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Source: (consider it) Thread: Father, Son, and Holy Scriptures
pydseybare
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quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
I think the rest of the analogy works though.

What does it mean, though? What does it mean to be one part rather than another? Isn't it just like saying 'to make a fruitcake, you need flour, eggs, fat, dried fruit..'? Or are you saying there is some significance to something being the anvil rather than the fire?

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Gamaliel
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Where does your analogy have room for the Church?

Is it represented by the theologian?

Surely there's a collective aspect to all of this too?

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Gamaliel
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I think that daronmedway is saying that the scriptures are the yardstick by which the others are judged - or in this case - beaten out on.

Which wouldn't apply to the Holy Spirit, of course.

Neither does it obviate my point about it not being the scriptures themselves, necessarily, but our interpretation of them - governed and shaped, of course, by whatever tradition we're in - which is really the arbiter - however much we may piously declare otherwise ...

The extent to which we can disaggregate scripture from interpretation and - indeed - tradition - seems to be the moot point.

Or indeed whether we can drive a wedge between the scriptures and the Church ... (however we understand Church) ...

I'd agree with Pydseybare that none of these things stand in isolation ...

Do they form some kind of contiguous whole?

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pydseybare
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'd agree with Pydseybare that none of these things stand in isolation ...


Just to say that I didn't mean my comment to mean anything - other than a request for clarity from daronmedway. He seems to me to be suggesting that the roles of the different things are obvious in the analogue, I'm interested to understand what he takes the objects in the analogue to mean and why.

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mousethief

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quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
Every church relies on tradition. Some are just more honest about it than others.

Bingo.

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daronmedway
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Where does your analogy have room for the Church?

Is it represented by the theologian?

Surely there's a collective aspect to all of this too?

Yes, that would certainly work. Corporate hermeneutic and all that.
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Barnabas62
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Well, there is this from Jesus, at least I am sure it is from Jesus.

quote:
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
(Matt 24:35)

The point being that the Living Word did communicate to his disciples by means of words, and they did think it important to make sure they were recorded for posterity. Whatever the distortions of recollection and the agenda of others may have done, Christianity has placed a special value on the words of Jesus as we have them. He is The Lord.

I don't think it is bibliolatry to remember that, provided that we also remember that Tradition is built primarily on the Apostles' recollections of the words and deeds of Jesus, who was the one who led them, with grace and truth, to love the God who is there.

[ 20. February 2014, 14:30: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]

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daronmedway
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quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
I think the rest of the analogy works though.

What does it mean, though? What does it mean to be one part rather than another? Isn't it just like saying 'to make a fruitcake, you need flour, eggs, fat, dried fruit..'? Or are you saying there is some significance to something being the anvil rather than the fire?
I'm saying that the nature of anvils is to outlast hammers and people and the forges in which they do their work.

[ 20. February 2014, 14:23: Message edited by: daronmedway ]

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daronmedway
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quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Where does your analogy have room for the Church?

Is it represented by the theologian?

Surely there's a collective aspect to all of this too?

Yes, that would certainly work. Corporate hermeneutic and all that.
Maybe the forge would work as a metaphor the the church? Although I'd have to make a distinction between the church catholic and the church temporal.
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leo
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Then they (this is hilarious) cite the Immaculate Conception (pauses for breath) as one of those Traditions! A "tradition" that was not even heard of until the high middle ages, was vehemently opposed by Thomas Aquinas, and was not made dogma until 1854.

But there are many allusions in scripture to God's purposes for us when we were yet in the womb. Many of which I once pointed out when I preached one December 8th.

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mousethief

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quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
I'm saying that the nature of anvils is to outlast hammers and people and the forges in which they do their work.

I think you are making a big mistake. The Bible is a means to an end, viz., the salvation of humans. Humans are the end, who will live eternally. The Bible is a ladder we will kick away in the kingdom because we'll be in the eternal presence of the Word. You are, in fact, guilty here of bibliolatry.

