Search:
Login:
Related Links
About this scripture section...
The scripture section covers material that is either constituent to or is a derivative of scriptural study. The study of the scriptures, when guided and disciplined, leads a person to discover things about their life and understand the world around them in a different way.
Premises:
The section assumes a few basic premises that are discussed by articles within the section in greater detail:
- The bible is inspired by the living experience of God – the words themselves are inspired by human observation of divine processes – it is a distillation of our automatic response to innumerable divine epiphanies into a concentrated core epiphany.
- The authors of the bible knew precisely what was being written and had a specific teaching that they sought to convey and preserve. The teaching or ‘spirit’ of a text can develop and operate absolutely, metaphorically and literally – but it does so across all three dimensions in a consistent way.
- Through knowledge of the Word of God, one becomes infused with the Spirit of God that makes the Word true. The Spirit of God functions just as the Word declares – the two devices are inseparable, just as vocabulary is inseparable from function.
- The bible is not concerned with conveying scientific facts, historical testimonies, political skirmishes or individual advice with any measureable accuracy. Inasmuch as it conveys divine teaching regarding the nature of the universe and humanity’s placement within it, the accuracy of such accidental testimonies is negligible. Scripture is best read as a compressed fiction that points to an infinite truth – irrespective the facts before us.
- Another way of stating this is to say the bible is a subjective view of reality, and as such, one will only understand the teaching if one can get into the context of that reality. While some may state that is impossible, anyone committed to another person in a relationship faces the same dilemma on a daily basis. One also deals with this phenomenon internally as they perceive their perceptions and confront their own limitations. The margin of error in each case is deemed acceptable enough for us to continue and not despair at the futility of the process. Perfection is an aesthetic opinion, not a functional quality – that is, it can only be perceived, not tested. As soon as you start testing how perfect something is, the first question you find yourself trying to answer is, ‘Perfect for what?’
- The bible poses itself to the reader as an alternative reference on reality – attempts to validate the texts on the basis of external authoritative claims of another discipline will mingle worldviews and vocabularies and blur the aim of both bodies of knowledge.
- Thus we should not seek to incorporate the bible within our worldview and interpret it to meet us where we are – rather, we yield our own worldview to the authority of scripture and allow it to lead us and become the world that we live in. This is the only way to truly reap the full benefits of scriptural study. We live in God’s world by taking on the vocabulary and culture of the scriptural universe and allowing it to clothe our thoughts and feelings.
If you are able to accept these assumptions, or are willing to be lead along this particular path of training, you will find this section of the website most challenging – and hopefully most rewarding. I can’t take any credit for that – it is scripture for a reason, after all.
If you wonder where these premises concerning the scriptures come from, there is really no way to show it is true – the scriptures provide their own guidelines – it is up to us whether we accept them or not. The premises approximate how scripture treats and refers to itself and its own design implementation plan – its ‘purpose.’
Likewise, you may also wonder where the premises commonly held regarding scripture come from.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
© 2006 Jacob Gorny