To BE the image of God---what does that mean and what difference does it make to you and me today?

Nika Spaulding unpacks it for those of us who are unsure or perhaps our understanding is incorrect. To BE in the image of God is a crucial concept if we want to live out our identity in Christ and interact with people in the world around us as God asks us to do.

Optionally, watch the video version of this episode.

Nika's Suggested Resources

Being God’s Image by Carmen Joy Imes

Bullies & Saints: An Honest Look at the Good and Evil of Christian History by John Dickson

BOW’s Resources on this topic

Learning to Love our Neighbors podcast with Kay Daigle

Sexual Identity & Gender Identity podcast with Dr. Sandra Glahn and Dr. Gary Barnes

Racial Reconciliation resources

Sexual Abuse & Church with Mary DeMuth

Caring Well resources

TimeStamps:

0:32 – Intro

01:04 - What does it mean to BE God’s Image?

03:30 - How would the original audience of Genesis have understood this?

10:01 - Where else does the Bible mention the image of God?

15:44 - Are men and women equally God's Image?

19:43 - Is the Bible anti-women?

21:30 - Image of God wasn't generally taught for years

23:12 - How the early church applied this

24:35 - Common misunderstandings of the image of God

25:47 - How do we apply this today?

31:52 – Other resources to practically apply these truths

 

TranscriptKay >> I'm Kay Daigle of Beyond Ordinary Women Ministries. Welcome to this podcast/video episode. Our special guest today is Nika Spaulding. Welcome, Nika.

Nika >> Thanks, Kay. I'm excited to be here with you.

Kay >> Well, it's always great to have you. We always love it when you are our guest. Nika is the Resident Theologian at St Jude Oak Cliff in the Dallas area. She has a Master of Theology from DTS and our topic today is about the image of God. We're talking about what it means to be God's image. Explain that a little bit for us, because I think we usually we would say what it means to be in the image of God, but what does it mean to be God's image?

Nika >> Yeah, that's really good. I like that you clarify that because I think that's an important part of this conversation. We use the phrase image of God, or imago dei if you've heard the Latin one, this idea of humanity at the end of creation, God makes the heavens and the earth. He makes all these days; he fills the days. It's incredible.

And then creation crescendos at the top and kind of breaks from the pattern. You sort of have a creation, day and night, creation, day and night, day, night. And then all of a sudden, the camera zooms in and God gets to the top of creation, which is in Genesis 1:26-27. Let's make mankind in our image male and female and you have this image language that gets picked up there.

And what's really interesting about that is people forever have been talking about the image of God. It's a big idea in theology, but sometimes people will talk about it as if it's something you can do, or it's something that you receive, or maybe like you can bear it or you cannot bear it. And really I think an important distinction is, no, no, you just are the image of God. You don't do something to become the image of God. We just exist as the image of God because that's what it means to be human. It's all humans are the image of God rather than we can act like the image of God. And one of the distinctions that I like to make is sometimes people think that we are the image of God because we're rational.

We were talking about pets before we hit record, and I love my dog more than I probably should. But I have to accept at some point that humans are more important than my dog. I may not emotionally accept that, but I can intellectually accept that on some level. And people will say, well, yeah, because you can reason, you can marry, you can logic, sort of all these things. And it's like, well, that then means people who with intellectual disabilities then don't image...