Comments on: The Old Hermeneutic

By: Michele

Michele — Wed, 31 May 2006 13:12:15 +0000

I’ve been away for a bit, so forgive this late reply to a older post.

I think this quote is so applicable to the workings of how we view the Bible. How we understand and perceive things is often relative to our station and point in our lives.

The point about the two fold love of God is powerful. Interpretation can go lots of ways, however, application brings teh reality and experience of God’s holy love to hearts who need Him.

By: Big Mike Lewis

Big Mike Lewis — Tue, 30 May 2006 19:48:12 +0000

Me…I weigh Jesus’ words over everyone else’s. I can’t speak for everyone here though and would not try to.

By: Tim Edgeworth

Tim Edgeworth — Tue, 30 May 2006 19:31:51 +0000

Just wondering… are the words [recorded by Holy Spirit inspired men] of Christ in the Biblical record of more weight than words written by other men who were also inspired by the Holy Spirit who is God? For instance, Our savior commanded belief and baptism for salvation [Mark 16:15-16], whereas in ACTS 2, Luke recorded Peter expounding that baptism is for remission of sins, along with Pauls experience in Acts 22:16, baptism to wash away his sins. Do those folks embracing the “new” hermeneutic give more weight and emphasis on some inspired scripture than on other inspired scripture?
Just trying to figure out where you folks are coming from……Tim

By: Big Mike Lewis

Big Mike Lewis — Tue, 30 May 2006 15:05:00 +0000

Exactly.

By: Leland

Leland — Tue, 30 May 2006 14:15:08 +0000

BML,

There is absolutely nothing wrong with mystery. It is the fuel for discovery.

Great milestones have been reached by putting mystery on the table and examining it closely.

By this method we can assign the label mystery to what really is mystery and not just lack of critical thought.

By: Big Mike Lewis

Big Mike Lewis — Tue, 30 May 2006 08:06:33 +0000

Leland, in a rhetorical way (you may answer if you like) I ask, what is so bad about mystery?…

Tim said, “I wonder how ol Augustine feels about the “love of God” as quoted by the inspired apostle John in 1 John 5:3. “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments: for His commandments are not grievous” kjv, by the way, how do the “new hermeneutic” folks deal with this? Just curious. Tim”

I personally would ask, what are God’s commandments that we are supposed to follow? I usually go to what Jesus taught as main authority. I would say that the commandments under Jesus’ new law are to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. The second is like it…to love your neighbor as yourself. These words were spoken by Jesus himself when posed the same question.

By: Tim Edgeworth

Tim Edgeworth — Tue, 30 May 2006 02:10:30 +0000

Hey, fun discussion over on “Inorganic Music”, its been a blast. As someone who truly accepts God’s word as perfect [I do have questions about a couple translations however] I wonder how ol Augustine feels about the “love of God” as quoted by the inspired apostle John in 1 John 5:3. ” For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments: for His commandments are not grievous” kjv, by the way, how do the “new hermeneutic” folks deal with this? Just curious. Tim

By: Leland

Leland — Mon, 29 May 2006 23:39:19 +0000

I don’t think we will ever figure it all out. But this should not be an excuse to relegate it to mystery.

By: Big Mike Lewis

Big Mike Lewis — Mon, 29 May 2006 20:18:12 +0000

At the same time, I would like to add that I don’t think we were meant to figure out every aspect of every facet of all our lives.

The Jews were given the Law written word for word to address pretty much every situation. The Old Law was taken away with Jesus’ perfect law arrival: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and prophets hang on these.

To try to dictate every worship practice from incomplete information that we’ve tried to deduce what kind of singing we use in a one hour time frame from week to week is moronic to me when there’s not one verse that says anything about doing a specific set of things in that one hour a week.

Especially when we have verses like Romans 12:1 which tells us that we are “…in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.”

By: Big Mike Lewis

Big Mike Lewis — Mon, 29 May 2006 20:10:56 +0000

“I believe the whole passage is talking about how those who don’t have the Law may actually still be following God in their own ways. It’s a scary passage for those who believe you can only arrive at knowing God through divine revelation, but it seems that that’s what it teaches. It doesn’t minimize God’s authority at all- rather it shows that God’s authority is inherent in how the world works, and man can to some extent come to know God by examining the world with his thought. Just because something sounds ‘humanistic’ doesn’t make it sound wrong.”

I agree with you on this…the former post you made sounded different to me.

“If there were no basis in reason at all, how would you decide to have faith in Jesus instead of faith in the Bob, or Buddha, or any Hindu deity? I think you would agree that you use your human reason to help shape your faith as well.”

I didn’t mean to make it sound like there is no brain activity going on when we have faith, but that faith is different than belief or knowledge.

By: Brett Keller

Brett Keller — Mon, 29 May 2006 20:00:52 +0000

Tim,
Again, good, thoughtful posts. I too think it’s about time for this to wrap up since we’ve come down to our assumptions that point to the roots of our conflict. I’ve heard the same explanation (relating to judgement and using the Israelites as an instrument) from Bible professors at Harding (Monte Cox specifically), and it does seem well thought out. You say; “If your assumption is that God can’t judge or that God can’t punish disobedience, I don’t know what to tell you. But if you believe there will be a day of judgment, there will be a heaven and hell, then why can’t God bring judgment on Jericho.”
You’re right here- the disagreement is deeper than Jericho. It’s about the nature of God. If you can believe in a God who has revealed his word through the Bible and the Bible only, and will punish those who do not obey (which appears to be the majority of his created humans for most of history) to eternal judgment, then Jericho makes perfect sense. Since we disagree on the nature of God, it would make sense that our conception of which actions make sense for Him would be different.