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
But there are many allusions in scripture to God's purposes for us when we were yet in the womb.

A scriptural allusion to God's purpose for us is not the same thing as the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Listen to what you're saying, man. Yes, many traditions have their roots in scriptural allusion. So does Christian Science have its roots in Jesus' saying "Which of you convinceth me of sin?" That doesn't mean that tradition is ancient.

[ 20. February 2014, 14:36: Message edited by: mousethief ]

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daronmedway
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
I'm saying that the nature of anvils is to outlast hammers and people and the forges in which they do their work.

I think you are making a big mistake. The Bible is a means to an end, viz., the salvation of humans. Humans are the end, who will live eternally. The Bible is a ladder we will kick away in the kingdom because we'll be in the eternal presence of the Word. You are, in fact, guilty here of bibliolatry.
Yes, I can see your point. And if you read it like that then it could well be bibliolatrous. Thankfully that's not what I'm grasping at, or at least not what I'm intentionally saying.

The point I'm making is that what is written doesn't change throughout the generations. There is a solidity and a permanence about what is written that transcends human lifetimes, traditions, experiences, and ways of reasoning.

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pydseybare
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quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:


The point I'm making is that what is written doesn't change throughout the generations. There is a solidity and a permanence about what is written that transcends human lifetimes, traditions, experiences, and ways of reasoning.

Now you appear to be ascribing qualities of the Godhead - never-changing-ness - to the bible.

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daronmedway
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quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:


The point I'm making is that what is written doesn't change throughout the generations. There is a solidity and a permanence about what is written that transcends human lifetimes, traditions, experiences, and ways of reasoning.

Now you appear to be ascribing qualities of the Godhead - never-changing-ness - to the bible.
Only as much as Jesus did.
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StevHep
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I think that Tradition, in the sense of something we have done for a very long time, is essentially different from the Catholic concept of Sacred Tradition. The starting point is that Christianity is a religion of Revelation. The high point of that Revelation which contains within itself all the rest is the Logos of God who is also the Son of Mary. He passed on that Revelation through His spoken words, His prophetic deeds and the Sacraments which He instituted. This Revelation was primarily received by the Apostles who transmitted it by their words and deeds.

All that was necessary for salvation was contained implicitly or explicitly in the body of Revelation which they left behind. Therefore the age of binding public Revelation ended with the death of the last Apostle. The legacy they left behind was partly in written form, which is Sacred Scripture, and partly in the form of the spoken word, prophetic gesture and sacramental action, which is Sacred Tradition. Both are equally the Revelation of God and therefore the word of God.

The Church cannot innovate doctrine, it can only transmit the perfect doctrines which it received from the Incarnate Word of God. When, therefore, it proposes a doctrine to be believed by all Christians, whether it be the Trinity or the Immaculate Conception, it can only do so if it is able to demonstrate that the doctrine is consonant with the beliefs and practises of the Primitive Church or can be reasonably inferred from them with the added benefit of several centuries of prayerful reflection upon the deposit of faith. The Word of God then can reasonably be applied as a term to the combination of the person of Jesus, Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition

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Gamaliel
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I'm always wary when any of us - myself included - claim to do anything as much as Jesus did ...

I can see the point you're making though.

Equally, from the verses Barnabus62 has quoted - 'heaven and earth will pass away but my words will never pass away' - I can see some mileage for the idea that the scriptures are, in some sense, eternal rather than provisional given that they contain some of the words of Christ ...

I like the forge as the Church analogy - but can't see why there'd have to be some major dichotomy between the Church temporal and the Church universal necessarily ... perhaps its a forge with icons of the 'great cloud of witnesses' on the walls and dimly visible through the smoke ...

[Biased]

Surely the Church Militant and Church Triumphant are continuous and the thinest of veils divides them? I don't think we'd need to have one at the bottom of the stable yard and one in the forge itself ...

Or am I missing something?

