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Ok, so my son is a pervert. Jaden has touched about a half dozen boobs in the past couple days. He’s been squeezing them too! The dirty kid. You see, he is six months old and doesn’t know any better. He is one of those smiley kids that everyone wants to pick up, especially girls that like the idea of having a kid, but aren’t ready for the commitment yet. Anyway, Jaden is a ladies man right now, but I don’t think he knows it. He also likes to grab coats and blankets and anything else that’s soft, so I really don’t think he means it.
But this got me thinking. Are there times when I’m ignorantly doing things that aren’t right? Offending people? Sometimes I think that to be really Christian you have to be super aware of your surroundings. You have to be ready to catch any action that might put someone out or make them feel belittled. It’s a hard thing to do when you have strong opinions about almost everything, which I do. There seems to be a lot of warnings in the Bible about not speaking too much and not discussing stupid stuff like genealogies etc… I was talking with Noel this week about the “L” in the Calvinistic acronym TULIP. The L stands for Limited Atonement. And Noel is wondering if it even matters to take an opinion on this. “Of course it does” I thought. “It’s freaking John Calvin! He didn’t spend his whole life trying to create the perfect city for nothing did he? Um, yeah, maybe Geneva didn’t quite work out, but this is one of the most discussed doctrines of our faith, it has to matter” I thought to myself. But now that I think about it, does it really? Does it really matter if Christ’s atonement is limited or unlimited? Will this ever come up in a crisis counseling session? I could just imagine it I get a call from someone in the church who is standing on the 127/Kalamazoo St Bridge. “So is it limited or not? If so, I’m jumping.” I mean, that’s just not going to happen.
On the other hand we are reading 2nd Peter today at church and there are so many warnings against false teachers. Funny thing is, if you read Paul’s letter of Galatians we see that that book was teaching against some of Peter’s own false teachings. I guess he knew first hand what it meant to be a false teacher. The analogy might break down a bit though because Peter’s false teaching was really just bad character. I’m sure he knew that favoring the circumcised Jews over the uncircumcised Gentiles was wrong, but I mean I’m intimidated by things that I’m not used to just the same. But the point is, is that he didn’t hold the corner on right teaching at every point in his life. Well this uncertainty makes one think that possibly we are so fallible as humans, that maybe we can’t know anything about what’s right. Or at least, everything is up for debate. I was at this conference in Seattle last week and heard Gary Brashears teach on the question “what is the Gospel.” Many people are asking the question I guess. And I guess you need to define what you mean by that question. But instead of going there, I’d rather ask if there is a place where we can agree that there are some things that we can actually know in scripture? Now, I’m all for asking questions and discussing doctrines that need to be discussed but didn’t God give us this message so we could actually understand some things? So we could get some things done? I would say that the deity of Christ is one of those things. It is a constant thread that permeates the Bible. His grace and salvations would be others, the fact that the Holy Sprit is living in those who follow Christ just Truth! Ok course I don’t mean to say that I have evidence to back things up. But I know I am tired right now and can’t prove it to you. Is there room for this kind of belief in our postmodern society? Or are we just ignorantly grabbing at who knows what?
posted by Dan Price @ 1:23 AM
5 Comments:
good call. and I really believe that also, but what I'm afraid of is never being able to say that you know anything about God. But yeah, Jeff Cook is the man also.
Ok, I was writing this post while you were writing yours, Travis, you just got done first...So this may be mute to our discussion....
Now I agree with most of what you are saying Travis there are many traps that people (with good intentions) lead into legalistic anti-Jesus views of theology. And to elevate anything above Jesus himself would be idolatry for sure. What I am suggesting is that God’s purpose for how we know about Jesus is through the scriptures first. And this is a dangerous balance to find yourself in. Indeed there are many places to fail in your interpretation of things, but I think in light of the Bible’s teaching on humility that however we find our beliefs through scripture, that we would do it understanding our position under Christ and as ones who have received grace with no merit of our own. This is what Paul is talking about when he says that we are to boast in Christ and not ourselves. Many of the failures of those who know the scriptures well seem to boast somewhat in their own knowledge of the scriptures, not remembering that that comes from Christ.
Here is an important passage to understand within the topic we are discussing.
1 Corinthians 2
11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, 13 which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. 14 But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. 15 But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. 16 For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM? But we have the mind of Christ.
So it seems that we have individually (see verse 14) the mind of Christ through the spirit. Following in that vein there are times in the NT where is seems Paul, Peter and James write somewhat singularly to those in the church. Now we also know that when the church was first formed they did much of their theology in community. They decided on what limitations the Gentile Christians should have, considering that most of them did not know the Law.
So another question I would have would be about community. Can we elevate community above Christ also? And wouldn’t it be bad to elevate your community’s theology above what you find in the Bible? Think of Martin Luther. His whole community was against what he was teaching against. Luther, it seems found truth in the Bible and preached it despite what those around him taught.
My thoughts on this are in their infancy, and so I would like input to correct my misunderstandings. But here is what is at the top of my brain. God’s message to us is the Bible. It is the first and primary way that we know about Him. We have the mind of Christ and God’s Spirit in order that we may submit to him and that he would lead us to truth, truth that in my understanding would line up with his message to us. After that comes humility to listen to our community’s interpretation so we find truths imparted by God to those around us.
It seems that it would not have to be arrogance that would lead one to believe something in the Bible with conviction, but instead a humble understanding of God’s goodness in his revelation to us. It does seem that we could easily shoot down those with convictions as “authoritarian” and “legalistic” when they could really be humble followers of Christ who are weak without him, but strong with him.
I would also like to add that submitting to the spirit would always be a humbling experience, since we are looking at what God is saying and not ourselves. This is maybe "working through our faith with fear and trembling" that the Apostle Paul, Todd C, Kirkeguard etc... speak of.
Also, I would like a clarification of how we come to know Jesus as the “deity/stumbling block…and place him as a community above all else.” Doesn’t this create the “in/out” separation that the emerging church is rallying against? How do you draw that line?
I meant "moot"
this is hilarious, you get into a big theological discussion b/c your son likes to grab boobs. what has the world come to.
Kel
good call kellie, i guess i could probably twist about anything into a theological discussion. For now, i'll just let Jaden grope to his hearts content.
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