[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
=======================================================To the Toughtful:
I. Howard Marshall presents three considerations for the study of the biblical message. In the first place, the question is whether a given text has meaning in and of itself or whether meaning is "somehow created afresh through the interaction of the reader and the text."
A perfect example of this for me is the passage found in Gal 3:26,27. At one time it read "Know ye not that as many of you as have been baptised [in water] into Christ, have put one Christ." And that presentation was true in symbol and helped me in a number of ways as I grew in Christ. Now, the passage actully says something very different. Now it gives me encouragement that if I immerse myself into [eis - Billy T] Christ, I put on Christ. The closer to the state of thoughful obsession of Christ, the deeper my immersion into Christ -- the result ? The putting on of Christ. My stay on this forum has presented to me the sinfullness of all -- including those who claim no sin -- and the gracious intervention of God in Christ. On a completely different but related level, there is my activity. God's activity is bound to everything we consider to be innately involved in the Father - son (read:me) relationship. "My activity" is all about learning to walk, then talking, then thinking, like my Father and then to teach others.
Acts 2:38 once meant [to me] that after water baptism, I would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit Himself. And that served me well. Now, I believe that the word "receive" carries with it the meaning to "receive again for the first time" this wonderful gift. Emphasis on "again." This "image of God" is more than shared community with my fellows. It includes, of course, the Spirit of God in someway. If we were not created in His image, we would be fetching papers and doing the deed on the neighbors lawn. The fact that we are in the image of God, includes so many things. We think, we live and learn as God has done; there is an intense goodness in many of his creation, an intense goodness that only needs a sense of connection. There are so many things that distinquish us from Phido or the fish in the tank or the dove perched high in the corner of the porch covering. There is everything else and then, there is us.
And so, "truth" has a dynamic to it that transcends the mathmatical equation. The value of the Word is born afresh as we consider it to be The Living Word ....... God working through the same words in one year of our life to cause a growth spurt, then, again in a later year -- those very same words -- are used by Him to bring us to a new level. And so we appreciate the written message as it is acted upon by Him. Awesome.
JD Bishop
John, I got everything you said this time except, "receive again, for the first time." Sounds almost like an oxymoron. Can you explain in detail so that I might understand?
Terry
---------- "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man." (Colossians 4:6) http://www.InnGlory.org
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