Something I read today....

[mizpeh]

Originally Posted by Timmy

That's cool! The more temptation the better! Bring it on!!

2 Cor 12:10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.

James 1:2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

Acts 16: 22 And the multitude rose up together against them: and the magistrates rent off their clothes, and commanded to beat them. 23 And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailor to keep them safely: 24 Who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks.25 And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.

[Timmy]

Originally Posted by mizpeh

2 Cor 12:10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.

. . .

Yeah, them too! Maybe that's my problem. Not enough misery in my life.

[mizpeh]

I read this on another forum, an evangelical forum. I like his hermeneutical style.

Mem,
I agree completely. Despite my posting on the issue of the 6 days etc. my main approach to Gen 1 is to show how God reveals Himself in it and sets the stage for not only the Torah but all of the Biblical corpus. The chapter introduces themes that run through all the Scriptures and most particularly in Christ.

I wrote about these themes here, though as I look at the post, I did not focus on them or elaborate how they run right to Christ, in that post.

Anyway, I was just thinking this morning, perhaps what I'm really trying to get at is to separate in people's thinking the view that Gen 1 really does teach a 6-day creation but to separate that from YEC. Somehow people have those two things jumbled together in their mind. In other words advocating the 6-day understanding of what the text says is "contaminated" in many people's mind by their experience with YEC, and they won't let it in. That's what I mean by the "Fundy Monster."

It isn't about science at all, it's about reading a text and treating it honestly. If you are seeking or avoiding something else at the same time, seeking the best reading becomes the secondary goal, while it should be the MAIN goal (or only goal).

It's as if God is giving a press conference. He has something to say. We, the journalists, have plenty of questions WE want answered. So we don't bother to listen to what He says, but immediately pounce on Him with our questions. And then rather than hear his words we search in the text of the conference for answers to OUR questions and material that can serve to back up, rightly or wrongly, what we thing He SHOULD have said. Frankly, I think that is illegitimate, to say the least.

What is right is to shut up, quiet down our anxious questions, and listen. He doesn't tell us everything, not by a long shot, and HE doesn't even tell us everything we might want to hear. But I suspect the few details He does give are worth listening to and holding onto real, real tight. It's the first chapter of the whole Bible, after all.

So as someone said, "It's not given to us to tell us HOW He did it." That's very true, and yet it DOES. That is, it tells us a detail or two about the procedure He went through. It speaks loud and clear about this seven day structure. I mean what could be more obvious from the text.

So what should be our first response? To find a way to sideline that detail? To figure it's probably some kind of figure of speech. (Blessed are the cheesemakers. I think he means producers of dairy products of all kinds.)

Let's at LEAST consider that the text means He really did do this in a space of seven days and we know days to be. That's astounding. That raises the question why. Why would He bother to do it that way? He could create all in an instant, and yet He did not do that but spread it out over six days and then RESTED, for crying out loud. God RESTED?

So we see, IF we listen and consider perhaps He meant us to understand it as such, that it is an act that speaks in itself. He inaugurated time and the rhythm of our lives, most particularly of the nation He founded, basing one of the commandments on this very act, this ceremonial pattern He used (or said He used) to create the cosmos.

He also set His stamp numerically, with seven being something of a signature. So eventually Christ Himself is announced with the seven theme, a la Daniel's "weeks" and then seven signs in John, and my goodness, Revelation.

Seen that way the 6 days as days understanding is rich and profound and meaningful and amazing.

(But a little voice pops up: what about science...?)

Here's the press pool trying to work their agenda in again.

Relax, take a deep breath. Play the audio of the press conference again. Mmmm. HIS words are a delight. My furious and mostly ill-informed, ignorant and puny objections and questions (read Job) fade into insignificance and even kind of embarras me.

Listening to God produces this kind of result: "...therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes."

http://theologica.ning.com/profiles/...age=2#comments

[mizpeh]

One man's look at the different gospel accounts:

James was found riding his bike every other Saturday.

