I have always said it this way. No man on earth has the full revelation of
Christ within himself. The fullness of Christ is revealed only through his
ekklesia (assembly), as we are in relationship with one another. There are
some truths that we will never receive directly through the Spirit or
through reading the Bible for ourselves, but God has determined that some
truth will be revealed to us through our brothers and sisters who are in
Christ. In other words, if I want to know the whole truth, I cannot ignore
the community of Christ.
Another analogy I often give is that understanding truth is a lot like
holding up a coin in the midst of a circle of people. Some people view one
side of the coin while others view the other side. We can sit around and
fight about how one side is inaccurately representing the description of the
coin, or we can lighten up and realize that there are two sides to the coin
and some of us cannot view the other side except through our neighbor. When
we walk in love toward one another, we will listen to our neighbor and gain
a more full knowledge of the coin by doing so. Of course, we must recognize
also that some people are not looking at the coin and want to enter into the
dialogue and so they make stuff up. Some people too might just want to try
and misrepresent the coin for their own personal reasons. And then there
are those sincere people who are just not very good at describing what they
see. Such makes the whole situation a little less than pristine as we seek
to distinguish those who are accurately describing the coin from those who
are not.
Peace be with you.
David Miller.
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Excellent, David. We are to learn from one another and to encourage one another. Sometimes some refuse to learn and sometimes some get discouraged instead of encouraged, but at least we are communicating, and to some extent, growing.
Terry
