david-nathanael-jones

I understand why we believe the Spirit put a seal on special revelation of God's character and workings among His people. I see the age-old virus of apostasy rising up with its contagious spores against the Body of Christ; threatening to destroy it with its disarticulations of the power source of life. Had we left the Scriptures under an ambiguous pen, we would not know our left hand from our right—our life from our death. I understand all this.

I further understand how the word is in fact a reliable revealer of the Word, the incarnate image of God—our King, Jesus. I understand the Hebrew scriptures—the inspired writings of God’s dealings with the world and His covenant people through His covenant people—are necessarily closed (fulfilled) by the witness of the men who wrote in Greek about the coming of the Hebrew King (and not only the Hebrew king, the king of the whole world). I also understand how the ones who witnessed Christ in the flesh bear a special kind of witness to us who believe. Their writings must be separated, kept and honored. I have no quibbles about this.

But my spirit groans against the fact that we have closed our authoritative witnesses of God’s work among us. Do we really believe that the Spirit does not desire to speak out what God is doing and has done among us ever since our King inaugurated His coming kingdom? I cannot stand the thought of this. I hate how our history is divorced from the retelling of God’s covenant faithfulness to us, His people. How can we hope to be a coherent people if we have not coherent covenant History? Where are the Spiritual scribes of our tribes? Where are the ones who will tell what God has done in our midst—to make our children long to see and be with our King and to make our old men and women rise up with zeal.

Instead, we sit in our incoherent and dislocated ramblings of doctrine without feet and theology without context. We have watched as canals were carved, as fields were harvested, as grain elevators went up, as railroads brought in lumber and stones, we’ve witnessed buildings going up, planes taking off, telephones being installed, televisions flashing, flashing, flashing—we’ve seen all this, and we haven’t spoken a coherent word. We do not know ourselves in these things, and yet we immerse ourselves in these things, and we have become tasteless—unsalted and flattened under the weight of time without interpretation or communion.

posted by Dave  # 3:52 PM