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daronmedway
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The glorification of the whole church will see Christ's high-priestly prayer of John 17 fulfilled. In this sense the Church will be eternally unified in Christ in glory, as bridegroom and bride, husband and wife. However, the glorification of the whole church will require the passing away of the earthly institutions which we variously call churches.
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seekingsister
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quote:
Originally posted by StevHep:

All that was necessary for salvation was contained implicitly or explicitly in the body of Revelation which they left behind. Therefore the age of binding public Revelation ended with the death of the last Apostle. The legacy they left behind was partly in written form, which is Sacred Scripture, and partly in the form of the spoken word, prophetic gesture and sacramental action, which is Sacred Tradition. Both are equally the Revelation of God and therefore the word of God.

The Church cannot innovate doctrine, it can only transmit the perfect doctrines which it received from the Incarnate Word of God. When, therefore, it proposes a doctrine to be believed by all Christians, whether it be the Trinity or the Immaculate Conception, it can only do so if it is able to demonstrate that the doctrine is consonant with the beliefs and practises of the Primitive Church or can be reasonably inferred from them with the added benefit of several centuries of prayerful reflection upon the deposit of faith. The Word of God then can reasonably be applied as a term to the combination of the person of Jesus, Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition

So the Holy Spirit only speaks to the leadership of the RCC, and only occasionally?

This reminds me of Mark 9, when the disciples asked Jesus if they should stop people doing miracles in His name because they weren't officially part of their group.

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Gamaliel
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It may remind you of that, Seeking Sister, but from what I understand of the RC position on these things it by no means precludes the possibility of God working miracles - or anything else - outside of the RC Church.

In some ways, the RC Church is far more inclusive on these issues than many Protestant groups - and certainly many Protestant individuals ...

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seekingsister
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
It may remind you of that, Seeking Sister, but from what I understand of the RC position on these things it by no means precludes the possibility of God working miracles - or anything else - outside of the RC Church.

In some ways, the RC Church is far more inclusive on these issues than many Protestant groups - and certainly many Protestant individuals ...

Does "or anything else" include Divine Revelation regarding doctrine?

And I speak only for myself here. I'm hardly a denominationalist.

[ 20. February 2014, 16:30: Message edited by: seekingsister ]

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StevHep
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quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
[So the Holy Spirit only speaks to the leadership of the RCC, and only occasionally?

This reminds me of Mark 9, when the disciples asked Jesus if they should stop people doing miracles in His name because they weren't officially part of their group.

I'm not sure how you deduce that from the ideas that the age of public binding Revelation ended with the death of the last Apostle and that the Church cannot innovate doctrine. The Holy Spirit is active in the world not least by gifting Charisma's to individuals, I have written about Charismatics on my blog . He also guides the Church in Ecumenical Council when it discerns doctrine from the deposit of faith and defines them as happened with the Nicene Creed and the Canon of Scripture. What He doesn't do is add to what Jesus revealed during His mission.

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leo
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
A scriptural allusion to God's purpose for us is not the same thing as the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.

Yes it is - exactly what catholic teaching says about Mary as a paradigm of the salvation of all of us.

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seekingsister
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quote:
Originally posted by StevHep:
I'm not sure how you deduce that from the ideas that the age of public binding Revelation ended with the death of the last Apostle and that the Church cannot innovate doctrine. The Holy Spirit is active in the world not least by gifting Charisma's to individuals, I have written about Charismatics on my blog . He also guides the Church in Ecumenical Council when it discerns doctrine from the deposit of faith and defines them as happened with the Nicene Creed and the Canon of Scripture. What He doesn't do is add to what Jesus revealed during His mission.

So He didn't guide, say, Martin Luther or John Calvin - correct? They strayed from the RCC so they couldn't have been in receipt of Divine Inspiration.

Is that what you believe, or not?

