SecondJon @SecondJon@qoto.org

@freemo
CS Lewis, a treasure to modern protestants loved medieval philosophy which included the idea of burying meaning under layers to dig through. As the biblical proverbs speak, wisdom must be searched for as hidden treasure.

A reading of the great books from church history are astounding at how similar they are to what is taught in churches today, but also can provide insight from outside of our current context.

CS Lewis wrote about this a bit in the introduction to On The Incarnation by Athanasius. Both the intro and the book are good reads.

@masterofthetiger@theres.life @selea

@freemo
I suspect we'd all agree it is a life long pursuit to plumb the depths of scripture, and that there's more there than fits on a pamphlet.

I think more time should be put into the learning of biblical Greek and Hebrew and textual criticism and learning the historical and cultural context.

But I don't dismiss the simple straightforward meaning either. It has layers. Like parfait.

@masterofthetiger@theres.life @selea

@selea
I would expect the key to eternal salvation to be the MOST disputed thing, no matter how clear it is, if it disagrees with us at all. And as we're not all the same, no matter what it is, it'll be uncomfortable for some or all of us, and we'll try to ignore it or re interpret it.

@freemo @masterofthetiger@theres.life

@freemo
Got it. I think Jesus's interpretation of his actions in his words would provide more clarity as well as the textual, cultural, and historical context - they had taken the place of prayer, specifically I believe the part that was open to non Jews, to make it a marketplace. If I recall correctly, they had effectively put barriers in the way of Jews worshiping, and stopped gentiles from being able to pray there at all, in order to profit off of the people's desire to worship God. Jesus wasn't objecting to all marketplaces, but one that took advantage of and obstructed worship of God.

Mark 11:17 And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”

Many pick things out of context to force fit the Bible to say what they think, including Christians. It's quite easy to do, as really understanding one sentence (in the Bible, in a book, in the newspaper) may require lots of reading and it's more comfortable to go with confirmation bias rather than put in a lot of hard work to find out that we're in conflict with biblical teaching.

I once caused quite an angry response when I was teaching the Sermon on the Mount at an American evangelical church and got to Jesus teaching "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth...but in heaven" and asked what that meant for how we view work, money, and retirement.

@masterofthetiger@theres.life

@masterofthetiger@theres.life
My question from the original post was : by what Canon? There is an actual Canon regarding him, but that doesn't fit what's written there.
@freemo

@masterofthetiger@theres.life
I'd be curious to see a historical study of the church. Was The Great Awakening, for example, under historic persecution? What about other times of historic church growth or health? I haven't seen such a study, it would be interesting for sure.

@masterofthetiger@theres.life
Decades ago I met with a pastor on China who said the same, having spent many years in prison for pastoring a Bible teaching church. His congregation grew after each imprisonment.

Yet this isn't always true everywhere : see the historic examples I mentioned already.

I think if we really believe that persecution is the answer, we'll move to the places most likely to persecute us, solely for our spiritual edification.

Since there's no rush of Christians trying to move into North Korea and other places seeking persecution, I think we haven't really embraced this idea.