Community

quote:

That's a bit of a straw man argument. So far, noone is really advocating that extreme. For the most part, names and titles have fairly fixed connotations and don't really require any adaptation.

quote:


Absolutely. Did God also not ask that we disciple and instruct others? Doesn't that require language that is capable of adapting to new challenges, new controversies, new thought patterns?

quote:

ORIGINAL: crankius

Bell is not saying what you are saying, Group. Go back and read what he said, not thinking of what you think he is saying, but really reading what he is saying.

Quite a bit of Scripture defines Church as a ministry to itself. Bell is stretching scripture to fit a narrow perspective to prove his point (which is a false one about the Gospel anyway).

The church exists to bring Glory to God, to facilitate worship, to be the pillar of truth, to bring unification of the Saints, for the teaching of doctrine, for the ministry of the Saints, for the Body to exercise as a whole, to evangelize the world by proclaiming the Gospel and making disciples, to care for the poor and needy within the church primarily and outside the church as well in the name of the Lord, etc. there are probably more--I'm just listing them quickly.


I don't know, Group. I read a lot of authors, even ones I disagree with. I just wouldn't spend much time defending the teachings of someone who misuses Scripture as much as Bell does. His teachings require a great deal of defending and twisting and explaining and restating just to get them to line up with Scripture even in a vague way.

He treats Scripture like he thinks he could have written it better.

quote:

I'm not necessarily taking issue with you on the above quote. I am asking for clarification. Are you saying that by doing good deeds for people you can make your life better? Are you saying that by doing good things for people you can be considered a follower of Jesus because those are the types of things He did? Or are you limiting this to say that authentic followers of Jesus can't help but to do good deeds for people, and if they don't it will effect the legitimacy of their worship?

quote:

But they do. One doesn't exist without the other. They are intimately related - not inseparable, but so closely linked that dividing them apart too much risks introducing a totally different kind of error. For some purposes, I teach as if the two are the same thing, namely when I speak about what it is to live as a Christian. For other purposes, I teach as if the two are very distinct actions of God. This is what Bell's doing here, and he's not without some precedent. Arguably, the bible itself occasionally blurs the lines. For example, when Paul speaks of salvation as a process by using the present perfect tense:

1 Cor 1:
18For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written:
"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."[a]

2 Corinthians 2:14-16

14But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. 15For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. 16To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task?

quote:

One of my wife's professors actually advocates "gut feel" occasionally. When you read something in the bible, and things just don't seem to line up with the grand picture and you have an uneasiness in your stomach, maybe there's actually something else going on in that passage. Dig deeper. Pay attention to the nagging voice somewhere inside your skull that's telling you something's not right.

quote:

The church exists to bring Glory to God, to facilitate worship, to be the pillar of truth, to bring unification of the Saints, for the teaching of doctrine, for the ministry of the Saints, for the Body to exercise as a whole, to evangelize the world by proclaiming the Gospel and making disciples, to care for the poor and needy within the church primarily and outside the church as well in the name of the Lord, etc. there are probably more--I'm just listing them quickly.

quote:

[I've been listening to podcasts from Bell's church (it's been about three years since I read "velvet elvis" and since I didn't really want to re-read it, I decided to listen). One thing I'm not hearing coming from Mars Hill's pulpit is the Cross. I am hearing about how we can experience eternal life by loving God and our neighbors, loving our enemies, forgiving our enemies, caring for our neighbors, ect...but the cross...I have yet to find a reference to Jesus' crucifixion on the cross as a source and means of eternal life.

What does the Scripture say about the role of the cross in human history and each of our lives personally? It is central. It is paramount. It is to be preached and in such a way that it will not be robbed of its power. Preaching the cross is what Paul did day in and day out. Until Bell chooses to do the same thing as Paul who unapologetically, clearly, simply, and free of human wisdom preached the cross, I cannot but suspect that his church has many of the trappings of a Christian organization but fails at the most essential point. /quote]



Not to be rude and will show it. But did you go out of the room or take a little boy's room break when that was talked about?
I have attend for over seven years Mars Hill Bible Church. And guess what I have heard about the cross more than I heard in a RCA, Church of America. Which I attended for over ten years.
Please quit making judgement calls like that.

quote:

In fact, Peter does not cite scripture as proof that the Gentiles are now saved but he cites his own experience.

quote:

ORIGINAL: GroupW

quote:

ORIGINAL: Crankius
2. Scripture trumps human reasoning, human history books, and human tradition. I notice repeatedly that emergents consider all four as equals, and do not consider Scripture to be authoritative. It's like this: God is everywhere, therefore all things have truth, and therefore all things are mine." It's an attractive line of thinking, but not Scriptural.

Edit: I think your #2 is an exaggeration of Bell's and the EC's position. You are actively invited to test everything. Question everything. The bible is a good place to start. Your own gut isn't altogether unreliable. Science can help. Lay it all out there. (Note - I'm not putting science or anything else above the bible when I do this. I AM putting those things above my ability to know that I'm right. I'm not doubting the bible - I'm doubting my interpretive ability.)

quote:

"What is meant by God-breathed or inspired? God's breath is associated, from the first verses of the Bible, with creativity and life-giving vitality...In this primal, sacred narrative, the creative breath of God is associated with God's life-giving Spirit (the linguistic connections between Spirit and breath or wind are profound), who first moves over the chaos of the waters so they yield their creatie possibilities and eventually teems with life and who then enters humanity, making each person a "living soul," or a living person.

