Welcome back to the podcast on this Thursday. We're going deep today and I mentioned Monday

that I have a batch of related questions to offer you, Pastor John, all big, all touch on several

points of theology, all of them similar and all accumulated over the years from reading audience

emails. And I think there are the kinds of questions that all of us will face at some point

as we read our Bibles and as we develop an appropriate God-centered vision of the universe.

So as a first foray on this podcast into this matrix of questions, I'll put them all on the

table for you, Pastor John, in brief. Our God-centeredness here at Desire and God raises questions

about the integrity of creation, us in particular, us humans. So here are those questions.

Are we as creatures simply a means to God's own self-corrification? Do we exist for a purpose

beyond God's own self-glory? It does God love us beyond His love for Himself or is the first

fully subsumed by the Second? Are we as image-bearers simply mirror holders for Him to see Himself in us?

Do we count? Does God love or delight in His creatures for what they are in

themselves? Speaking of unbelievers, does God delight in materially blessing creatures that do

not or will not believe in Him? But speaking of believers specifically, does God love to love us

simply because it blesses us? Is such a category even operable? How would you tackle a matrix of

questions like these? What might be helpful is to clarify what it is that gives rise to these kinds

of questions, and then maybe give very brief maybe one sentence answers to each of those,

I think there are nine of those questions, and then step back and look at the Bible and see what

it is about God and what it is about His ways that make those very brief answers justify

compelling, maybe explain why they make sense. So what gives rise to these questions is that I

and many others in the history of the church have emphasized the biblical teaching that God created

and redeemed His people for His own glory, meaning to cause His glory, that is His greatness,

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