Ok, so I am getting a new roof on my house. I get a call at work and when I notice it is from one of the guys working on my roof, I decided to take it. The guy tells me that there is no power at my house; after a good deal of talking, I discover that what the guy means is there is not an available outlet outside. I direct him to the unlocked door of my garage - the guy claims to have tried the door and found it locked - after I convince him to try it again, he discovers a usable outlet. This conversation involved 3 call backs and about 30 minutes. Now, I have worked with roofers before (in construction) and I realize they are hard workers who are able to do a job, I can no longer do. Yet, I was still frustrated. Until I realized that Peter and Andrew and many of the disciples were just like the guy I talked with - they were hardworking men who sometimes struggled to understand the deeper message that Jesus (who was able to relate with them as a tradesman) was trying to communicate. These were also the same type of men (minus Luke and Paul) who wrote the NT.
This fact really made me think about how funny it would be to see Peter's or Andrew's reaction to our dissection of the NT - I think they would have a good laugh. The idea that specific words were used to convey exclusive ideas - 'this word is only used once in this context', blah,blah,blah. They wrote an inspired teachings based on direct experience with Christ to convey the message of love - they was not attempting to get published in a professional journal! But we act as if each word was directly dictated by God - without any consideration of the communication skills or the basic message of the men who wrote them.
The whole message of the Bible is greater than it's parts. If the message we are getting from all our hermetical and doctrinal gymnastics is not love, we are wasting our time arguing about linguistics and semantics. Yes Ducky - it is all very important, but without love it means nothing. The Bible is like quality shoes that suggest the promise of winning a marathon - without practice and perseverance and participation and effort, the shoes don't matter.
This fact really made me think about how funny it would be to see Peter's or Andrew's reaction to our dissection of the NT - I think they would have a good laugh. The idea that specific words were used to convey exclusive ideas - 'this word is only used once in this context', blah,blah,blah. They wrote an inspired teachings based on direct experience with Christ to convey the message of love - they was not attempting to get published in a professional journal! But we act as if each word was directly dictated by God - without any consideration of the communication skills or the basic message of the men who wrote them.
The whole message of the Bible is greater than it's parts. If the message we are getting from all our hermetical and doctrinal gymnastics is not love, we are wasting our time arguing about linguistics and semantics. Yes Ducky - it is all very important, but without love it means nothing. The Bible is like quality shoes that suggest the promise of winning a marathon - without practice and perseverance and participation and effort, the shoes don't matter.
