"the glory that comes from the only God"

This morning Heather and I sat and prayed on the back porch, with the dew still heavy on the grass and many vultures sailing high overhead. And, as we read from John, I noticed these words of Jesus:

I do not receive glory from men.

[You] receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God... (Jn 5.41, 44)

It reminded me of what I wrote about several days ago, when "Jesus did not trust himself to them." Here, the word translated "glory" also means opinion or judgment, praise, or approval. It brings up again the tension between God's approval and the approval of society, a tension which the experience of social rejection can help us break through.

That was also the theme of the letter I wrote yesterday to our church at Plow Creek. (It's available here.) It begins, "It was a dark and stormy night..."