-Robert E. Webber, The Divine Embrace: Recovering the Passionate Spiritual Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2006), 131.

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Bob Webber

Christian spirituality is not a journey into self as if spirituality is found in the deep recesses of our nature, hidden inside of us, waiting for release. No, true Christian spirituality is the embrace of Jesus, who, united to God, restores our union with God that we lost because of sin. This is how the ancient church understood God’s embrace.

-Robert E. Webber, The Divine Embrace: Recovering the Passionate Spiritual Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2006), 127.

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Bob Webber

The Christian church . . . has always been committed to a triune experience and understanding of God, but most preachers seldom preach on this subject. The discipline of addressing the congregation once a year on the meaning of triune faith and worship is helpful and necessary. . . . Christians need to know . . . the spiritual understanding of the self made in the image of God and the significance of Christian community that mirrors the eternal, communal relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

-Robert E. Webber, Ancient-Future Time: Forming Spirituality through the Christian Year (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2004), 175.

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Bob Webber

Pentecost Sunday ends the extraordinary season that began on the first Sunday of Advent. In approximately six months the church has been carried through all the saving events of God—his incarnation, manifestation to the world, life, death, resurrection, and ascension as well as the coming of the Holy Spirit. All these crucial events form faith and the spiritual life. . . . In a clear, directed, and evangelical practice of the Christian year, there is no missing of the point.

-Robert E. Webber, Ancient-Future Time: Forming Spirituality through the Christian Year (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2004), 163.

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Bob Webber

If Jesus ascended into heaven, has he left any signs of his presence among us? . . . If we wish to form congregational and personal spirituality, we will call attention to the ascended Lord who eternally intercedes for us and is always with us through the church and the signs of our identity with him (water) and of his continual nourishment (bread and wine).

-Robert E. Webber, Ancient-Future Time: Forming Spirituality through the Christian Year (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2004), 160-161.

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Bob Webber

The contours of God’s divine embrace are captured in a few words: God, creation, fall, incarnation, death and resurrection, re-creation, new heavens and new earth. . . . The spiritual life that we live in God’s creation is situated in this narrative, the story of God’s world. This is the embrace that reads the whole world and reads us individually. When we allow ourselves to be read and to be described by this embrace, we have come onto the path of Christian spirituality.

-Robert E. Webber, The Divine Embrace: Recovering the Passionate Spiritual Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2006), 126-127.

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