Allow me a moment to apply a term to this sentence that isn't normally used: story*. You understand that the sentence is attributing an action (riding his bike) to a specific person (James) within a certain time frame (every other Saturday)—but this doesn't have to be a beginning or an ending.

It remains as a self-contained Happening in James' world. It's believable to enter into that world. There's no logical contradictions encountered. It just exists.

From here, you can walk away from this story and remain happy. The story stands on its own.

When reading Scripture we encounter Stories—several in fact. Folk who deny inerrancy have no problem with Story but they have a problem with the placement of Story.

This is a mistake, they say, notice the variance of the story being used here verses there.

Maybe they're speaking about the chronology of a Gospel account, or maybe they're talking about the differences of an account recorded in Kings vs. the Chronicles or maybe they're even highlighting the differences in Paul's conversion story. Whatever the case may be, they refuse to read the story with a charitable ear to the author; rather they see that the authors are, somehow, mistaken. It doesn't matter, they say, at least the Author's point was clear.

What winds up happening is that the Point is treated like a gem, to be lifted up out of the muddied context from whence it came. It's polished, repositioned, and it is put on display: the messy text, on the other hand, can remain safely ignored.

And yet, this completely ignores the way a story (like words) can be used in different contexts to highlight different points. A story placed next to another might reflect The Actual Point.

For example, let's go back to James:

Janet, James' shrew of a wife, spent years complaining that they were growing apart. She screeched. She yelled. She cajoled. Every fortnight of this, he couldn't help it—he had to get out. James was found riding his bike every other Saturday.

Well, the original story is the same but the context is near another story: the story of James' Wife. Now that the two stories are next to each other, the Point is not merely that James was found riding his bike but the man was using it to escape!

Now, are there any mistakes? The details of both stories seem pretty important.

“Well,” says the Objector “there are no problems here since it expands on the story of James' riding.

Well, let's up the ante:

James' co-worker Gina was a beautiful woman: friendly, flirtatious and fine. Every other week, she enjoyed swimming, in the buff, at a private lake in the State park. James noted, if he scheduled his day just right, he could catch a late afternoon vision of exquisitely exposed beauty. James was found riding his bike every other Saturday.

Story One (the original) still remains the same but now the story three in the same context gives a naughty edge to James' bike riding.

But how does it affect Story Two? Has that story now been relegated to wrong? Do we now have an errant account of the life of James with the Point being whatever we can separate from the conflicting accounts?

You see, Story Two and Story Three can both remain as unchanged as Story One. Put next to each other they gives us a picture of James' Life; told separately, they highlight certain aspects of that life without being contradictory or errant. The only sure thing you see in telling the story is that the Author has a different reason for sharing the information that he does and that using the same story near other contexts may reveal some of the author's mind.

So what the reader should be doing is entering into the story and notice the details within the story as it stands. And then, the reader should be noting the near context of the story: why was it placed here instead of there? Why is the author organizing his material in this way? What does it say about the Author's Point?

The Story is important; it's placement near other Stories is equally important. The Point, then, doesn't function like a gem—hidden in the grime, just waiting for some person to remove the entire messy Story away from it. Rather each story should function as part of the whole presented by the author—the dimmed lights, the soft jazz, the scented candles, the roses littering the floor—that when put together tell you what's really going on.

Words are, therefore, special though they mean nothing without context. But Stories define context, and when placed near the vicinity of other Stories, the reader should be careful (and respectful) enough to allow the Author’s positioning of those stories to reveal his flow of thought.

http://theologica.ning.com/profiles/...mining-a-story

[mizpeh]

An hermeneutical recipe...


"By "intent" I mean "meaning." An utterance (including written) is an act of conveying meaning. So to take out what was put in, that and only that, is the best reading. Actually it is the only good reading. It isn't "great as well," because no other consideration even comes close to it.

The understanding of the original readers is a better guage of this than virtually anything else. Unfortunately we frequently do not have access to this.

