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Originally Posted by NerdyKnitter
Hello, all! You can call me NerdyKnitter  I have been reading posts here for a while now and have found them to be very helpful in my transition out of the Local Church -- so thank you!! |
Welcome NK and thanks for posting. Fresh voices are valuable. Probably after several years posting here, mine is not so 'fresh'. (Insert weird-looking smilie face here).
Quote:
Originally Posted by NerdyKnitter
[Re: Nee's 'purgatory'] - Pretty much the whole argument, as it was made to me, rested upon the idea that oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit (and that this symbolism applies in Matthew 25).
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Outstanding question, actually, though one that might not get the treatment it deserves on this forum. I'm clearly not capable. Still, how much of our understandings of meanings of words is derived from "Brother Jones says 'X' means 'Y'", or "Convention holds that 'oil' signifies 'the Holy Spirit'"? Where did Bro J get this idea? Wherefrom did convention arise? Worth examining, and asking.
I'll give my own answer, with the caveat that I'm unlearned, and thus it is tentative, provisional, and subject to much pruning. I'll use one image as the basis of my discussion, here: the dream Jacob had, where he woke up and poured oil on the rock, and convention says it's a type of the Holy Spirit. But why? Jacob saw angels ascending and descending. He didn't see the Holy Spirit ascending and descending.
I do remember reading Lee's footnote on John 1:51. The vision of angels ascending and descending is merely passed off with "much traffic". Much traffic of what? Oil? Angels? Holy Spirit? All three? What?
I got into it on this forum, on the threads "Theodicy of the Holy Spirit" on the Apologetics section, and "The Holy Spirit" in the "Alternative Views" section. But my ideas were meant to be merely a sort of thinking aloud. Eventually I felt there was no benefit as far as sharpening my ideas, and possibly a detriment if escapees from Lee's orbit got frustrated, thinking, "Look at what happens when you leave the safety of the LC. You begin to see seven spirits before the throne in Revelation 1, not one spirit sevenfold". And so forth. I let it drop - not worth it. My posts were in
http://localchurchdiscussions.com/vB...ead.php?t=5165
and
http://localchurchdiscussions.com/vB...ead.php?t=5208
My main point was that we typically come to scripture with our theology ("X" means "Y") and superimpose it on our reading. And whatever text we can't reconcile with our theology and reading, we simply ignore. And if some unpleasant person insists on bringing up these unhelpful texts, we say that they are being obstinate, or troublemakers, defying conventional wisdom.
I do appreciate conventional wisdom. But I love it so much that I challenge it. Most of it remains firm, and I love it more. And what is exposed as lacking scriptural foundation I let it go as unimportant. Not essential. I allow it, because it is in the church, but I don't cling to it. It is theology, not scripture. Different animals entirely.