Ancient paths

I just read a post by 'Lord Veritas' called Heaven Without Christ and it hit home. Reminded me of something I have always held a dear cause... Why preach if you don't preach Christ? Surely philosophy and theory and opinion have their place - but I'm guessing people already know or have their own opinions about it. I am probably going to go off on a completely wide tangent here - but hey, hence this blog's convenient title ;) This is perhaps not a take on Lord Veritas' but just the expression of something it triggered in me - which is what good writing does.

I have a friend (whom I always seemed to be arguing with, until God decided I needed to hold my ahem peace!) - and he believes that God has called him to provide for the intellectuals. And that they can only be reached through expositions of philosophy. My issue with this friend is not that he is right in not including me in the band of intellectuals ;) but that he often makes assumptions of situations, that I (perhaps arrogantly) claim to know better of simply because I am in them. Sometimes even assumptions about being female, or being in my family - in good spirit, he explains what he believes is Truth. LOL Yes, he capitalises the T ;). But that is my point - I would only capitalise it if in reference to Jesus. Some things are absolutes - I live in a country that reminds me of that everyday. The Bible is. But there are interpretations and opinions that are militant against another's - they are not salvation-stealing or power-pilfering, but they are discounted nonetheless. I suppose I have been guilty of having rejected another's view summarily, without listening for God's take first... But in our urgency to give our truth to the people we meet, we forget to give God's truth; forget that at the foot of the cross the same God changes and speaks; forget that the Spirit's discernment is far more understanding than our own. And we are also guilty of universalising personal revelations - no, we do not just share them. We 'absolutise' them. To me, the Bible remains the bottom-line on drawing lines... as does the God of the Bible. No, I am not speaking for those arguments that allow and liberalise everything the Bible says - face-value is not dispensable in our search for depth, is it?

I am, in fact, arguing for the ancient path. I am no post-modern, although there are remnants of truth in nearly every philosophy. I don't entirely hold with co-authorship... I long and hope that the Author will speak sooner than the readers of the Text. But that capitalised Truth? Lol, I believe we will find it here. Here in India, I belong to a church that because of its structure has someone at the top giving it its sermons. And because of its structure, there are several visiting pastors and theologians who preach. Theologians who preach philosophy... forgive me for the pun on those two words, but the wisdom of man is foolishness to God, and vice versa...

Many times you will find me ranting on the opposite side of the track (I have said I was a BoC) - that face-value foolishly forsakes the Spirit for the letter, but not when the Person is lost for the principles. The reason Christianity is different is because it is personal. In my responses to my Muslim students who chose to take the offensive on quite a few occasions, the one point at which they balked is when I told them fuss-free that I knew this fantastic, wonderful, entirely lovable and so-let-down-able Jesus - and that He loved me even more. And the gospel of Christ and the cross, God's love and sacrifice cannot be compromised. God's love not ours... I think that our relationship with Jesus is the centrifugal force that gives our Christianity its validity. Call me old-fashioned. I probably am. But the Bible is never out of fashion. And the Bible has copyright on love, not you or me. When I think of 'old-fashioned-ness', it's not about ideals and values - fashions are much more about the self.

Yet in my worship and in my meditation - if life and truth are not real, then I have lost my way.