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StevHep
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quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:
Originally posted by StevHep:
I'm not sure how you deduce that from the ideas that the age of public binding Revelation ended with the death of the last Apostle and that the Church cannot innovate doctrine. The Holy Spirit is active in the world not least by gifting Charisma's to individuals, I have written about Charismatics on my blog . He also guides the Church in Ecumenical Council when it discerns doctrine from the deposit of faith and defines them as happened with the Nicene Creed and the Canon of Scripture. What He doesn't do is add to what Jesus revealed during His mission.

So He didn't guide, say, Martin Luther or John Calvin - correct? They strayed from the RCC so they couldn't have been in receipt of Divine Inspiration.

Is that what you believe, or not?

Luther and Calvin did not claim to have received a new revelation. They claimed that their interpretation of the deposit of faith was superior to the interpretation of the Universal Church. They claimed that they were right and that the Holy Spirit had guided the Church for a few centuries then abondoned it for a few more centuries and then appeared again to guide Luther and Calvin into rival interpretations which anathametised each other. Any inspiration guiding people to interpret the deposit of faith cannot contradict an earlier one.

Incidentally it is significant that Reformers always claim to be restoring the Church to its primitive practice which is an implicit acceptance that the pre-NT Church of the Apostles was rightly guided by the Spirit. What they cannot do is point to a Scripture which says that the Spirit will guide the Church for a while then stop doing so. If it is rightly guided once there is no foundation in Revelation to suppose that it is no longer so guided.

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Gamaliel
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I suspect, SeekingSister, that the RC Church would believe that Luther and Calvin were commensurate with the teachings of their Church to the extent to which their teachings tally or agree with it ...

Which is the same as what the Orthodox would say, or, on a different level, the same as what non-Lutheran or non-Calvinistic Protestants would say ...

There are just looser or tighter degrees of this sort of thing.

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Truman White
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Here's a list of where the word tradition appears in the New Testament. I just use it for the list of references - I don't agree with the bloke's conclusions.

Any teaching, practicd or story handed down from one generation to another is 'tradition' in my book. Different traditions carry different levels of authority. Scripture has the highest authority (our bench mark). The doctrine of the trinity as formulated in C4 is pretty weighty. I give a lot of weight to the Fathers because I can follow their journey of wrestling with Christian dogmatics. I belong to what you migjt call a 'new' church which has some traditions that don't seem to go back much earlier than the 1950's (not that most of the people in the congregation would see it that way). Some of these are very important to us, but wouldn't cut much ice with a stack of other beleivers. Tradition can be time and context specific. The longer something stands the test of time the more seriously I'd consider it.

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South Coast Kevin
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quote:
Originally posted by StevHep:
Incidentally it is significant that Reformers always claim to be restoring the Church to its primitive practice which is an implicit acceptance that the pre-NT Church of the Apostles was rightly guided by the Spirit. What they cannot do is point to a Scripture which says that the Spirit will guide the Church for a while then stop doing so. If it is rightly guided once there is no foundation in Revelation to suppose that it is no longer so guided.

I think the point of the Reformation and the churches that have sprung from it is a belief that the Holy Spirit guides all Christians and all churches, but that we can (and frequently do) fail to discern this guidance. So the RCC is not thought to be automatically correct on any given issue, but neither is it thought (at least not by most protestants!) to be automatically incorrect.

It's not that the way God guides his people has changed, although I do see what you're driving at regarding the pre-NT church. I suppose the rebuttal there is that God was involved in and guiding the formation of the New Testament, so it accurately captures all that is important regarding the way God would have his people behave (personally, relationally, towards God himself, towards the natural world etc.).

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Beeswax Altar
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The Bible is the word of God because it contains the words God spoke through apostles and prophets. It isn't the Incarnate Word. However, calling the Bible the word of God or the word of the Lord is acceptable. Only in attributing divinity to scripture would it be a problem. The Word that was in the beginning with God was God.