By: Brett Keller

Brett Keller — Mon, 29 May 2006 19:47:04 +0000

Which still doesn’t mean faith will be contrary to human common sense.

“I don’t believe Romans 2 was written to show us that we can understand God through reason…that sounds very humanistic and takes away God’s authority.”
I believe the whole passage is talking about how those who don’t have the Law may actually still be following God in their own ways. It’s a scary passage for those who believe you can only arrive at knowing God through divine revelation, but it seems that that’s what it teaches. It doesn’t minimize God’s authority at all- rather it shows that God’s authority is inherent in how the world works, and man can to some extent come to know God by examining the world with his thought. Just because something sounds ‘humanistic’ doesn’t make it sound wrong. Maybe there’s some truth in humanism, to the extent that it gives back to man some of what Biblical literalism takes away when it tells him ‘despite being made in God’s image, you are incapable of coming to know God on your own, you must trust in the revelation he gave to others.’

If there were no basis in reason at all, how would you decide to have faith in Jesus instead of faith in the Bob, or Buddha, or any Hindu deity? I think you would agree that you use your human reason to help shape your faith as well.

By: Big Mike Lewis

Big Mike Lewis — Mon, 29 May 2006 19:17:30 +0000

Proof texting is not a good thing, BTW…therefore prooftexting my last comment would make no sense either. Proof texting is taking a passage out of context to prove your point. I don’t believe Romans 2 was written to show us that we can understand God through reason…that sounds very humanistic and takes away God’s authority.

now… Hebrews 11:1 says, “What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see.” (New Living Translation)

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” (New International Version)

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (King James Version)

Faith is not knowing something. Faith is inherently based on what I cannot see.

By: Tim

Tim — Mon, 29 May 2006 19:15:31 +0000

I’ve been challenged by this conversation. Can’t say I’ve enjoyed all of it, but it has been good for me, none-the-less.

I’d like to respond to Leland’s question about Jericho and the connection to love thy neighbor.

Perhaps that isn’t the question to ask. (Perhaps Augustine wasn’t inspired in saying everything has to fit into the two-fold love of God and neighbor.) The greatest command is to love the Lord your God. And I do think there is a connection here.

If your assumption is that God can’t judge or that God can’t punish disobedience, I don’t know what to tell you. But if you believe there will be a day of judgment, there will be a heaven and hell, then why can’t God bring judgment on Jericho. (Aren’t the Minor Prophets continually warning against the Day of the Lord coming on different nations, including Israel?)

Thus it wasn’t a matter of Israel loving its neighbor as much as them being God’s instrument to bring judgment. (Interesting to note that just because one nation is used to bring God’s judgment on another doesn’t necessarily mean it is the more righteous nation. He tells Habakkuk, “You’re not going to believe what I’m going to do… I’m going to use Babylon, an evil nation, as my tool of judgment”. Habakkuk 1:5-12 … is it okay to use the quote marks since it is very loosely translated?)

[Cathy, if you haven’t read this book in awhile, do so. I think you’ll love it. Habakkuk keeps saying, “I don’t understand, but I’ll wait and I’ll watch.” It reminds me of your posts.]

I don’t want to take away from loving our neighbor, but can we consider that God is also a judge who does in fact judge?

One more note and I’ll bow out. Leland, I want to encourage you not to assume this hasn’t been thought out or that I’m simply spewing rhetoric. If you judge it too quickly as a knee-jerk reaction, it will be too easy to judge me instead of what I’m saying.

God bless you guys. Peace

By: Kent Dickerson

Kent Dickerson — Mon, 29 May 2006 18:56:12 +0000

Terrysj, I hope you are still following the comments on this thread, I’m a little late in reading it. I wanted to respond to your question about instrumental music. I grew up in non-instrumental Churches of Christ and have worshiped in them most of my life. As a Bible Major and Greek minor in college I began “searching the scriptures to see what was said was true” anew with the new tools I was learning. I found on this subject “our” biblical arguments simply did not hold water. The greek word for to sing in it’s most literal sense is “by or with the playing of strings” (Theological Dictionalry of the New Testament VIII, p499). Though the word certainly progressed to include singing alone I believe a solid argument cannot be made that such alone is being commanded in Eph. 5:19. “To pluck” is simply too inherent in the words. For most of the 1st century christians their Old Testament was a greek version called the Septuagent. And psallo and it’s varients are used for playing an instrument many a time there. After coming to this realization. I prayed that God would forgive me for condemning others who worship with instruments. I also made a more indepth study of scriptural reasons for withdrawing or withholding fellowship. This was thirty plus years ago.
For the last two years I have worshiped in an Army chapel with instruments and have played the guitar with one of the worship teams for the past year. Lest you think instruments are always a distraction to worship I might tell you of a comment I recieved yesterday. The brother said “the worship really touched me today. It was a sermon in song that said it all.” Sometimes I am so aware of God inhabiting His praises when I am singing and playing alone and I am so connected to Him that I am brought to tears. I still sometimes yearn for a little a capella and sing that way though.
I hope you will think about this.