Historical understanding is an indirect path to this. But there's also the question of how many cooks have been at the broth, adding a pinch of this a smidgen of that.

"We need to make sure that the text can be understood in a way that is accurate as well" is yet another recipe. Your word "can" here seems to be an invitation to loophole hunting (to change the analogy) This "accurate" is also an interesting word. It is an invitation to add a little salt, maybe a dash of pepper.

I think it presents backward logic. I start by believing X, and since I do, I'm going to favor an unpacking of the text that best conforms to my belief in X, no matter how much sleight of hand I have to perform to pull that rabbit out."

http://theologica.ning.com/profiles/...ltons-mountain

[mizpeh]

A warning not to be so quick to label others:


"Christianity Today recently took a similar position in an editorial by Terry Muck (February 5, 1990). Muck gave three reasons why Christians should not use the pejorative label of cult: (1) "The spirit of fair play suggests it is best to refer to groups of people as they refer to themselves."

(2) "There is also a theological reason for avoiding" the label, for it wrongly implies that certain sinners "are the worst kind."

(3) "It simply does not work well to use disparaging terms to describe the people whom we hope will come to faith in Christ.... In fact, we are commanded to love them as ourselves."

http://www.altupc.com/altupc/articles/upc-evan.htm

[mizpeh]

" This is why God wants to use your weaknesses, not just your strengths. If all people see are your strengths, they get discouraged and think, " Well, good for her, but I'll never be able to do that." But when they see God using you in spite of your weaknesses, it encourages them to think, " Maybe God can use me!" Our strengths create competition, but our weaknesses create community.

At some point in your life you must decide whether you want to impress people or influence people. You can impress people from a distance, but you must get close to influence them, and when you do that, they will be able to see your flaws. That's okay. The most essential quality fro leadership is not perfection, but credibility. People must be able to trust you, or they won't follow you. How do you build credibility? Not by pretending to be perfect, but by being honest."

"Humility is not putting yourself down or denying your strengths; rather, it is being honest about your weaknesses. The more honest you are, the more of God's grace you get. You will also receive grace from others."



Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life, pages 276-277.

[mizpeh]

I should start a thread called "Hermeneutics With Marv"...

" In regard to day, evening and morning, I'm not talking about defining one by the other. Maybe I said something like that. But evening is the end of a day, the illumined part of the cycle. I can't pull out citations right now. But it is clearly parallel to sunset in some passages. Some of those about being unclean until evening, and then referencing sunset. There is some range though. As I recall the Passover is said to be eaten "between the evenings."

Morning too is the beginning of the "day," the illumined part of the cycle. Similar passages demonstrate this.

As far as Genesis 1 is concerned, yom is virutally defined in v. 5, "he called the light day." Now that takes some mulling over, but we already see the illumined part of the cycle called a day. Yes, even if there is no sun.

Now when we get to the part where it says "one day" then I suppose the question comes up what is the meaning of "day"?

Now in the first place, there just isn't any evident meaning in the OT, certainly not in the Pentateuch for yom to mean "an indefinite period of time." However, even if we get such an idea in our heads, that this meaning is possible, we have to verify that it is in fact the meaning here. It isn't just a menu of options--all are equal and I can choose the one that suits me best. If I have doubt, hesitation between two options, I can look at the context.

If I say "I bought a lemon yesterday," you might have legitimate doubt whether I am talking about a fruit or a car.

If I go on to complain about the carburator and the tires, and getting my $15000 dollars back, you could surmise that those details are most compatible with an account of buyer's remorse over a dysfunctional car.

If instead I start to talk about my desire to eat healthier, and drink more water, and that putting slices in will make it more appetizing, and then go on about Vitamin C, you'd be justified in concluding that I meant "lemon" to express the fruit sense. Because I am using terms in that semantic domain.

In the case of yom, the fact that I am counting them, and that in the end I reference not only the seventh day of creation but "the seventh day" that was blessed, being associated with rest, then I am tying in the week with its Sabbath day. Also I reference two other words in that semantic domain, evening and morning. It's as if I were talking about lemons and said skin and juice. To anyone with an ounce of objectivity, it's pretty much a slam dunk that I'm talking about the fruit called lemon, and the chronological unit called "day."

