Re: Truths behind theology & Biblical interpretation
Submitted by Forgiven on March 04 2000 at 18:36:12
In reply to Truths behind theology & Biblical interpretation Submitted by Ray on March 03 2000 at 03:34:30
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Scott Peck stated, "The path to holiness lies through questioning everything," (The Road Less Traveled:..., 1978, p. 185) and I've tried to follow that path. No - the path to true holiness lies in living in obedience to God. That is what that common but unpopular word in the New Testament 'Repent' means. The only question is what is God's will for me - and the Bible provides a infinitely valuable resource for testing whether what I'm thinking is right. This pattern is exemplified by Jesus's attack on the Pharisees for their attitude to divorce, where he goes back to the original verses, points out that in the creation pattern we have 'one flesh' relationships as the pattern to which we should aspire and thereby defines that as the pattern for the Church for all time. If the bible as reasonably interpreted, the church down the ages, and the vast majority of the living church are united in proclaiming one message, it is extremely unlikely that I am right and they are wrong. This applies to both your comments above - about the legitimacy of 'casual' and of gay sex. The story is told of communists coming to Fiji in the 1950s proclaiming that there is no God. Some of the locals took them apart and pointed out that their still being alive was a result of there being real in their lives the God whom the Christians had proclaimed - before that time they were cannibals who tended to enjoy visitors, properly roasted. Although tribal customs are sometimes interesting they have no normative value - both ours and theirs are a product of thousands of years of fallen humanity - and are equally subject to judgement by the standards of the Bible; of course the hard bit is resisting the temptation to judge their by our entirely.... |