On the other hand, holding scripture as sacred while diminishing the importance of tradition is silly. How do we know scripture contains the word of God spoken through prophets and apostles? How do we know what is scripture and what isn't? Tradition tells us so. Most of the Bible is simply the oral tradition written down. We rely on the judgment of those that received the oral tradition to tell us what is scripture and what isn't. Doesn't make sense to rely on tradition to tell you what is scripture and what isn't then discount that same tradition when it comes to interpreting it. Are there differing traditions? Sure there are. Still, there is a broad consensus on most of the major issues of the Christian faith. Frankly, I'm very skeptical of those who propose new interpretations of scripture dramatically different from those offered in the past. Scripture hasn't changed.

Reason and experience play a role in interpreting scripture. However, neither mean what many think they mean. Reason doesn't just mean you should discount a traditional interpretation of scripture because you can think of a reason to do it. Rather, only when what is widely accepted as factual contradicts a traditional interpretation of scripture should that tradition be discounted. For me that means findings supported by hard science or a preponderance of historical evidence. Experience is a different story. I'm open to progressive revelation. However, we should discern the working of the Holy Spirit as a Christian community not as individuals alone in our prayer closets or our prayer meetings of like minded individuals.

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SvitlanaV2
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It's a 'tradition' in some churches to round off a Bible reading with 'This is the word of the Lord: Thanks be to God', and a 'tradition' in other churches to round off with absolutely nothing.

I always find it strange to be in churches where they say nothing at all, but I also understand the objections to 'This is the word of the Lord...'. So if I'm doing a reading I try to remember to say 'Here ends the reading: Thanks be to God.' This should be acceptable to everyone, I think.

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daronmedway
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quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
The Bible is the word of God because it contains the words God spoke through apostles and prophets. It isn't the Incarnate Word. However, calling the Bible the word of God or the word of the Lord is acceptable. Only in attributing divinity to scripture would it be a problem.

θεόπνευστος (theópneustos) establishes the divine inspiration (or expiration) of the scripture though, so there is certainly precedent for a very high view of the written word of scripture.

[ 20. February 2014, 18:38: Message edited by: daronmedway ]

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Beeswax Altar
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quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
It's a 'tradition' in some churches to round off a Bible reading with 'This is the word of the Lord: Thanks be to God', and a 'tradition' in other churches to round off with absolutely nothing.

I always find it strange to be in churches where they say nothing at all, but I also understand the objections to 'This is the word of the Lord...'. So if I'm doing a reading I try to remember to say 'Here ends the reading: Thanks be to God.' This should be acceptable to everyone, I think.

Saying the word of the Lord shouldn't be a problem either. Here ends the reading: Thanks be to God? Here ends the reading of what? Why are we reading it at this time and place? Why are we thanking God for it? The answer to all those questions is that the Bible is the word of the Lord.

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Sipech
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# 16870

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quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
It's a 'tradition' in some churches to round off a Bible reading with 'This is the word of the Lord: Thanks be to God', and a 'tradition' in other churches to round off with absolutely nothing.

I always find it strange to be in churches where they say nothing at all, but I also understand the objections to 'This is the word of the Lord...'. So if I'm doing a reading I try to remember to say 'Here ends the reading: Thanks be to God.' This should be acceptable to everyone, I think.

We have a few ex-anglicans at ours who can't get out of the habit formed in childhood. I'm not sure absence of doing it could be classed as a tradition though. If so, we might also said to have a tradition of not making owl noises at the end of a reading.

For my part, I'm fairly laid back about it. It doesn't bother me if someone does or doesn't. It's a free world and if someone finds it helpful, then so be it. I'd just stop short of requiring it as a norm.

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SvitlanaV2
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quote:
Originally posted by TheAlethiophile:
I'm not sure absence of doing it could be classed as a tradition though. If so, we might also said to have a tradition of not making owl noises at the end of a reading.

