Tuesday, January 18, 2011

The triangular shape of the New Testament

No, not the physical codex! The God-discourse in it:

“...the sort of 'God'-discourse that we have in the NT did not arise from philosophical reflection it was not initiated as an intellectual exercise to address some problem of metaphysics or to stake out some novel position in the spectrum of religious thought of the day. Instead, the triadic contours of discourse about 'God' in the NT reflect the 'triangular' shape of early Christian religious experience in which 'God,' Jesus, and the Spirit featured as linked in the special way we have observed.

“I repeat that the triadic discourse about 'God' in the NT is not the developed trinitarian doctrine of subsequent centuries, but equally, I contend that the latter would not have developed without the 'God'-discourse and the devotional pattern that we find attested in the NT.”—God in New Testament Theology, page 102

<idle musing>
Amen!
</idle musing>

3 comments:

That's my 2 cents! said...

The first Church was God centric in a way which never aggrandized humanity. Today's Church is decidedly human centric. For the Apostles Christ was gain and everything else was loss. For us, today, its more a question of how to fit God into our lives, so that our lives here and now are better. Instead of building better human beings, by abolishing the human nature, and living a new life as God's new creations, Christ becomes a kind of spiritual antioxidant. We take only as much of Christ as we need for the balance we think we need.

God isn't our life, He's our spiritual dietary supplement. Pop two Jesus in the morning, then right before bed, and you'll be right as rain!

I do not mean to sound as cynical as it's probably coming off. We can choose for God to be everything. If we will choose God to be everything then we'll find our thinking coming more and more in line with what the Holy Spirit brings through His apostles.

My 2 cents,

Lonnie

jps said...

You're singing from my hymnbook! :)

James

That's my 2 cents! said...

Yes, we have the same hymn book and I believe, in most things, we are on the same page. But after 5 years of blogging I've learned that not everyone who follows a blog are in the same hymnal. Sometimes comments are more enlightening than the blog post itself.

Most often, when I post a comment, I am expressing thoughts the post evoked for me. I'm saying, "I get it." Very often I pick up on the comments of others, and because of their comments I come to understand the original post much better.

For me, conversation is far more revealing than linear thoughts in a blog. I learn more with people than I do from people, as a general rule.