Quote:
Originally Posted by awareness
I really like Dylan. I recently purchased Oh Mercy, from a few years after leaving the LC.
But sometimes the Steelers Wheels will do :
"Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right,
Here I am, stuck in the middle with you ...."
And that makes three. Why is it that 3 is so important that we (the royal we) even make God into 3?
I think it might go back into prehistory, when humans realized that 3 legs, or rocks as legs, were necessary to make a table or stool stand up. So 3 becomes hard-wired in our head, prolly going way back into the stone age. And so, 3 makes God a stand up God, in the hard-wiring in our head.
Does that explain Tertullian coining the word trinity back around the end of the 2nd century? Maybe, maybe not. But it does explain why it stuck, right up til today. The Bible isn't needed. The trinity tells us that God is in 3, and it has an affinity in the hard-wiring in our head, developed going way, way, back ... into the fog of history.
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Yes, that blessed day when I finally saw that I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s brother no more!
I find the epistle of Paul to the Galatians the most intriguing writing of the Bible. Paul presents himself as this young stanch Jew who wanted to put an end to this whole Jesus thing, and ends up meeting the resurrected Christ. He goes not to Jerusalem, but to Arabia for some time. He then after 3 years goes up to Jerusalem to visit- he says Cephas, for 15 days. He says he saw none other of the apostles except James, the Lords brother. This part of the account is interesting in that he seem to account the Lord’s brother James as an apostle. And I must imagine Paul had an interesting 15 days with Peter.
Paul then accounts that after 14 years he goes back to Jerusalem, and Paul’s says he met with James, Cephas, and John, “who were reputed to be pillars”. So here is a mention of John- in Jerusalem, and that’s it. The rest of Galatians seems to deal with the problem of Judaism interfering with the gospel truth, and that interference seems to emanate from Christian Jews from Jerusalem, where Peter, James- the Lord’s brother and John are pillars. This matches what is recorded in Acts 15, where there is a meeting together with Paul and those of Jerusalem to discuss the gentiles in relation to Jewish practices. One would think that in Jerusalem, what with the apostles who were with Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, that none of this Judaism problem would ever have festered into such a critical issue. Just what was taught to believers in Jerusalem? In Galatians, Paul even says he rebuked Peter publicly over his Judiastic behavior.
Next intriguing consideration in relation to this is that after so many years, Paul, even after being warned by the Holy Spirit, goes back to Jerusalem, James is there it seems in the lead, and has Paul go to perform a Jewish ritual in the temple. Paul, as we know is accosted by the Jews and ends up in Roman hands. Where were the Jewish Christians to help Paul.
My point being that 1) there seemed to be a lot of unclear direction concerning what the Christian experience should be. 2) Peter and John were present, and Jesus’ brother James. 3) we don’t hear from John; we do not follow him as we do Paul. 4) Paul seems to have to shoulder the direction and produce the clarity for what is the Christian life, and the church.
So, when I read all the gospels in Acts, Galatians, Romans, what Paul tells us is his gospel in 1Cor., I read nothing of Jesus being God, Jesus being 100% God 100% man, nothing about a 3 people triune God. Nope, I read that Jesus is the Christ, the anointed one of God, that God was with him, that his reliance for his ministry was God, that Jesus was crucified, that God raised him from the dead, that this man was given the position of Lord over creation and sits at Gods right hand until his enemies are dealt with.
It’s amazes me how quickly false things came into prominence, and how long they have gone on for. People used to paint their houses with lead based paint and spray asbestos on their ceilings, but eventually everyone had to come to grips that this was wrong, and remove the poison. We live in the 21st century, most of us are great readers- something that was not the case for 1200+ years. The printing press meant literature and thought could flourish. We are no longer living under the terror of religious tyranny. We can all look at what is written and consider: the foundational church did not have a gospel of Jesus being God spoken to them. Did not have a concept given them that God was 3 people. They did have the message that there was but one God, the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ, the man whom God raised from the dead.
You can see by reading of Tertullian and others at the time, that a lot of strange teachings were shortly introduced, and by following church history, you can see the development of these fallacies. Other generations did not have the luxury we have today of taking an honest, thoughtful look at these things.
Untohim and others feel Lee may have misapplied tritheism, but the real issue is it never existed in the foundational church.