Quote:
Originally Posted by Evangelical
You seem to be implying that we, or the Reformers for that matter, should have been content with hearing and applying the unquestionable sermons of the Catholic Priest, rather than searching out matters for ourselves. Rather ironic, given the claims made here about Lee and his teachings.
|
I do not deny that we should use the good (and now well-trained) minds that God gave us.
But the purpose of it all was not to be spiritual and go to the New Jerusalem. Yes, that is the final stage as described in Revelation. But is that really the goal? Some land of walls and cubits and gates and leaves, etc.? Or is it that the description of the return of the redeemed to the place as God's image bearers relative to the "nations" that continue to exist to the end? We read through a few chapters of a clearly metaphorical description of the spiritual war that goes on behind the daily battle of life that we face and then fail to realize that the ending is no less a metaphor.
We disdain those that speak of "going to heaven" then pine away for a different version of it. What it is difference?
But when I read the accounts of what Jesus said to the people (not just to the 12, or even the 70 or other number that were in training to be the leaders). I see talk about living righteously, even hungering and thirsting for it. I see the primary command for our lives being encapsulated in a single word. And the word is not "church," "saints," "economy," "dispensing," or any of the other things that so captured out minds in the LCM (and in many other places as well). The word was (and still is) "love." Love God and love neighbor as self. Try to read the gospels without the overlays of spirituality. Of everyone being an evangelist. Or a disciple (in the sense of the 12). What did Jesus teach the people?
And when we then go to read Paul, why do we think that he is given authority to dismiss what Jesus said? We would never admit to that. But we do it all the time when we presume that the Christian life is about seeking to be crucified with Christ. Or so many other "spiritual" things. But Paul didn't say to be crucified with Christ. He said because we are we should live differently. We should think on our fellow Christians differently that just what they are in natural terms (slave, slave owner, Roman, Jew, etc.)
You despise the sermon of the Catholic priest. And presume that I am suggesting we should still just be Catholic (or EO). But look at the actual sermons for the people. They were not about "the intrinsic processing of Christ as the Spirit for the revealing of the seven-fold intensified Spirit that now lives in our spirit." Or any other strictly "spiritual" nonsense that has no application to my drive home on 121 this evening. If you despise the sermons of the average Catholic priest, then you hate the ones Jesus gave to the people sitting on the side of a mountain. He didn't tell them some fancy constitution. He gave simple instructions in the ways of living righteously. He healed people and sent them home to live differently.
We have it all wrong. We were created to represent God as his image bearers but think that salvation is for the purpose of getting out of Dodge and to heaven or the New J. Not to bear His image in a dark, perverse world, but to escape to a meeting where we can be invigorated to tolerate the fallen world.
And I will return to the use of our good minds. John warned that there were some that had been among us who went out and were now a problem. But we know better than to be captured by their nonsensical teachings.
Returning to the use of our minds. It is through the mind that we realize what we are called to do. What is the right was to live. We read. Or we listen. And we respond. You want it to be an effort in significant thought to conclude what is to be done. But it is really quite simple. We hear the word. It commands and directs our living. Those who say that we should not do things because of a command are ducking from their unwillingness to obey. But it is not so hard to know what to do. And even the simple obedience arising from faith can do this. From those who hear those "poor" sermons and realize it is something they should do.
Do you think that if they do what they are told that they are somehow not "in the vine"? If so, please explain how you think that is true. I will muddy the waters by noting that what they are told to do is from the scripture. It is not contrary to the teachings of Christ, but is fully in keeping with it. What could possibly make them not "in the vine"?