|
|
| |
 - Endorsed - Indifferent - Contested
|
| |
| The Nashville Statement
|
| |
|
|
| |
Name:Daniel
Home: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
About Me: I used to believe that evolution was reasonable, that homosexuality was genetic, and that people became Christians because they couldn't deal with the 'reality' that this life was all there was. I used to believe, that if there was a heaven - I could get there by being good - and I used to think I was more or less a good person. I was wrong on all counts. One day I finally had my eyes opened and I saw that I was not going to go to heaven, but that I was certainly going to suffer the wrath of God for all my sin. I saw myself as a treasonous rebel at heart - I hated God for creating me just to send me to Hell - and I was wretched beyond my own comprehension. Into this spiritual vacuum Jesus Christ came and he opened my understanding - delivering me from God's wrath into God's grace. I was "saved" as an adult, and now my life is hid in Christ. I am by no means sinless, but by God's grace I am a repenting believer - a born again Christian.
My complete profile...
|
| |
Daniel's posts are almost always pastoral and God centered. I appreciate and am challenged by them frequently. He has a great sense of humor as well.
- Marc Heinrich
His posts are either funny or challenging. He is very friendly and nice.
- Rose Cole
[He has] good posts, both the serious like this one, and the humorous like yesterday. [He is] the reason that I have restrained myself from making Canadian jokes in my posts.
- C-Train
This post contains nothing that is of any use to me. What were you thinking? Anyway, it's probably the best I've read all day.
- David Kjos
Daniel, nicely done and much more original than Frank the Turk.
- Jonathan Moorhead
There are some people who are smart, deep, or funny. There are not very many people that are all 3. Daniel is one of those people. His opinion, insight and humor have kept me coming back to his blog since I first visited earlier this year.
- Carla Rolfe
|
| |
|
email
|
|
| Double Crucifixion. Part XIII - Tasting the Good Word |
If you haven't done so already, you may want to read the posts which preceded this one (for some context):
I, II,III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, and XII.
Today we look at the next item in the list:
He or she had tasted the good word of God (whatever that means)
Here we have some of the same figurative issues as in the idea of tasting the heavenly gift.
If the heavenly gift was a figurative reference to Jesus, and the tasting was a literal reference, we could conclude that that passage referred to communion, and if that were the case, this passage could be construed as a restatement of the exact same using the word as a metaphor for Jesus. If that is the case, we draw the same conclusion - one needn't be a believer to take communion.
To cut to the chase, is there any "tasting" scenario that demands one be a believer - did not Judas Iscariot, the very son of perdition taste the word of God? Surely he did, and he was not saved.
If this is to mean coming under the influence of biblical teaching, or benefiting from the word of God, one need not be a believer to benefit from, say, a society that outlaws murder, rape, and stealing? That is, it would be difficult to argue that only believers "taste" the benefits of God's word - for whole societies are rejecting the very God whose word has so benefited them in times past.
Notwithstanding, Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 2:14 that, "a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised." - which again may be the thrust here. The natural man (i.e. unsaved man) hears these things, but does not receive them ("taste") them, because he is not spiritually alive. Yet even if this is the case, it is very difficult to insist that "taste" here, means being able to receive spiritual things that natural men do not. If it -is- the intended meaning, the text itself doesn't make that plain. In other words, we would have to read it back into the text based upon a previous presumption that this is what the text means. While all sorts of people read the bible like this every day - it isn't a sound way to read scripture.
So we are left again with an inconclusiveness. This may mean believers, but by itself it doesn't have to, and the only way we can make it mean believers exclusively is if we read a meaning into the text that isn't supplied by the text.
Next up (on Monday): He or she had tasted the powers of the age to come (whatever that means) |
posted by Daniel @
11:42 AM
 
|
|
|
|
|
|
