…we are blind men trying to conceptualize an elephant. —Isaac

Isaac,

I do understand your viewpoint about the picking and choosing of portions of scripture to use or to ignore. I see it all the time. And it can be frustrating, especially when one’s belief rests upon select verses at the obvious exclusion of others in the immediate context. Then again, if one’s stand is made upon a verse or collection of verses - no matter how important or defining of truth in Christ - such an emphasis would be based upon what you are suggesting in your quote above. That is, that we are in fact blind men who can only conceptualize God by the verses we hold to. And if that was true, I would agree that the balance you propose would be necessary. But can it be that we, having been given eyes to see, are still blind?

Now, I don’t think you really believe this to be true, for that defies the miraculous reality you also describe in Christ. I rather suspect you have acquiesced to this underlying premise of blindness because it has provided a sense of Scriptural balance between the seeming disparity regarding “responsibility”. However, the responsibility argument we often engage in finds its roots in the natural logic of man, a reasoning that cannot see beyond its own bondage. As long as we’re trying to make it make sense it makes no difference who we claim is responsible: God, us … or a blend of both.

Having been made alive in Christ has changed absolutely everything … just as it did for those who penned the words found in our Bibles. However, to state the same miraculous truth of life in Christ may often sound very different because of the religious entrenchment embedded in the words as they’ve come to us. More times than not I suspect we’ve only learned to balance the religious perceptions of Biblical passages rather than of uncovering the life originally expressed. I’d rather hear the same truth in words that may seem to contradict a perceived conclusion.

Jim