Jesus’s Words: A House To Live In
Lately I prayed: “Lord, the possession of your words is more than theology. Let me live in them.”
Not Fighting, but Resting
Jesus’s words are not to fight about. I don’t want to live as someone who is always struggling with others, Christians or non-Christians, who don’t think like I do. And I prayed: “Lord, I don’t want to use your words as material to work with, or to fight about. Lord, let me live in them, that’s all I want, a house to live in.”
Theological Pain
In my former blog, I showed how many theological inconsistencies go round. Often, they are sources for theological restlessness and all sorts of misunderstandings. And there are many ways how people react in all these tensions.
Stories of Some Pastors
A friendly pastor who permitted me to speak about Jesus’s Stenographers, asked “And what is your evidence?” After I had explained my story, he said. “I believe that Jesus is risen, and that the Bible is the Word of God.” The way he spoke, made it clear that he insisted on that only. He had understood me, but could not adopt documentation of Jesus’s words by rapid writers or even stenographers. There was no room to ask him what he had learned during his theological study.
Another theologian, also a high school teacher, was not even willing to talk about the subject, when I told him something about documentation. He said: “It can’t be that nobody has said that in the past; and you come with that? Impossible!” He was not even interested in the arguments, nor the relevant Bible texts. A pastor listening to me about the subject, reacted: “I don’t want to know anything about all that stenography stuff. The words of the apostles are inspired and so they are true.”
Safe Spiritual Position
In my mind, I saw in all these cases before me, how parishioners are tongue tied in normal life. Oh yes, these pastors and many more may speak in this way, safe in their position, surrounded by a small or greater circle of believers, who don’t have such a safe position. In their jobs, they are surrounded by people they cannot answer the most simple questions about their faith.
The House of Christ
In Hebrews 2:3–4 (RSV elaborated in v. 3) we read:
“How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation, which beginning to be spoken by the Lord (Jesus) was established (recorded) for us by the hearers, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his own will.”
The gospel of Jesus is the house of Christ. The words of Jesus create the spiritual house in which we all can live. So yes, it is not unnecessary baggage to know from where his words are (documentation). Let’s live and rest in them to meet God and each other.
The House of Moses
In Hebrew 3:5–6 we read:
“And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after. But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.” (KJV).
Moses was a faithful servant in God’s house, in delivering what God had spoken to him for the chosen people of God, Israel. The people could live in the inspired God given words and form a family for each other, and for the Lord.
