Tuesday, February 06, 2007

A new Type of Systematic

So, What is Scripture?

Is it the 66 books that we as Protestants have deemed as Scripture? Does it include the apocrypha? Is it a system of propositions that one must accept in order to be correct with God? Do we just experience it as true for ourselves? Does scripture just stop after the Bible ends? We tend to view (a quote from scripture) that All Scripture is God Breathed - 2 Timothy.

So what does that mean?

Interesting that you ask. Well, first of, God breathed - from Genesis - Is the ability of God to give life to something. So, I'm going to make a statement here.

I believe that Scripture is only scripture when God breathes life into it - When God speaks into it. God gives life to scripture, so then the bible is just words until God reveals Godself in it.

Okay, so is the bible the only scripture then, Or can God breathed make other things scripture as well?

Well, scripture seems to be a narrative of how a people try to be true to the way that God revealed Godself to them. It is a story of God working with humanity. We believe this narrative to be most true to the way that God really is. So, Yes, the Bible is Scripture, because it attests to God's nature with the world, especially in the person of Jesus Christ. But does scripture end at the last words of Revelation, before 70 AD? I argue that it does not. God still works with God's chosen people, and those experience are attested to throughout Church history. Now, these Experiences have to line up with the "Scriptural Experiences" especially with the real person of Jesus.

So, I say that Scripture and Tradition tie up very well together, and we have to be able to read through the "Cloud of Witnesses" that is the church and find what lines up with Scripture. Therefore, The history of the people of God continues, and we can gain much of the knowledge of God's nature as it continues, through the lens of Jesus Christ.

I propose that Theology is not so much a systematic making a framework of philisophical categories.
I propose that Theology is more fitting your narrative in the history of the church. It should start - I know God through the movement of the story of God that informed my tradition and how God has related by breathing life into my experiences.

- Keep in mind that it must coincide with God's revelation as Jesus Christ. That is what makes it Scripture.

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