Oh, I'm a firm believer that silence speaks! Not making owl noises at the end of a Bible reading may be unremarkable to you, but to someone else it may be a sign that you come from a very different culture from them. As I say, I know I'm in a different church culture when Bible readings are followed by emptiness.....
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South Coast Kevin
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quote:
Originally posted by TheAlethiophile:
We have a few ex-anglicans at ours who can't get out of the habit formed in childhood. I'm not sure absence of doing it could be classed as a tradition though. If so, we might also said to have a tradition of not making owl noises at the end of a reading.

For my part, I'm fairly laid back about it. It doesn't bother me if someone does or doesn't. It's a free world and if someone finds it helpful, then so be it. I'd just stop short of requiring it as a norm.

Heh heh heh, owl noises (or lack thereof) at the end of Bible readings! I think you've hit the nail on the head - it's the requiring of something as a norm that makes it a tradition, and when that norm is considered to be above questioning then I think something is amiss.

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My blog - wondering about Christianity in the 21st century, chess, music, politics and other bits and bobs.

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Martin60
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How can a library of an order of magnitude one hundred books written over a rough thousand years from hundreds of sources by hundreds of writers and editors be first and foremost anything other than the word of man?

Man in darkness and blood and fire and shit and smoke and stone and soot and iron encountering light.

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Love wins

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Robert Armin

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quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
The Bible is the word of God because it contains the words God spoke through apostles and prophets. It isn't the Incarnate Word. However, calling the Bible the word of God or the word of the Lord is acceptable. Only in attributing divinity to scripture would it be a problem.

θεόπνευστος (theópneustos) establishes the divine inspiration (or expiration) of the scripture though, so there is certainly precedent for a very high view of the written word of scripture.
I'm cautious about this, often advanced, argument. Several other things in Scripture are described as God-breathed, the most famous being humanity itself (Genesis 2) yet no one assumes that humanity is infallible, or that the written words of humanity deserve "a very high view". Isn't the God-breathed-ness of Scripture apparent in the way that Scripture can suddenly speak to our deepest needs as though it were alive, as though God were speaking to us directly through words hundreds of years old?

[ 20. February 2014, 20:46: Message edited by: Robert Armin ]

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balaam

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But it is more than that, martin, isn't it?

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Martin60
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balaam.

I found your humble openness most touching there.

More? In what way? Why does it have to be? How can it be? Isn't that enough?

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Love wins

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daronmedway
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quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
The Bible is the word of God because it contains the words God spoke through apostles and prophets. It isn't the Incarnate Word. However, calling the Bible the word of God or the word of the Lord is acceptable. Only in attributing divinity to scripture would it be a problem.

θεόπνευστος (theópneustos) establishes the divine inspiration (or expiration) of the scripture though, so there is certainly precedent for a very high view of the written word of scripture.
I'm cautious about this, often advanced, argument. Several other things in Scripture are described as God-breathed, the most famous being humanity itself (Genesis 2) yet no one assumes that humanity is infallible, or that the written words of humanity deserve "a very high view".
We do, however, maintain a unique sanctity for human life on the basis of the Imago Dei. We acknowledge that our humanity originates in God. Likewise with scripture. We acknowledge that the unique sanctity of its writteness originates in God.

quote:
Isn't the God-breathed-ness of Scripture apparent in the way that Scripture can suddenly speak to our deepest needs as though it were alive, as though God were speaking to us directly through words hundreds of years old?

Why do say "as though" it were alive and "as though" God were speaking. It is alive and God is speaking.
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Leaf
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# 14169

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A Lutheran POV: the Bible (Word of God) holds up the good news in Christ (Word of God), just as the manger holds up the Christ child. Luther's aside was that the Book of James was the straw in the manger and pretty much worthless, but in there anyway. [Biased]

In some recent Lutheran fights over certain dead horses, the priority of Jesus the Word was asserted over the Bible as Word. This was drawn from the foundational documents of the church body in question and the order in which items appear:

Section 1. This church confesses the Triune God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—as the one true God. It proclaims the Father as Creator and Preserver; His Son, Jesus Christ, as Redeemer and Lord; and the Holy Spirit as Regenerator and Sanctifier.
Section 2. This church confesses that the gospel is the revelation of God’s saving will and grace in Jesus Christ, which he imparts through Word and Sacrament. Through these means of grace the Holy Spirit creates believers and unites them with their Lord and with one another in the fellowship of the Holy Christian Church.
Section 3. This church confesses the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the inspired Word of God, through which God still speaks, and as the only source of the church’s doctrine and the authoritative standard for the faith and life of the church.