I frankly cannot see what is so difficult about this."

[mizpeh]

The Scriptures being "inspired" indicates that the written product of the human authors also had God as its author at a higher level. The relationship between the two authors, human and divine, is complex, and not what this thread is about. But it follows that if X text is written just as God authored it, then it is authoritative.

If I copy it exactly, it is no longer the same written product, in terms of the ink on paper, but it is the identical text, the combination of words that conveys a meaning. This is more than ink marks on paper of course. It exists as a linguistic, literary entity.
That entity has a message, a meaning (down to the smallest details that convey meaning). This is still the same "text" as inspired orginally, even though it is not the same ink and paper on which the inspired text was originally written. It isn't the autograph, but it is still the original text.

In a number of ways we may take one step, two steps, more from that original text. I could copy the original but misquote it, leaving out a single word. Some words would be relatively inconsequential. Some would be serious: the word meaning "not" for example. This would no longer be exactly the same text as the written product that was inspired, or as an exact copy, but it is still very, very close. How incorrectly I copy the text will determine how far it is away from the original text, the text as inspired. Is this copy "inspired"? Is this copy authoritative? Certainly, with reservations that errors due to copying have distorted it from the original text.

I don't think it would be correct or useful to say it is 99.9% inspired and authoritative, but you could say that that imperfect copy represents with 99.9% accuracy the inspired text. For (almost) all intents and purposes, it virtually represents the inspired text.

If I translate the text, then the product of that translation is a new text in a new language. This means now that NONE of the words in this text are the same as the words originally inspired. It is POSSIBLE that all the word in my new text CORRESPOND to all the words in the original text. However, this is not likely to be the most helpful approach, because in the nature of language and in the nature of translation, words don't correspond perfectly, because diverse systems do not match perfeclty part for part.

However, the goal of translation is to convey the same MEANING as the original (and this includes down to the smallest textual details that convey meaning). So to the extent that an actual translation achieves this ideal goal, it does convey the same meaning. Thus this text is not the SAME text as inspired, but has the same meaning as inspired. To the extent that the translation has the same meaning, conveys the same message, it has lost nothing in its authoritativeness as God's Word.

It is an imperfect world, and translations certainly are imperfect things, translators being imperfect people. And so actual translations cannot be said to convey without fail 100% of the meaning of the original text. (There is the factor of the reader having to decode the text, to derive meaning, that is, to interpret it. But that is another level. Important, but not what I am focusing on here.)

The practical reality is that what we hold in our hand is an approximation of the original text. A good approximation, we trust. It has received imperfections in the processes of (a) transmission, (b) translation.

Is this imperfect entity "inspired"? Is it authoritative? We need to understand what we are saying. The imperfect entity we have is our means of accessing the non-imperfect original text. If I speak of my imperfect entity and call it the inspired and authoritative Word of God, I am actually saying (a) the original is inspired and authoritative and that (b) I consider the imperfect entity I hold in my hand to be sufficiently faithful, though copied and translated, to convey to me the same message and meaning as originally inspired, though I recognize that it is not equal to the inspired text (which was in a different language), and in conveying to me the same message and meaning, it is equally authoritative (or approximately so, depending on its imperfections) as the original text.

So the Bible I have on my desk is not equal to the inspired text, being a translation, but it is for all intents and purposes equal in authority to the originally inspired text.

http://theologica.ning.com/forum/top...ource=activity

[mizpeh]

From Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life......." God doesn't want to use just some of his people; he wants to use all of his people. We are all called to be on-mission for God. He wants his whole church to take the whole gospel to the whole world." pages 304-305

Footnote: from the Lausanne Covenant 1974

http://www.lausanne.org/global-conve...ole-world.html


http://www.lausanne.org/covenant

(I guess this slogan isn't original to the UPCI.)