Jot or Tiddle
One of things I’ve been thinking about lately is how we Christians state that all truth is found in the bible. We follow the bible. The bible is the book to gain all wisdom and truth. “God said it, I believe it. Not one jot or tiddle will be added or taken away.” And yet, we fool ourselves. As the Jews do, we have oral law that we follow as well. We just haven’t compiled all of it into a written format. Each Rabbi (pastor or denomination) that we follow had its/his/her own yoke.
Many of the Jewish scholars note that God gave 613 commandments in the Torah. 248 of these commandments are positive commandments (actions we should take), 365 are negative commandments (actions we are to abstain from). Oral law is simply the act of interpreting these 613 commandments. The Mishna is the first written recording with the oral law. It is divided into 6 portions dealing with 6 basic areas of Jewish law:
· Agriculture and food
· Holidays and Sabbath
· Issues between men and women (divorce, remarriage, etc),
· Civil and criminal law
· Laws of the temple
· Spiritual laws of purity and impurity.
Someone look me straight in the face and honestly tell me we don’t have our own Mishna. I dare you to. I’ll look right back and tell you that you are a fibber. Jesus gave us the 2 greatest commandments. Love God and love others. However, we take this and the rest of the New Testament, extrapolate verses and create our own Mishna. Matthew Henry, John Wesley, and Martin Luther are our some of our sages. They’ve written our Talmud and some of us will fight to the death to protect the words they’ve written. We don’t call it Talmud or Mishna; we call it Ecclesial History, or Hermeneutics or Systematic Theology. But at the end of the day, as far as this non-theologically trained girl thinks, it’s all the same.
What does it look like to follow Jesus? That’s what we are all trying to figure out. Let’s at least be honest when we talk. There is interpretation when we read Scripture. We do look to wiser men to help us decipher the upside down world of Jesus and His parables. We have a lens on when we approach Scripture. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t have 4029 different denominations, or whatever it is we have (is that an exaggeration?). I think that if perhaps we began being honest about this, we might be more successful at reaching some common ground within the Christian community. If we simply admit that we follow this Rabbi, or that Rabbi in it’s/his/her interpretation, we might be more successful in our dialogues. Maybe, just maybe, if we come to the table honestly and humbly, we could work together in this beautiful, mystifying, complex thing we call The Church.
Technorati Tags: Matthew+Henry, John+Wesley, Martin+Luther, Scripture, Bible
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Jaime,
I was thinking about this just yesterday after reading MovedMountains latest post. At the end of his post he says, “What is “salvation”? Is it something Jesus does for us on His own or is it something we have a hand in? Does “Spirit Filled” mean a life controlled and governed by the Holy Spirit or does it mean the ability to speak in tongues and exercise other charismatic gifts? And I could go on.
So is it really the words or phrases alone that hold all the importance, or is meaning (and taking it one step further) context also an important part of the deal? How do we get around the clear differences of opinion that exist within the church over the meaning of theological words? How can we communicate meaning to non-believers when we can’t even agree on meaning ourselves?”
I began thinking of the same thought you bring in your post. People always lean toward a thought or idea that best fits their own thoughts and ideas. They essentially take the yoke (teaching) of whoever it is as their own. I don’t know if there is an adequate answer to Creature’s questions other than, there will always be a difference of opinion on theological words and statements. We have to choose which view most represents how we interpret it ourselves and then teach it. This is something that’s been happening from the beginning of time. There is always going to be differing views as to what it means to be saved and how salvation is received and what being “filled” with the Holy Spirit looks like. I’ve learned to let the non-eternal questions go. What I mean is if the question doesn’t hold any eternal significance, I’m not going to get caught up in a debate over it. I know that raises another question of, “who gets to decide if there is eternal significance”. It just keeps going and going. It has been since time began and it will until time is no more.
Shannon,
I think you are right in that we let the non-essentials go. I think that it is important to admit that we bring our particular “yokes” to the table, but be respectful of others opinions or viewpoints at the same time. It’s hard, though, isn’t it?