Quote:
Originally Posted by Sons to Glory!
So I'm asking myself (and Jesus), is there real aversion on this forum about how different ones see inner-life teachings?
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Or am I overreaching in this?
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I suggest the latter.
The aversion is not to simply all they are saying. At some level, there is a reality to the things that we call the inner-life. But no matter how you phrase any particular type of teaching, whether inner-life teachings, personal piety teachings, Holiness, works, etc., they all are part of what we should consider the fullness of God's working earth. I avoided using any reference to the term "economy" because that has too much baggage associate with it in an LC context.
The inner-life teachers key on the vine/branches/abiding and certain other parts of the gospels, then on the spiritual underpinnings (as I call them) that the writers of the epistles, most notably Paul, speak of in their letters to the various churches as they try to help them set a better course regarding certain practical issues. For example, Paul wasn't writing to the Corinthians to get aligned behind the right teaching, to all speak in meetings, or to understand that Christ had become the Life-giving Spirit. He was writing to get them to stop squabbling about teachers; to stop pulling social rank at the Lord's table, to stop the three-ring circus that was their meetings, and to get past arguments about what kind of body they would get in resurrection. Instead, besides the specific items Paul eventually said, he also showed them a more excellent way for all of it.
But neither was the whole of the NT about getting saved and getting everyone to go out and preach the gospel to get more people saved. It sounds good, but it is not THE purpose of the church and the Christian life.
Turns out that there is a lot to consider. We do need to hear the word — both to be ready for salvation and to learn what it is that Christ taught. We need to pray. We need to continue to learn — but at what level? Is it reasonable to presume that just because we now have the ability to read and own our own bible that it was intended that we each become fully conversant in the whole thing and exert the kind of constant time that this would entail relative to what would have been considered reasonable for the average person just a very few centuries ago? Back when we mostly heard (not read) and considered a little at a time. And went out daily to live consistent with what we had heard? I think that the increase of general education has created an artificial presumption that each person's participation in more detailed study and such likewise grew. And in the process, we started to consider that the "practical" aspects of living are secular, and therefore something to disdain as opposed to the spiritual aspects of study, contemplation and prayer. We changed our understanding of the full Christian life to virtually exclude aspects of the mundane human existence. And thus came the secular-spiritual divide that is not seen in scripture.
So it is not just the inner-life teachers. It is any who distill the whole of the Christian life down to any part to the near exclusion of the other parts.
But among "serious*" Christians (meaning the "out there" groups that make waves), the problem is that without the emphasis, it is a part of the Christian life, but with the emphasis, it sets so much of the rest of the Christian life aside, or relegates it to an afterthought, or something that will "just happen" if we put on enough Christ, become crucified enough with Christ, and so on.
* I am speaking of the presumption that certain groups make relative to other Christians. For example, Evangelicals relative to the older mainline Christian groups (e.g., emphasis on personal salvation through crisis event v classes to learn about Christ and slowly come to believe). And inner-life v the rest because the rest aren't as spiritually committed. And either v liturgical groups (thinking that a good sermon but winging everything else is better than structuring it all). I admit to having some quandary in that last one, but I think that some of those old, written prayers might be more meaningful if you take them seriously than some off-the-cuff hodgepodge of popular snippets of scripture are.