1. How much room do we give God to work? I've been thinking. What's new. Anyway, so it seems as though I'm destined to follow this path. It's all laid out before me: finish uni, work, bible college, then go into ministry, then be a missionary...
This is the cycle. Or chuck in a year or two of MTS as opposed to two years of secular work, whatever. It just strikes me... So many of the amazing people I've read about didn't follow this plan. As though this plan will produce the most qualified, most faithful ministers or something. I'm going to sound like a whiney teenager but why must I finish uni? Why must I do this and then that? Why do I have to follow this Sydney Anglican formula? It's as though I need to do everything that I can, I have to cultivate all these skills in a particular way - where is the room for God to shape me? My point is, if I pulled a Gladys Aylward on y'all and left independently for China tomorrow I'm pretty sure I'd be ex-communicated or something. Maybe I'm just having one of those moments but why is it that the path to teaching God's Word is so rigid? Well, ok, I already know the answer to that question. Next point.
2. The Bible is the ultimate authority. It's inspired by God, it's His Word, it's complete. Everyone agrees. Or do they? While trying to understand the hermeneutic behind women preachers I've read arguments saying something along the lines of: "well, ministry hadn't progressed that far so Paul couldn't have confirmed the roles of women teaching in his letters" which to me seems to be saying that God forgot to give us more information. Or this commentary on Romans that I've started reading by John Stott has Bible scholars claiming Paul didn't even know his own mind when it came to the law, things like that. So where do you draw the line? Is the Bible authoritative or not? Question it, totally. If there's a question to be asked, believe me I will be the first to ask it. But the way people interpret things sometimes, the way the Word of God is sometimes treated with such uncertainty, I wonder if people remember that God is actually responsible for it and I highly doubt He's now seriously concerned that He forgot to add Appendix A: What To Do In Event Of Robot Take-Over (added now because obviously Paul didn't have to deal with bioethics).
I think you've gathered this is another one of my confusing rants that I don't expect anyone to understand but this stuff honestly goes on in my head.
Hah! Here's a few quick thoughts for you before I race off to Core Con:
ReplyDeleteRe #1 -- I go through this cycle once a week (as I suspect do many others). I don't it's a case of being rigid. Rather, I reckon it's about character and wisdom. Spiritual fitness. That is: I'm a soft, lazy, rich, Westerner who can barely pray for 15 mins. The one time I tried to spend the whole night in prayer was a complete joke. So whenever I get on this train of thought I turn around and look at how I've spent my time in the past week: where has my focus been? What have my prayers been about? Am I filled with a real burden that doesn't just fleet through my head but hovers in my heart and consumes my thoughts?
'Course I don't. So I know that I *need* to spend time getting my heart and motives right before God before I charge off after a romantic vision of "mission in the jungle", to be sure that I'm seeking his kingdom and not merely an adventure or glory for myself.
Thus, I think if you've got the fire, go! But test it well.
Re #2 -- I think the question is not just one of authority but also *inspiration* & infallibility. What does it actually *mean* to say the Bible is perfectly inspired and infallible? How do you deal with textual criticism, which can give you doubts about which parts of the text are actually the ones God wrote and which parts are the ones that people have fudged in transmission?
P.S. Packer's "Fundamentalism and the Word of God" is absolutely *masterful* on the question of authority. Brilliant book that every single Christian should read.
On #1...
ReplyDelete- dude, you're already teaching the Bible every week!! it's no lesser than what i do on wednesdays with you.
- most didn't have the opp.
- they only write books on the success stories. no one tells you the hundreds of monumental disasters
- not a sydang formula. just taking advantage of blessing and opp. and just maybe...JUST maybe, God can use these things to shape us too. not as though any of those things are devoid of God or his shaping work
- i'd never ex-communicate you!...the "something" sounds far more appealing.
- think back to the days of no bible college...now ask why did they start them.
- think about places now with no colleges or liberal ones...now ask whether good training is wise
- methinks you've been the beneficiary of many people who have had good training. might that not be a good argument?
- THE BEST way to answer your questions chris is to sit down over the next 10 weeks, write 10 thirty minute sermons (expositional and engaging) that you'd be sure God would be happy for you to teach to others, and that you would feel as though you wouldn't be leading people astray.
On #2...
i reckon bible college, even an anglican one, would be a great place to work all that out
Further...on the question of "How much room do we give God to work?" there seems to be an assumption that he does not work through those avenues. am i being oversensitive? prob but i've just read a reformed charo talk about how when we prepare talks we leave out the HS. we should just get up and let the HS lead us into what to say. that stuff really angers me. guess i'm cranky at God too that the HS can't seem to work when i'm sitting at my desk reading the bible, thinking and praying about it. Why is it that he can only work spontaneously?
ReplyDelete@ sam: re #1, the advice for getting me to think about my own zeal for the Lord has been shared by you several times previously already. its certainly something to think about. funny that your tendency to forget helps me to remember.
ReplyDelete@ pete: you're so... wise. fyi, wise is a euphemism for old. kidding.