[OBW]

Originally Posted by YP0534

Part of it came to mind the other day with the mentioning of bricks vs. stones.

Originally Posted by YP0534

Well, not to "build" too much on that issue, but, just as an aside, God's house is made of stones, never bricks. And I think they're tightly fitted together rather than stuck with mortar.

Originally Posted by aron

A preservation is to not "coordinate" one's efforts with others, besides merely to say "amen" when you sense God flowing. That's all the coordination God needs. When we receive one another as God received us in Christ Jesus, God can do a great work. So just receive the person next to you, as were he/she the very Christ. (Rom. 15:7) Anything more is tower-building.

This is not actually any kind of complaint or response specifically to YP, however, since it does spring from a conversation that he, I and aron have been morphing through, I will write it as if to him. (It makes the wording a little easier since I will be responding to things that he said.)

When you wrote the first line above, I know that you were referring back to my mention of some confusion about what constituted building together and to your original comment on that in the second quote above. Understand that I agree with where your discussion is going, so don’t take this as an attack on any position. Aron’s quote is a most worthy consideration.

My concern is that in analyzing the points, was there ever an actual “bricks v stones” issue or is this a carryover from Lee’s ways of milking every metaphor for its full impact, applying outlying points which are actually meaningless to the purpose of the metaphor and causing them to become just as central.

When I mentioned the historical events, I was not concerned with the nature of the building material or what was used to put them together. While it is possible to get into a discussion of natural v created building materials, and that could be interesting since there might be some who think that the materials being built in are new creations in Christ and not just the natural man, the point was over-analyzing the details instead of understanding a general picture. Whether mortared-in or simply carefully fit together, if one is removed, there is a problem with the wall and there might be a need to take out a significant portion and redo it. It would seem that the intent of the metaphor is to suggest that there is a connection, not to draw some complete analysis of walls, their materials, the methods of building them up and ways to repair damaged walls.

Maybe it is as simple as aron’s comment. The picture of a wall or other strong structure built of stones (or bricks) with or without any kind of mortar provides a picture of something of substance and permanence. But it is not the only view of the building, so getting into the details of how a wall is built might be beyond the value of the metaphor. And getting into a discussion of bricks v stones is to analyze the nature of the materials — the Christians.

At some level, I find the discussion of bricks v stones interesting, and as I mentioned above, if we need to make the building metaphor into a complete picture in which every element of the metaphor is relevant, there might be some reason to reassess which should be used. But most often, when someone uses a metaphor, it is for the primary picture it provides. And since the metaphor is not the actual thing being discussed, it is understood as being incomplete in its description and probably inaccurate if overanalyzed. So when someone talks about a stone (or brick) wall, and the effects of that image in an environment in which the components — real humans who change, move away, etc. — the way the metaphor is extended as if it is a complete picture is the problem, not whether mortar is included, or the primary material is bricks or stones. So when a metaphor is suggested, be careful to stick to the purpose of the metaphor and to refrain from overanalyzing it. We are, at some level, like stones built into a wall. But it would seem that extending it to knowing who are the stones (or bricks) around you is not mentioned, or what happens when a stone moves away... Yep, the metaphor is straining to cover everything when it was only intended to make a specific statement about some aspect of the connection of Christians in an assembly.

Now, having said all of that, even if discussing stones v bricks is not meaningful to the discussion I was having, it is a meaningful discussion. Further, I admit that there are often reasons, even suggested by what might be seen as side issues, to take a rabbit trail. Those rabbit trails may ultimately be worth more than the original discussion. Just don’t pretend that it is a response to the original discussion. Keep the primary discussion on track, or admit that you are going somewhere else. Otherwise it can seem as if discussing "B" is being given as an answer to the discussion of "A."