Corporate agreement is often seen as "truth." If I have my hat on correctly, truth is not possible without a corporate (read: communal) searching.
[Debbie]
Someone quoted me a verse recently from which they extracted something similar: Proverbs 25:2 "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter."
No doubt the interpretation can be disputed by someone.
Hi Debb:
What I had in mind in the quote above (my quote) was this: I believe that effectual community is an important aspect in this thing we call the "image of God." There are several benefits innately associated with community, as I see it. Acceptance, support, a cultural sense of "home" and the emotions that center themselves on that reality -- and the benefit of the counsel of many in our search for truth. I am not gifted enough to either arrive at "truth" or to know that I have arrived apart from my association with a community in whom I have respect and a certain degree of trust. When I say that "truth is not possible without a corporate (read: communal) searching," this is what I have in mind.
The lesson for me is found when I compare II Pet 1:20,21 (no prophecy [teaching] of scripture is of private interpretation ... because no prophecy ever came of human will but men and women moved by the holy Spirit spoke as God moved them" and Matt 16:16,17 in which Peter is told that his conclusion ("you are the Messiah, the Son of God" ) came not from flesh and blood but from the Father. What I see is a communal sharing that brings Peter to this admission. God does work in the counsel many.
John
