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To: Taliesan; Mr. Silverback
This is an assumption, and as such is bad exegesis, and this bad exegesis colors the rest of his theology. The truth is, he does not know, any more than anybody else, what the pre-lapsarian plan for the earth looked like. He ASSUMES it meant have families, GOVERNMENTS, create art -- but that is an assumption, mainly because that is the only sort of culture we know. Now. After the Fall. When you cannot separate your own assumptions from what the biblical text actually says you cannot avoid error.

Talk about "bad exegesis" and errorist assumptions!

You actually think you can get away with saying, "he does not know, any more than anybody else, what the pre-lapsarian plan for the earth looked like. He ASSUMES it meant have families..."?

Hey, Gen 1:28 and 2:24 are pre-fall purposes clearly outlined in Scripture:

"Be fruitful and increase in number." (Gen. 1:28)

"...a man will leave his father & mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh." (Gen. 2:24)

Jesus Himself sanctioned Gen. 2 when he said: "Haven't you read that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'. They are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together let no one separate." (Matt 19:4-6)

So I ask you the same question Jesus asked, "Haven't you read...?" What's this gobbly-goop about whether or not the culture of families was intended within God's plan for the earth?

11 posted on 06/03/2004 1:30:52 PM PDT by Colofornian
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To: Colofornian
Calm down. I appreciate your thoughtful responses. At least we are reading the bible together.

Obviously, God's plan for the world some kind of family life from the beginning and still does. I have a wife and son. But there is no indication what that pre-Fall family was supposed to be like in enough detail to pin Christian hopes on it -- precisely because the focus of biblical narrative is on creating a redemptive event EVEN WHILE WHILE FAMILIES WERE DOING WHAT THEY DO. Whatever families were supposed to be, God apparently felt the need to proceed on and redeem creation by additional means!!!!

The orders of creation are broken now and insufficient as agents of grace. Hence, a New Creation. Since we don't know what God intended the family to be like before the Fall in any detail, and clearly the family as an institution never accomplished anything like a "redemption", arguments that imply that God's plan to redeem culture is through the family are not biblical.

The truth is, christians talk about families changing their culture when their churches aren't changing their culture.

Tom Wright's work has demonstrated just how much Jesus' refusal to be a zealot got him in trouble. He may not have changed Simon's name to "ex-zealot" (I don't think he changed John's name to "ex-fisherman") but after they met Jesus John left his nets in the boat with his family -- and Simon was no longer a zealot.

The pattern, again, is beyond dispute: whatever you did as a "zealot" you stopped doing when you met Jesus. In every case.

I agree all the issues you list are important ones. They are addressed and solved by the Gospel.

There is no remedy for sin -- either its power or its guilt -- except a personal response to the redemptive work of Christ. One person at a time. Nothing else. To preach otherwise is not only futile, but heretical.

John called a Jewish ruler to obey the law. There are still prophets in the church, as well, whose office is to declare God's heart and mind out loud.

There is nothing wrong with christians speaking publicly and calling sin sin -- homosexuality, adultery, witchcraft, drugs, etc. But a christian who does not at the same time remember and say that you cannot find power to be free from sin except through Jesus is no longer speaking as a christian.

I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you.

31 posted on 06/04/2004 5:35:07 AM PDT by Taliesan (fiction police)
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