The argument was that since Jesus the Word of God is confessed as truth in Section 1, and that his will is saving grace in Section 2, that the authority of Scripture - while still obviously high on the list - does not appear till Section 3 and is therefore less authoritative/important than Sections 1 and 2.

Make of that what you will.

[ 20. February 2014, 21:38: Message edited by: Leaf ]

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EtymologicalEvangelical
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# 15091

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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not...
How can a library of an order of magnitude one hundred books written over a rough thousand years from hundreds of sources by hundreds of writers and editors be first and foremost anything other than the word of man?

Man in darkness and blood and fire and shit and smoke and stone and soot and iron encountering light.

Clearly you underestimate God.

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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis

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Enoch
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# 14322

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quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
No analogy is perfect but it might be helpful to see the anvil as Scripture, tradition as the steel, reason as the hammer, experience as the blacksmith (theologian) and the Holy Spirit as the furnace. We need them all. But the anvil will outlast all the others.

Definitely wrong.
"God in three persons, blessed Trinity".
"Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be, world without end Amen."

To return to the OP, I agree with St Deird.

I have a high view of the authority of Scripture, higher probably than many shipmates. I also come from a tradition that does and am happy to align myself with it. But the In Principe refers to Jesus as the Word, and I think that's important. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The Word did not become paper, letters or printed text. It is in Jesus that God reveals himself to us. Scripture is the authoritative book about God, but it isn't his actual revelation. It's the book about the revelation.

It's quite difficult to be strict about this, but I try to avoid using 'Word' to refer to the sacred text, and to discourage other people from doing so.

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mousethief

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quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
A scriptural allusion to God's purpose for us is not the same thing as the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.

Yes it is - exactly what catholic teaching says about Mary as a paradigm of the salvation of all of us.
You have missed the point. But I am not going to argue this with you because it's absurd to even try.

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Eutychus
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hosting/
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Clearly you underestimate God.

Enough with the personal attacks.

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
You have missed the point. But I am not going to argue this with you because it's absurd to even try.

You are going to argue. You've already started arguing in your first sentence above and then attempted to silence your opponent pre-emptively with a personal swipe in the second. Desist.

Everyone: there's plenty of room for engagement with this sensitive issue that doesn't set out to be inflammatory (or get it sent to Dead Horses). Please make the most of all that room.

/hosting

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W Hyatt
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# 14250

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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
How can a library of an order of magnitude one hundred books written over a rough thousand years from hundreds of sources by hundreds of writers and editors be first and foremost anything other than the word of man?

Man in darkness and blood and fire and shit and smoke and stone and soot and iron encountering light.

How can this be first and foremost anything other than a picture of a bunch of plants? And how can this sloppy arrangement of people and animals be anything other than what it appears to be on the surface? And who authored it - a group of people who might have come up with each individual picture or the person who arranged them to allow us to see something more in it - something that has nothing to do with the content of the individual pictures?

So yes, man mired in evil, but that would be no obstacle for a divine Author who wants to arrange the pieces into something that allows us to see a different picture within.

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South Coast Kevin
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Just seen this blog post which is relevant to our discussion here. Discussing the idea of the Bible being like a house cards, where if you remove one card the whole structure collapses:
quote:
I was taught that if the earth was not created in six literal days and if Adam and Eve were not literal, historical people, then the whole Bible may as well be a book of lies. Flick this one card out, and the whole structure of faith collapses...

