Allow me to share a scenario from my life. We have often “done church” around a table, first-century style. Worship … prayer … scripture … sharing … casual conversation are simply peppered throughout a meal. In other words, there’s really no beginning and end of the “5 acts of worship” (in fact, if we only get 2 or 4 in there, we don’t sweat it…). It’s all worship, from the casual conversation about sports to a moving testimony.

Basically, it’s a family meal with Christ in our midst. Everyone participates — even the ones with brown hair. To be honest, we’re in and out of each other’s lives so much during the week, this special meal is really just an extension of lives lived with Christ. Personally, I can’t think of a more “real” manifestation of the Christian family, so you can see where conversations about who can and can’t participate in these times are found wanting. In a family, with Christ as the head, the body is built up only when “each part does its work” each time we assemble (Eph 4).

I take that to mean EACH PART — every last part. Even the ones with brown hair, red shirts, or tattoos.

Amen. This is why I would never tell a woman that she cannot speak what the Holy Spirit lays on her heart, spontaneously lead a song of praise, or begin to pray in a mixed assembly of believers. I love my sister too much! Even if I am not comfortable with it (hypothetically speaking), I allow the Spirit to speak through whomever he/she wills (as if it is I who allow such a thing). Truth be told, none of this is actually about us at all.

“If the gospel is we that we “suck” as a created people of “God” and need to be redeemed by this very creator by violent death, then It doesn’t seem like very good news at all.”
I would have to agree with you if this was the case. However, I don’t think the Creator created us to ’suck’. He created us with the capacity to ’suck’ which is inherent in His decision to create with the ability to choose. Saying that he created us to ’suck’ sortof discounts the role that satan plays in the world, in my opinion. The good news of the gospel is that even if we are ’sucky’ He still, still, wants us. And he has done everything he can to take away the fact that we ’suck’. AND more good news is that the fact that we ’suck’ is no longer relevant to us if we accept the gift that He has given through Christ. I guess the gospel wasn’t really good news to Jesus since he was the one doing all the crappy stuff for us but He still did it…for me, for you.

I think this is the most times I have used the word ’suck’ in any given conversation, especially one that is religious in nature. Lots of fun though, the word ’suck’. Thanks for the opportunity.

Dixie

An interpretted Bible is just like a feeling, it can be true or it can be false.

Discernment must always be taken, but not in favor of one over the other. Truth is not so small that it can be contained on pages that are in turn interpretted by a person.

An interpretation from the Bible and an emotion have the same potential flaw - human interaction. There is no default truth to fall back on that we simply and readily know. truth might very well be a process we enter in to, which, from our very limited perspective, changes.

How can the desert and the beach be of the same earth? Is the earth a liar?

How can water from a well satisfy and water from the ocean dehydrate? Are they not water?

We do not know very much and it should be more obvious to us than it is.

“I am not a Biblian…I follow Christ” Christ’s surrendered heart to the Father showed who’s will we should have. You nailed it when you said we would have to block every sensibility, passion, logic, experience… That is absolutey right. I think that is what He meant when He said, “My ways are not your ways.” Don’t let feeling separate you from the truth. Those ARE NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE. Feelings, emotions are powerful. Without truth and surrendering our will to His, feelings and emotions, experiences and logic are our will alone.

I do not follow the Bible. I am not a Biblian. I follow Christ. I am a Christian. Christ is so much revealed in the Bible, but so much of Christ is revealed in a million other places.

“By what authority…?”

Is that not the question here? If authority comes from God and can only be understood throught the Bible, then we are going to have to apply each and every word of an ancient cross-cultural, much interpretted book to ourselves all the way in every way all the while blocking out every sensibility, passion, logic, experience, historical learnings, and every other thing.

The discomfort we have with a God who does not play by the rules compels us to do some strange behaviors, like keeping women out of power positions. In the Bible there are places where it looks like God bans women from power, and yet there are places where it is obvious God placed women as miliatry leaders. Is this the same God from the same Bible?

Yes. We had best get used to God breaking all of our rules.

>I think it would be easier to accept that reasonable, God-fearing,
> sincere people can look at a text and come to completely different
> conclusions (all conclusions being based on pre-concieved notions,
> previous religious baggage and personal experiences) without having
> to say that maybe the Bible isn’t the word of God afterall.

That is the kind of conversation I wish we were having too. There we would have a common standard and have some hope of reaching agreement, or at least increasing degrees of agreement over time. To use an overworked cliche, I think some folks are throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

“What we NEED to know: that Jesus is God’s son, that he led a perfect life, was crucified, resurrected and ascended into heaven and will come again to redeem His people… isn’t that perfectly clear? (PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE everyone say yes. If we have to debate the core of the gospel here I think my heart may break)”

I think these very things need to be debated. Right now, I think the most useful part of religion is its sometimes present product, unconditional love. One may argue that this is the heart of the gospel, but some atheists espouse these same core beliefs.

If the gospel is we that we “suck” as a created people of “God” and need to be redeemed by this very creator by violent death, then It doesn’t seem like very good news at all.

I think we all need to do as you suggest and try to come at scripture realizing the lens we through which we examine it, has been shaped over a long period of time. What you take for granted I find hard to believe because it does not mesh with my modern reality.

Thanks for your comment the the grace you have shown me on this blog.

I get what you are saying and I often come off too harsh here, and I don’t want to. I believe that case is not a valid comparison. Society does equate, and rightly so, the equality of men and women. In the church, family of faith, whatever you want to insert here since there are numerous denominations represented, is far different from human law like equal rights. I believe most churches see and realize talents of all members. How can anyone criticize a church for following scripture. I said it yesterday and I’ll say it again, if Paul’s letter only applied to the churches or people he wrote to, then we are lost until we get a letter to Texans, Oklahomans…you get my exagerated and rediculous point.