To say Scripture is God-breathed is, then, to elicit this primal language of Creation. Think of the difference between a corpse adn a living, breathing body, and you'll understand the difference between a bunch of words and words vitalized with God's breath. But even understanding this, how do we understand the interaction between God's breath or impulse and the human impulses that produced the Scriptures, including this letter of Paul?

Let me offer this analogy...I am both a creation of God and procreation of parents who, in partnership with friends and teachers and authors and culture in general, helped make me all that I am today. The way God willed to create the "me" I am today, then, like every other human, is through a complex synergy of biology and community and history (plus my own will, choices, and the like). These parental origins, these organic means, these social and historical contexts, do not decrease in any way the reality of God as my ultimate Creator, the One who through all these many instrumentalities says, "Let there be Brian," and here I am. In the same way, Scripture is something God has "let be," and so it is at once God's creation and the creation of the dozens of people and communities and cultures who produced it." (Brian McLaren; A Generous Orthodoxy; pg. 179-180)

quote:

"When I introduce the Bible to my friends outside the church...they wonder how "a nice guy" like me could be so excited about what seems to them to be a barbaric book. I try to explain that the problem isn't the Bible; it's our modern assumptions about the Bible and our modern interpretive approaches to it. I try to explain that there is a better way to understand and apply the Bible, a largely new and unexplored way that can be summarized like this: We need to reclaim the Bible as narrative.

The Bible is a story, and just because it recouns (by standards of accuracy acceptable to its original audience) what happened, that doesn't mean it tells what should always happen or even what should have happened. (pg. 185)

quote:

"The violence of the Jews entering Canaan...was not extraordinary; it was typical of their day. And so we ask: In that context was God commanding the people to do, not what was ideal or ethically desirable for all time, but what was necessary to survive in that world at that point? Was there a viable alternative at the time for a group of wandering, homeless, liberated slaves seeking a homeland? ...If god is going to enter into a relationship with people then God has to work with them as they are in their individual and moral development. (pg 186)

quote:

"If God wants a nonviolent and kind humanity in the future, God must enter into heartbreakng relationship with violent and cruel humanity in the meantime - just as parents, if they want a beautiful and mature adult child in 20 years, must begin now with screaming, crying, illiterate, selfish babies who lack bladder and bowel control." (pg. 187-188)

According to the Torah, while God is commanding the destruction of Canaan, God simultaneously command that once it was subduec, the Jews should treat their neighbors and aliens with respect and kindness...God strictly limits violence and leads the Jews to create a society that was an ethical step above their neighbors. (pg. 188-189)

quote:

"This narrative approach doesn not lessen the agony one feels when reading the conquest of Canaan with the eyes of one taught by Jesus to love all, including enemies. but it helps to turn the Bible back into what it is, not a look-it-up encyclopedia of timeless moral truths, but the unfolding narrative of God at work in a violent, sinful world, calling people, beginning with Abraham, into a new way of life."

quote:

not because God somehow inspired the writers in a supernatural way, but instead by allowing a natural process take place.

quote:

According to McLaren this is the narrative flow (trajectory) that is revealed in Scripture - God interracts with humanity to teach us, so that we can learn to live according to His original design for humanity. The ultimate teacher of this higher way of life was Jesus.

quote:

ORIGINAL: emerging

quote:

First, did Peter's experience go against Scripture or what they knew from Jesus' teachings? Was it not Jesus Himself who told them to go take to the Gospel to the whole world, and to be witnesses of Him to the ends of the earth?

Hi Jazz,
Well, it is not that simple. Yes, Jesus said to take the gospel to the ends of the earth but as I think you know, they didn't right away. One would have to consider why there was such deliberation among the first council and the apostles as to what to do about these Gentiles if it was as you claim and so clear to everyone.

As for Peter's experience going against scripture that is hard to say. For us on the other side of Pentecost, of course not. However, for a faithful Jew trying to figure out what it means to have a Messiah that was raised from the dead and who only has the OT as their "scripture" than a case could be made that his experience went against everything he knew as a rule of faith. But besides all of that, the fact remains that Peter does not cite scripture as the reason he believes Gentiles are now being saved. Rather, he cites his personal experience (his gut, if you will) when he testifies before the council. That is all I was trying to point out.


peace.

quote:

EDITED TO ADD: I haven't tied it all together yet...I ran out of time...but I will tie it together in the next post.

quote:

ORIGINAL: emerging

quote:

It is a wise to take notice whenever an emergent redefines a long standing Biblical teaching.

Mushhead, with regards to inspiration and what McLaren says about it, what is that "long standing Biblical teaching" you refer to that McLaren is "redefining"?

quote:

ORIGINAL: mcleod

By the way don't try tie it together for you may accidently put it around your neck and Iwould not like to see that happen to you. Even though someone happens to act normal and teach within reason. They are in your words every rotten thing in the world. It's really funny though we have according to you stupid ideals.
Have single mothers who at one time screamed at their kids. Now show love to their children. People who where alcohol and drug abuser. Have given it up for some thing better in life.
But as you say Mush, we are only concerned about small matters and not inviting others to join us in know a Almighy God who loves us as we are and wants to change us for his glory.

quote:

EDITED TO ADD: I haven't tied it all together yet...I ran out of time...but I will tie it together in the next post.