For the next 21 days, let's commit to feeding yourself spiritually by reading and reflecting on a passage of Scripture each day using the S.O.A.P. method (Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer). Keep a brief daily note of what you learn and how you might apply it, and at the end of the 21 days, share your biggest takeaway with someone else.
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James & 1 Corinthians → Ethics of speech, impartiality, and love as the heart of faith.
Philemon & Philippians → Reconciliation, persuasion, joy, and peace.
Ephesians & Colossians → Grace and renewal as new creation in Christ.
Psalm 23 & 1 John → God as shepherd and God as love: presence, peace, and relational healing.
Across the first seven devotionals, a pattern emerges:
Traditional lens → Sacramental, communal, virtue-forming.
Evangelical lens → Conversional, individual, urgent holiness.
Process lens → Relational, healing, co-creative, offering liberation from fear-based theologies.
Review of first 7 days...
SOAP 1/21 — Of Partiality & Tongues (James 2 & 3)
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Focus: The misuse of wealth, favoritism, and the destructive power of the tongue.
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Traditional: Calls for moral virtue and communal holiness.
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Evangelical: Warns against hypocrisy, calling for Spirit-filled speech, and impartial love.
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Process: Reframes speech as relational energy that shapes reality; calls for healing and creativity in community dialogue.
SOAP 2/21 — A Hymn of Love (1 Corinthians 13)
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Focus: Love as the supreme and eternal reality.
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Traditional: Sacramental and communal expression of caritas as union with God.
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Evangelical: Christlike love as the mark of true discipleship.
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Process: Love as God’s dynamic lure shaping all becoming; relational healing over coercion.
SOAP 3/21 — Love’s Harmonies (Philemon 4–9 & Philippians 4:4–9)
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Focus: Paul appeals for reconciliation and exhorts joy, gentleness, and prayer.
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Traditional: Pastoral love, sacramental peace, unity of the Church.
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Evangelical: Personal forgiveness, practical discipleship, joy in Christ.
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Process: Persuasive love, not coercive command; God’s peace as relational harmony co-created in community.
SOAP 4/21 — Grace and New Creation (Ephesians 2:1–10)
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Focus: Salvation as God’s gift, raising humanity into new life in Christ.
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Traditional: Grace heals sin corporately; baptism and sacraments manifest new life.
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Evangelical: Salvation by grace through faith alone; assurance of forgiveness and good works as evidence.
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Process: “Wrath” as alienation, not divine punishment; grace as God’s lure into relational renewal and co-creation.
SOAP 5/21 — The Shepherd of Life (Psalm 23)
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Focus: God as shepherd, guide, and host.
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Traditional: Pastoral psalm tied to baptism, Eucharist, anointing; liturgical trust in divine providence.
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Evangelical: Personal assurance of God’s care and presence through Christ.
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Process: God as companioning presence; rod and staff as persuasive comfort, not coercive force; relational peace even in the valley.
SOAP 6/21 — Putting on the New Self (Colossians 3:1–15)
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Focus: Living out new identity in Christ by seeking above, putting to death old ways, and clothing oneself in love.
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Traditional: Baptismal identity expressed in communal virtue and sacramental grace.
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Evangelical: Personal sanctification through daily discipleship; holiness as evidence of new life.
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Process: Renewal as dynamic becoming; love as alignment with God’s persuasive lure toward harmony, breaking down divisions.
SOAP 7/21 — God Is Love (1 John 4:7–12)
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Focus: God’s nature as love, revealed in Christ and perfected in community.
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Traditional: Sacramental mediation of divine love; perfected in communion and charity.
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Evangelical: God’s love shown in Christ’s atoning sacrifice; love as evidence of salvation.
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Process: Love as God’s eternal, relational essence; “propitiation” reframed as divine solidarity, not wrath appeasement; love becomes visible in co-creative community.
"Grace, Love, Renewal: A 21-Day Journey in Three Voices" perfectly captures both the devotional heart and the comparative framework of the past seven days:
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Grace → Ephesians & Paul’s core theme
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Love → 1 Corinthians, 1 John, Psalm 23
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Renewal → Colossians, James, the whole movement of putting on the new self
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Three Voices → Traditional • Evangelical • Processual
Process Theological Observation (Days 1–7)
Across these first seven devotionals, a striking pattern emerges: Traditional voices often stress sacramental participation and communal virtue, while Evangelical voices emphasize individual conversion, assurance, and obedience. Both can inspire faith, yet both too easily slip into systems that discipline through i) reactions of fear, ii) authoritative hierarchy, or iii) divine and ecclesiastical exclusion.
Process theology breaks that cycle. It refuses to imagine God as wrathful judge or distant sovereign. Instead, it insists that:
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“Wrath” is not God’s punishment but the natural unraveling of life apart from love.
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“Propitiation” is not appeasement of divine anger but God’s solidarity with human suffering in Christ.
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Discipleship is not coerced obedience but co-creative participation in God’s lure toward peace, beauty, and renewal.
From James’s call to tame the tongue, to Paul’s hymn to love, to the shepherd psalm of loving guidance, and the Johannine declaration that God is love and is always loving, process thought hears a consistent witness: God is not a tyrant demanding submission, but the companioning presence who heals, persuades, redeems, and renews until all is resurrected.
Where other legacies, creeds, confessions, and dogmatic bodies have often built systems of fear, control, and patriarchy, process theology offers a healing journey - a way of faith where God’s power is always the power of love; and where when “putting on the new self” is the alignment of the soul with the deepest rhythms of the divine cosmos: that of compassion, forgiveness, and relational peace.
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