Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
I'm not sure that the full access by everyone to scripture on demand has been as truly helpful as we often like to think. The number of divisions was vastly smaller before we could all read. The result of general private reading of scripture by everyone has been anarchy.
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This forum could be called anarchy as well. But the Bible is here, faith is here, and human minds are here, reasoning together. So I prefer to call it a "discussion". Certainly a discussion (versus a lecture) has the unknown, but God knows all, and if the discussions are about God we can have hope that some divine form will slowly emerge. Jesus will come alongside in our display of mutual foolishness and ignorance. The scene on the road to Emmaus in Acts 24 is for me one of the signal events in the NT. Jesus has been crucified, yes; but the journey continues. The discussion goes on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
There is something to be said for what has already been said. The fact that we think we see something truly new should be scary, not encouraging. We should cherish being covered and found deep in the known paths of truth. Treading on new ground suggests that we have gotten off the "straight and narrow."
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One of the great accusations against the new religion, as the NT was being written, was that they had departed from the "straight and narrow". That it was
new ground, not ordained by God. If you look at all the citations of "that the scripture might be fulfilled" or "as the scriptures said" or "as Moses and the prophets taught" you realize the speakers/writers were not so much composing a "new" testament as demonstrating the reality of "the" testament. Jesus was the reality of all the types, forms, figures, shadows of the
scripture. Jesus was God's speaking to man. Old Testament/New Testament; irrelevant.
I believe that this speaking goes on, to man, today. And it goes on in the scriptures. And we bring this speaking into the assembly. Not Lee's speaking, or OBW's speaking, or aron's speaking. But God's speaking to us in His Son. Thus we carefully and judiciously vet all speaking (i.e. scriptural exposition), to see what is what. I don't shrink from this: I enjoy it! I celebrate that I can be part of the discussion! If from all my lines of writing one or two phrases might have helped someone see the Christ revealed to us in the scriptures, I celebrate. The rest I am willing to let go of.
I guess my point (if I have one) is that I see this process of mutual discovery of "the new" to be not truly new, but rather a continuation of what we see in the written record.