Comment Quorum
From time to time, maybe once every two weeks, I will blog responses to comments folks leave me. And I do appreciate the comments.
On my post "Pelikan on Tradition and Scripture," wwyd asked, "How should the two points you make in the final paragraph affect the way we (in 2005) understand the "inspiration" or relevance of the scriptures?" The inspiration of the Scriptures is subject to a wide variety of interpretations itself. The fact that oral tradition came before written Scripture may or may not affect one's personal understanding of inspiration. In my view, there is no affect at all as God has always directed His revelation and been in control of His gospel. As far as relevance goes, the ideas proposed by Pelikan should help us consider the Scriptures just as relevant to us as it was to the mid to late first century Church; just as relevant to the Reformation; just as relevant to the Anabaptists. The oral tradition has always had a place in the Church; we must not confuse the idea of oral tradition with tradition as taught in the Roman Catholic Church. Oral tradition is passing along the good news, the gospel of Christ, and teaching others, especially the next generation. While in the mid first century, while the oral New Testament was going around, the OT was there with the people. As we pass along the oral tradition today--the message of the gospel, our interpretations and commentaries--we have the NT with us. Ultimately, the NT comes out as the objective reference; but how poor would it be to simply give someone a Bible and tell them to read it and "you'll know the truth." If they don't have guidance, someone to help them understand, their not going to know the truth. Likely they'll be more confused than anything.
On my "Layman's TULIP: Limited Atonement," wwyd asked me to "please explain the significance of the following comment so I'm sure I'm tracking with your logic: 'But see how Christ never said He would bring in those who will be the sheep.'" The most popular non-Reformed teaching includes the idea that Christ died for all people of all time, giving everyone the opportunity to believe and receive salvation; the condition being that the individual takes action and comes to Christ. Tied into Election, this same teaching goes on with the idea that God saw beforehand who would believe; based on that information, He chose them. I took the analogy of the sheep and extended it to make a point. Christ talked about His sheep in a definite sense, not in the sense of "Once someone believes in Me they become My sheep." As He told the Jews in Jo. x, they did not believe because they were not His sheep; not, they were not His sheep because they did not believe.
I noted in being Blogspotted by Phil Johnson (which is actually the second time; I searched back through and rediscovered I have been blogspotted before) that Phil misspelled my last name. Always bad to do to an Calvinist Latino. You just know they'll point it out. Craziest thing is he commented "Fixed the spelling. Sorry. I should learn to cut and paste rather than trying to spell." See; that's a good man.
On my post "Pelikan on Tradition and Scripture," wwyd asked, "How should the two points you make in the final paragraph affect the way we (in 2005) understand the "inspiration" or relevance of the scriptures?" The inspiration of the Scriptures is subject to a wide variety of interpretations itself. The fact that oral tradition came before written Scripture may or may not affect one's personal understanding of inspiration. In my view, there is no affect at all as God has always directed His revelation and been in control of His gospel. As far as relevance goes, the ideas proposed by Pelikan should help us consider the Scriptures just as relevant to us as it was to the mid to late first century Church; just as relevant to the Reformation; just as relevant to the Anabaptists. The oral tradition has always had a place in the Church; we must not confuse the idea of oral tradition with tradition as taught in the Roman Catholic Church. Oral tradition is passing along the good news, the gospel of Christ, and teaching others, especially the next generation. While in the mid first century, while the oral New Testament was going around, the OT was there with the people. As we pass along the oral tradition today--the message of the gospel, our interpretations and commentaries--we have the NT with us. Ultimately, the NT comes out as the objective reference; but how poor would it be to simply give someone a Bible and tell them to read it and "you'll know the truth." If they don't have guidance, someone to help them understand, their not going to know the truth. Likely they'll be more confused than anything.
On my "Layman's TULIP: Limited Atonement," wwyd asked me to "please explain the significance of the following comment so I'm sure I'm tracking with your logic: 'But see how Christ never said He would bring in those who will be the sheep.'" The most popular non-Reformed teaching includes the idea that Christ died for all people of all time, giving everyone the opportunity to believe and receive salvation; the condition being that the individual takes action and comes to Christ. Tied into Election, this same teaching goes on with the idea that God saw beforehand who would believe; based on that information, He chose them. I took the analogy of the sheep and extended it to make a point. Christ talked about His sheep in a definite sense, not in the sense of "Once someone believes in Me they become My sheep." As He told the Jews in Jo. x, they did not believe because they were not His sheep; not, they were not His sheep because they did not believe.
I noted in being Blogspotted by Phil Johnson (which is actually the second time; I searched back through and rediscovered I have been blogspotted before) that Phil misspelled my last name. Always bad to do to an Calvinist Latino. You just know they'll point it out. Craziest thing is he commented "Fixed the spelling. Sorry. I should learn to cut and paste rather than trying to spell." See; that's a good man.
posted by Eddie at
5:14 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home