Comments on: sola jesus, the scriptural sola

By: D. Smith

D. Smith — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 03:51:52 +0000

New book coming?

By: Archie

Archie — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 13:28:14 +0000

It satisfies me. (You’re making me hungry with all this talk of shrimp!)

Meanwhile, do you know of any good articles that discuss your hypothesis that Scripture INFERS Sola Jesus?

By: ken

ken — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 12:47:03 +0000

I’ve tweaked the section in the post on Peter’s Joppa roof vision to incorporate Bob and Martha’s excellent point that the overturning of the kosher command implicit in the vision was metaphorical, a matter of gentiles, not shrimp. Of course, I’m not predicting that this will be SATISFACTORY!

By: gem

gem — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 10:12:41 +0000

Forgive me for stating the obvious and simple. The scriptures sincerely applied by a humble spirit, will lead you into a living relationship with Jesus. The scriptures by themselves are lonely words. People working and walking out their salvation, supporting each other in the process; turn the words into the greatest love letter ever written. The heartfelt posts in this blog point us in the right direction. Ken thanks for a challenging and thought provoking post.

By: Archie

Archie — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 07:46:19 +0000

Hey Ken, there are plenty of five-legged stools around! Here’s a prop for your next sermon about them!

http://www.promedproducts.com/itemdetail.asp?src=SHOPPING&item=898%200150

http://www.promedproducts.com/showimage.asp?item=58988L.jpg

Meanwhile, do you know of any good articles that discuss your hypothesis that Scripture teaches Sola Jesu?

By: SunflowerRae

SunflowerRae — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 00:18:47 +0000

I am going to lead a bible study discussion with some fellow christian students on this topic since it got me thinking. I have enjoyed reading everyone’s remarks and I think I have come to my own conclusion on this matter. I can’t say Sola Jesu or Sola Scripture or Sola Church or Sola Experience – it has to be a mish mash of all of them, one without the others doesn’t make sense to me in my own reasoning, I need all of them to put together this thing called my faith.
One point i’d like to make is that if we rely on sola jesu (ie. GOD) then anyone who has a revelation from him, like Joseph Smith, can say that it was from God (ie. Jesus) – even though there are things about his revelation which are a clear contraindication to scripture.
My faith is richer I feel because I combine all of these things. If I relied solely on Jesus I would actually feel lost since I am not in the habit of quieting myself to listen for his still small voice and I don’t feel that I am walking in the spirit 24/7 either.
If I relied solely on scripture I would miss those precious times when I do get a sense of Jesus’s presence and that strong sense of him telling me something. Not to mention that scripture is interpreted by people which are prone to error.
My favorite preacher lady says sitting in church doesn’t make you a christian just as sitting in your garage doesn’t make you a car so I don’t think church solely, would do it for me either.
Experience, my experiences lead me to different things, not all of which are holy or godly so I am glad I don’t have to just rely on that to know God – but God did say we would know him through his works…
All in all, it’s incomplete for me unless I combine these things to enrich my faith.
Thanks for the food for thought.

By: Joao

Joao — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:30:41 +0000

Bob.

Awesome summary!

By: Archie

Archie — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:39:30 +0000

Ken, I’m intrigued by your hypothesis that Scripture teaches Sola Jesu. To understand what you are trying to say, I first had to brush up on my understanding of Sola Scriptura. This brief article helped me to do that:

Does the Bible Teach “Sola Scriptura”?
Viewpoint by Kenneth R. Samples

http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/cri/cri-jrnl/web/crj0037a.html

I haven’t found any good articles that discuss your hypothesis, so could you recommend a few?

Thanks.

By: Bob

Bob — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 04:11:36 +0000

Ken,
As I was falling asleep last night, meditating on the concepts being discussed here I think I began to get a better idea, I think, of where you are coming from. Swirling through my thoughts were how the authority Jesus gave the church to bind and loose, the reality of the Law being written on our hearts, and the church being the body of Christ all fit together. Each seemed like the facets of a beautiful gem (at least it did as I was drifting into dreamland).

Through the Holy Spirit, God writes the Law on our hearts. As we press into to him and set apart our lives as holy sacrifices, transforming our minds, Christ is revealed in us, our hope of glory. We become more and more like him. Someday we’ll see Him face to face and we’ll be like Him for we’ll see Him like he is. We’ll see Jesus, Sola Jesu.

In the mean time, though, we’re stuck with imperfect vessels and struggle with our sin nature. “The sacrifice keeps crawling off the altar” as one of my favorite pastors used to say. So God gives us something more concrete than our “hearts”.
He gives us scripture. Scriptures give us something to focus our minds and hearts on when all around is chaos.

But scriptures are not perfect either, at least not as received. There may be a perfect version of scripture in there somewhere, but you can’t do any serious study of textual criticism and say with a straight face that we have “it”, the perfect manuscript. What to do?

Well for one thing. We ought to get a clue that if the God of the universe, who created all things, didn’t see to it that we got a perfect manuscript…maybe He was trying to tell us something! Maybe it’s a clue that He didn’t want to leave us a set of 20th century propositional truths.

I love the metaphor NT Wright uses of scripture as a play. There is a narrative structure throughout, a flow to it all. Act I, Creation. Act II, The Fall. Act III, Israel’s Redemption then Exile. Act IV, Jesus and the Victory of God. Act V, The Church. But Act V is incomplete. We have the opening scenes, the Book of Acts, and the closing scenes, the Book of Revelation. We then have to work to faithfully improvise everything in between by studying the play as written, so to speak, and do our part as the Spirit leads. What is the Church after all, but the body of Jesus, Solu Jesu.

How do we know whether we’re acting things out faithfully? How do work out the details? Well, Jesus gave us, His body, the “keys to the Kingdom of Heaven”, i.e. the power to bind and loose. This was a common phrase among the rabbis. Binding and loosing are rabbinical ways of saying forbidding and allowing. This is what a rabbi did when they interpreted the Law. They judged what the Law allowed and didn’t allow. When a rabbi thought his disciple was ready to take on this responsibility, he declared that he was giving him the keys to the kingdom heaven. So in Matthew 16 after disciples finally grasp who Jesus is, the Messiah, Jesus in essence transfers the authority for interpreting scriptures from the temple priesthood and the Pharisees to His disciples. No wonder they wanted to kill Him!

So the Word becomes flesh, and provides the interpretive lens through which all scripture is to be interpreted, and end point to which it all leads. Sola Jesu. Then through the Holy Spirit constitutes a global, organic, growing representation of His body here on earth. Sola Jesu. And invests that body with keys to the Kingdom and the responsibility to ensure future generations understand how interpret the story. Who has the keys? Sola Jesu.

I think I’m starting to pick up what you’re laying down.

By: ken

ken — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:10:47 +0000

Mark, Of course that is possible. It’s also the case that the same could be said of virtually all human experience, including our knowing of anything or anyone which as you correctly point out takes place within our subjective selves, mediated by our bodies.