Bruce, my dear, dear friend!!!

Always wonderful to see a letter come through with your name on it!!

Yes, yes, I remember the poem you sent out and how you called it "inspired". I recall thinking how I would have recoiled at such a statement at one time in my former FBC mentality!! hahaha! Wow, have we gotten to be such heretics, huh? Bill apparently wanted everybody to hear the "rebuke" because he must have used the "Reply All" feature since I also got his response. hehe!

I mostly hear bondage in the so-called "defense" of the "inspired word of God". That damned oldness of the letter!!! I can hear so clearly the words of the religious as they stood upon the inspired words of Moses!! Hypocrites we were, huh? Written words, written standards, written modes of comparison, written traps of logic, written formulas, written principles - all supposedly brought to completion in one leather-bound volume that is said to be the only source by which we can know God and/or truth. Yuck, puke, vomitous lies all intended to bring us back under a "written in stone" kind of relationship with God that never worked before and can never work in any circumstances!!!

Law came through Moses, Grace came through Christ!!! The written desires of God only become the playground of the flesh to interpret however it chooses, while the living desire of God - CHRIST - has become our life!!! God spoke in the old days through prophets and teachers, but has spoken to us in these last days IN HIS SON. Not a written word, but a living word, that has been witnessed to by the written word. If we listened to that written word, then we should surely listen to his SON who is the one in whom God speaks!!!

You are so right, if nothing inspired comes through us then we are of all men MOST TO BE PITIED!!!! What a crock we must be dishing out if we can only quote verses and speak as those who are controlled by a written "canon". Oh, boy, you got me started, huh? hahahaha!

Love,
Jim