And the same thing applied to every single passage of Scripture. Since we were taught that it had to be absolutely “inerrant” to be God’s Word, our faith in it could be destroyed by one verse being proved to contain a mistake.



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daronmedway
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# 3012

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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
No analogy is perfect but it might be helpful to see the anvil as Scripture, tradition as the steel, reason as the hammer, experience as the blacksmith (theologian) and the Holy Spirit as the furnace. We need them all. But the anvil will outlast all the others.

Definitely wrong.
"God in three persons, blessed Trinity".
"Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be, world without end Amen."

Yes, I definitely got the Holy Spirit being outlasted wrong in my analogy. It needs reworking. But that doesn't mean that the person of Holy Spirit cannot spoken of with unique and particular similitudes. The writers of scripture do it all the time. Not to do so would be to wrongly conflate the persons, I think.
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Freddy
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quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
Just seen this blog post which is relevant to our discussion here. Discussing the idea of the Bible being like a house cards, where if you remove one card the whole structure collapses:
quote:
I was taught that if the earth was not created in six literal days and if Adam and Eve were not literal, historical people, then the whole Bible may as well be a book of lies. Flick this one card out, and the whole structure of faith collapses...

So it's unclear from the blog how that works exactly. He says that he no longer believes in Jesus because he believes in the Bible, but that he believes in the Bible because he believes in Jesus. The distinction is clear, but what does it mean?

From the time I was young my father taught me that many of the biblical stories were like Jesus' parables. They weren't literally true, but they were given by God to tell a deeper story.

He said that the same was true of many of the peculiar laws that Israel was given, and that it was easy to tell the difference between those laws and the important ones like the Ten Commandments.

At the time one of the albums he liked to play was Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess". When I heard the song "It Ain't Necessarily So" I thought that this is what it was about. I obviously didn't follow the words very carefully. [Biased]

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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg

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Enoch
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quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
So it's unclear from the blog how that works exactly. He says that he no longer believes in Jesus because he believes in the Bible, but that he believes in the Bible because he believes in Jesus. The distinction is clear, but what does it mean? ...

That seems pretty clear to me. What he is saying is that we don't and are unlikely to be persuaded to, believe in Jesus because we first believe in the verbal inspiration of scripture. Implicit in this statement is that he is questioning the self awareness of those who say that is why they are persuaded they believe in Jesus.

He then goes on to say that the foundation of his faith is belief in Jesus. That is the starting point. He must also be implying that one is persuaded that Jesus is who he claims to be by finding the record, the tradition, etc, overall, convincing, whether one regards scripture as verbally inspired or not.

IMHO that has to be correct. It also fits with experience.

How one then proceeds to regard scripture follows on from believing in Jesus. It is unreasonable to say that one's understanding of the nature of scripture must precede believing in Jesus because otherwise how does one believe in him. We accept the authority of scripture because we acknowledge Jesus as Lord - not the other way round.

He's also, I think, saying that 'we can't question whether the creation happened in six 24 hour days because if we do, the whole of our faith falls apart' is also misplaced. It is doing the equivalent of getting cause and effect the wrong way round. Yes, we meet Jesus in the gospels. Nevertheless, our understanding of scripture and how we view it, derives from our understanding of Jesus, how we view him, our walk with him. He constrains the scriptures. The scriptures do not constrain him.

If we want to borrow religious language, Jesus is the Rock, not scripture is the Rock.

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EtymologicalEvangelical
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# 15091

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quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Clearly you underestimate God.

Enough with the personal attacks.
I am very sorry about this, but this is a case of a badly worded comment. What I meant was that God is able to speak through the actions and words of imperfect human beings, and that therefore we should acknowledge His ability to do this.

I realise now that I should have worded it differently, but I certainly did not intend anything personal by the comment. I should have perhaps written: "We should not underestimate the power of God to...."

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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis

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