The Psalms are the word of Christ

[awareness]

Originally Posted by aron

Unfortunately my presentational skills aren't up to the job, . . .

Maybe for this task. But in general you do a right spiffy job of it.

Originally Posted by aron

. . . but I wanted to put out an idea: Look at the Psalms as a kind of spiritualization of the historical narrative, ...

Well that makes sense. Then it makes sense that the Psalms can at one moment be soaring within those realms of spiritualization, and then be crying to God to slay my enemies, and being happy bashing babies against the rocks.

I understand why Lee couldn't accept all of the Psalms. You point out NT support of the Psalms, which is clearly true. But much of it, okay some of it -- too much of it -- in the Psalms, strikes as being anti-Christ; in that it's not like Christ found in the NT.

The way I see OT support in the NT is: what else did they have to go on? They were far worse off than we are today, with our limited materials and documentation, to go on. And we're bad off.

Originally Posted by aron

which spiritualization was picked up and amplified by the NT writers. A classic example is of Melchizedek. A historical character, briefly inserted into the narrative of events. Then the psalmist gives it a kind of mystical spin: "You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek." The NT writer says, "Hey! This is Christ!" and then amplifies it.

Interesting that Melchizedek was the Pagan King Priest of Salem -- "He was priest of God Most High." But he didn't know the right name for God. Did Abram set him straight, chide him, and condemn him to hell so to speak, for calling God El Elyon, and not Yahweh? No! "Abram gave him a tenth of everything."

We should learn by this, to be careful how we judge and treat others, even those that don't believe like us, or at all ... even pagans, or worse, Unitarian Universalists ... Abram, the father of faith, wasn't dogmatic, so maybe we shouldn't be.

Originally Posted by aron

We don't know how much of David's original work remains . . .

As I was saying. We have only what we have. So we're left guessing. And we, and Lee, do and did plenty of that. A'guessing here, a'guessing there, everywhere a'guessing. Even about the Psalms.

Can we really blame Lee for his approach to the Psalms? He was guessing just like the rest of us. The most we can say about Lee, or the worst, is that he was nothing special. In the end he was just like the rest of us ... but with an extraordinary sense of grandiose about himself.

And if we wouldn't have fallen for it Lee would have been just another China man come to America -- which oddly enough he was -- running away from messing in his nest in Taiwan, leaving carnage, if not crimes, in his wake.

[aron]

Originally Posted by awareness

... it makes sense that the Psalms can at one moment be soaring within those realms of spiritualization, and then be crying to God to slay my enemies, and being happy bashing babies against the rocks.

I understand why Lee couldn't accept all of the Psalms. You point out NT support of the Psalms, which is clearly true. But much of it, okay some of it -- too much of it -- in the Psalms, strikes as being anti-Christ; in that it's not like Christ found in the NT.

As far as I know, the only religious group still bashing babies against the rocks is the ISIL, or ISIS, or IS, or whatever they're known as. Most other religions have moved away from that kind of behavior. And yes, arguably a lot of OT stuff is not like the Christ found in the NT. David shouldn't have thrown that rock at Goliath, right? I mean, he should have turned the other cheek. And when the lion and the bear came to take his sheep, he should have offered them two! That was Jesus' teaching, clearly: "When they take you a mile, go with them two, when a man takes your cloak, offer him your shirt." So David could have been more generous in offering up the fruits of his flock.

But wait a minute - Jesus said that the shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, while the hireling runs away. So maybe David should have lain down in front of the bear or the lion and offered himself as a tasty snack, instead of fighting with them. That would have been the Christian thing to do, clearly.

Of course, the above is humor, or my version of it. In reality, there's this word called "discernment"... we're supposed to have some when we read the Bible. Otherwise we invent funny religions, or join people who have. And spiritualizing, or allegorizing, the OT text certainly takes discernment. If you lack a necessary measure, I suggest two options: first is to find someone who has it, and second is to read the ancients. Probably your first option, the person with discernment, is reading the ancients anyway.

Lee never bothered to read the ancients because he felt that Nee had read everything there was to read, so why bother? But if he'd read the ancients, he would have found that they followed the NT lead by using Psalms as a source of inspiration into divine and mystical realms. Instead, Lee created his "God's NT economy" template, a bowdlerized monstrosity that when superimposed upon the scriptures allowed him to determine which were "natural" and which were "revelatory". And the vast majority of the Psalms were dismissed as the former. Usually it was only where NT usage forced him that Lee admitted some revelation of Jesus Christ.