It's become fashionable in Church circles today to talk about thinking or working "outside the box." An old truism says that insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results, and so comes a book some years back about "coloring outside the lines" which seems to be the base now for this "outside the box" language.Speaking of coloring, one bit of info from my "undergrad days" was that Pablo Picasso was an accomplished student of the classical painting styles before he launched off into the Dada styling that made him famous. Possibly he could have gained the same fame anyway, but who knows? The point here is that he knew exactly where the lines were before coloring outside of them.
One concern comes of the fact that the Church is not a business concern, or an ad agency for that matter. A business is an organisation, made of rules and procedures. The Church is a supernatural organism, made up of the Spirit, Word, and Sacraments of God in the living souls of the Redeemed. One is powered by prestige, pride, and performance reviews, the other depends on God. While this sounds too vague or spiritualistic to some, it will ring true with the experience of many others. Now we come to the point of the matter.
To think "outside the box" we first have to find the box. Even thinking outside the thing, the thinking still relates back to it, or else it has no reference point by which to even say what the thinking is about. One has to wonder at times if these "outside the box" heads have really seen the box to which they are referring. The need in view is, for clergy and Church scholar, to find the box, the starting point: a Biblical understanding of the faith of the Early Father & Mothers of the Faith. The ones who learned from the Apostles, and the ones who worked through those teachings to teach the people of their own world. After you have gotten inside their faith, understanding the implications of Christ's resurrection, and of the Trinity, and where it all applies to being the Church then and today, then we can talk about "boxes:" Only by that time we will have discovered that "box" to be a vast city too great to measure!
To think "outside the box" we first have to find the box. Even thinking outside the thing, the thinking still relates back to it, or else it has no reference point by which to even say what the thinking is about. One has to wonder at times if these "outside the box" heads have really seen the box to which they are referring. The need in view is, for clergy and Church scholar, to find the box, the starting point: a Biblical understanding of the faith of the Early Father & Mothers of the Faith.
ReplyDeleteYes, some wishy-washy liberal types, for example, desire to reinterpret and reinvent Christianity, and they do not understand it very well in the first place. To understand Christianity, one must study the Bible and scholars with an open-mind putting aside bias with God's help.
A good contemporary lesson, thanks Robert.
Hi. I’ve enjoyed dipping into your blog, and will be back again. And thanks for adding a link to mine! God bless.
ReplyDeleteAmen, Russ! And one more ingredient, presuming the Holy Spirit's ongoing work in a yielded heart, is a preparation to be amazed.
ReplyDeleteNW, thanks for stopping by. I've got good many articles here, and would love to hear your feedback on any of them.
Amen, Russ! And one more ingredient, presuming the Holy Spirit's ongoing work in a yielded heart, is a preparation to be amazed.
ReplyDeleteYes, of course, I was not focusing on that in the context of my comments, but we agree.:)
Tell ya what, Bro- If we're agreed on that point, we're agreed on a lot. A lot of the confusion we have today is from people insisting on the unity of their own feelings, local or denominational traditions & opinions, etc. I had a faithful, three-times-a-week churchgoing friend get real upset with me one time for who I was associating with because "the Bible says 'birds of a feather flock together.'" The challenge often comes when we have to ask ourselves if the passage on that page really does support the line of dogma we've always associated with it, or else, please God, what does it mean? That's where James 1 comes in, beautifully.
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