Quote:
Originally Posted by Scribe
Then that wife you were talking too.....what is that? She and you must not be in Christ according to your Word.
|
Equivocation. In terms of our status before God and as brothers and sisters in Christ, there is nothing that categorically distinguishes one from another. You said that I must be a Gentile in a manner that made the gospel I receive different from the gospel that someone else (presumably a Jew) might receive. In that context, there is no Jew or Gentile, etc., yet you made a distinction, suggesting that a different gospel is required and a different kind of judging.
But that is not the same as saying there is no such thing as male and female, husband and wife, etc. To suggest otherwise is a form of equivocation. You are mashing two different discussions that share a word together (but in their separate contexts do not mean the same thing) and making them one. And for what purpose? To mock my honest critique of your talk about me being Gentile.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Scribe
Is the Word you write God? And if not, how do you presume to judge me our my teaching?
|
While I would not presume as you do to claim that my word is God, I believe that my word is supported much more clearly by God's word.
And I do not "judge" your teaching. I cannot do that. I can only give my honest critique of your words when placed up against the backdrop of scripture. And when I say "scripture," I am not suggesting that my own imagination qualifies. Just because I might write from what I believe to be inspiration of revelation concerning God, Christ, the church, etc., it does not remove my need to be sure that the existing scripture is in harmony with it before I make even a feeble claim as to its correctness.
But if I allow my own writing to raise to the level of scripture in my own mind, then the whole of scripture becomes illogic in all parts. And the call "come, let us reason" becomes irrelevant since there is no longer an agreed measure of truth. If I can write and I can call it truth, and you can write and you can call it truth, then if we disagree there is no hope for reconciliation. But if we both can write in the manner you suggest, then one of two things must happen:
- Truth becomes more relativistic than the worst claims laid at the feet of postmodernism. There ceases to be Truth and we are left with only "my truth."
- One of us must be deluded as to our charge to write. And how do we make this determination? I determine that you are the false writer and you determine that I am the false writer. We would never choose the other instead of ourselves. And this then presupposes that one of us truly is some kind of oracle of God that everyone should be listening to. God was clear about oracles in the OT. He said that self-proclaimed oracles are not from God.
In the mean time, I make no such claim of absolute rightness. I can only defer to that which I know to be right and go there to see whether the claims made by others measure up. So far, you have been found wanting. You may not like what I have said, but I have not said it from my own mouth or from my own "writing." I have spoken from a base grounded in the clear and unequivocal scripture — the true Word of God.