Monday, July 9, 2012

Moving toward a holistic theology IV; the scripture, revelation and mysticism continued


In this line of posts I am trying to build progressively on the subject matter. It would be good to state how I view the scripture. This can be backed up by many posts on this blog and I will try and link some of them at the end as I move forward.

1) First and foremost, I believe that scripture is divinely inspired and redemptively inerrant. When I say redemptively inerrant I am not suggesting that there are historical errors in the bible. That is not the point, however, it is only inerrantly inspired as it tells the story of redemption. It is not a legal constitutional document. It is not a manual for life per se, however, once the redemptive purpose is acknowledge, it can give direction on how to love God and humanity when legal obedience is not the focus. It is a narrative (story) that explains how God has dealt with humanity over millennia focusing on God’s desire to redeem humanity and have a relationship with his creatures. The story shows that God’s entire purpose in creation was to move toward a climax of reconciliation. The story is written to fit within the cultures of the people being addressed. The cultures explain the advancement of humanity at a particular point in time time and are not necessarily God’s ideal. The important message is one of faith, hope and love. This post deals with 2Tim 3:16-17 and would be good to look at with this view in mind.

2) The entire scripture is written to point to Jesus of Nazareth as Lord and Savior. It has no other purpose whatsoever. The law portions of the scripture were included to show us our great need for redemption and forgiveness. It was not written to show us a standard whereby we might be righteous before God. It saddens me that so many are sucked into this point of view. In large part, the legal constitutional idea comes from the idea that the bible is the inerrant Word of God. That is precisely why Jesus and his first century followers spent so much time redefining the word of God to be the gospel, and Jesus the living gospel; when one sees the scripture in this legal constitutional way it makes it impossible to rest in redemption. It places the saint in the dubious position of always trying to please God, realizing that they never quite measure up. I have written a series of posts that demonstrates that Jesus and his followers redefined the term word of God. Here are a few of them and I would encourage you to look at all of them.
Here again underscored is the fact that how one views the scripture effects the hermeneutic, and the hermeneutic effects the theology. What I find exacerbatingly frustrating is the fact that this way of looking at the scripture is obvious as you read the New Testament writings, and yet, there are no theologians that are embracing this view. In my view that is unconscionable with all of the ink devoted to it in the New testament. Why in the world would Christian Theologians overlook what Jesus obviously taught? Please, Please, can someone answer this question?

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