In 1939 Tolkien gave a lecture at St Andrews on the subject of Fairy Tales. It was transcribed into an essay and the basic questions he grappled with were: “What IS a Fairy Tale?” And what is the “USE of a Fairy Tale?” Tolkien and his friend CS Lewis would argue that Fairy Tales are not just for children- they are serious literature for adults too. Fairy Tales engage our imaginations and contain in them not only moral lessons, but important echoes of the Gospel. It is from this vantage point we embark on this mini-series The Gospel According to Cinderella.

Who is my neighbor? This is the question the lawyer asks Jesus in Luke 10. Jesus answers him with the famous parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus asks the lawyer to answer: Who is the true neighbor to the fallen man? The lawyer answers just as Jesus intended: The one who showed mercy. Then Jesus instructs him- GO and DO likewise. So who is your neighbor? And how can we set aside our pride to “Go and Do likewise” just as Jesus instructs us?

What is the obstacle for us that must be moved out of the way so that we can really be servants and love our neighbor as ourselves? Ultimately it is our pride, our “ego” that we wear as an outer garment to protect and define ourselves. It is our pride that directs us inward to selfishness and says not to love and serve our neighbor, but to serve ourselves… What does this look like and how can it be overcome in your daily walk with Jesus?

What does it mean when Jesus says to “love your neighbor as yourself? Do we really have a good idea of what that means? We spend the next three episodes examining the radical call to love our neighbor, the obstacles to love and finally defining exactly WHO our neighbor might be based on Jesus’ teachings in Luke chapter 10.

What does it mean to love God with all our strength? There are 3 ways to consider this. First, strength means well toned muscles. So in order to Love God with all my strength I need a faith and a love for God that is well toned. Another way to define strength is as something that we have in abundance or something that we are particularly good at doing. So loving God with all our strength is to love him with the strengths and gifts he has given me. And a final way to think about loving God with all my strength is to realize- I have no strength of my own- so to love God with all my strength is to actually love him through my weakness and let him work through those weaknesses.

Webster's dictionary defines the soul as the spiritual part of us. The soul is our deeply felt moral and emotional being. These characteristics are only present in rational beings- that would mean human beings. It is our soul that embodies the deepest part of us and it drives our search for meaning and purpose in this world. So what does it mean to love the Lord our God with all of our soul?

What does it mean to love the Lord our God with all our mind? How does our thinking about God shape who we are and how we relate to the world? We started answering these questions last episode as part of our series on the Greatest Commandment: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your MIND and all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Today we go deeper into this aspect of loving God with all our mind by examining three different worldviews that shape who we are and how we think about God. How we think about God will shape how we love Him and each other.

What is the purpose of the mind in our faith? How does what we think about God shape who we are? The Greatest Commandment says to Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your MIND and all your strength. There is an important aspect to our loving God and others, that is more than just an emotional rush. Real love is deliberate. It is purposeful. It is thoughtful and it takes action. Paul tells us in Colossians to “Set your MINDS on things above, not on earthly things.” That means an active portion of our loving God is engaged in thinking and setting our minds on God and the things of God.