Coffee Mug Theology

2 Corinthians 4: 5: “For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.”

A newly written prayer of confession began this way in a Protestant worship service: “Grace-filled God”. Needless to say, this phrase for the Lord has not liturgical provenance and grammatically I think it is off-putting. It is possible that the bad theology behind “Grace-filled God” is revealed in its odd grammatical construct. I had my morning coffee in my “coffee-filled mug” but I would call it a mug of coffee. Now did my mug self-fill itself with coffee? Hardly. No, I filled my mug. So the implication is that someone else filled God with grace. No doubt this was not the intention of the author of this prayer of confession. Now God is “full of grace” (see St. John 1: 14), as that’s just the way God is. He didn’t fill Himself. He is as in “I am”. Now, He fills us with grace (e.g. the Virgin Mary and the first martyr Stephen and every believer). But no one fills God with grace.

You may be thinking dear reader that I am being fussy. I admit it, I am but for a larger point: if we keep on using metaphors and similes, regarding the Lord in this case, that are not strictly Biblical then we can begin to get the wrong thoughts about the true nature of the Lord God, e.g. as inclusive language, see the 1993 Re-imagining god conference. Maybe “grace-filled God” is a one time occurrence, but if not, then this will form the congregation in false notions, opening them up to even more egregious heretical ideas. Lex orandi, lex credendi, the rule of praying is the rule of believing. If the praying is not Biblical, that is orthodox (and orthodox literally means “right glory”, as in right glory in praying and singing) then this ‘praying’ will result is non-Biblical believing. Now if “grace-filled God” is just a one time honorific, this is still part of the generation long efforts at creative writing for services, changing up a worship service every Sunday, with the goal “to reach people” and such attempts at creativity turn our heart, soul and mind from the Creator to the created: us and what we want and these days “feel“. Revolving around selves, and not the true God of grace Who saves sinners in His beloved Son. The Lord has a name for that kind of self-interested worship: idolatry.