Open Table Talks | Session 5

so welcome to you guys and to everybody that's watching thanks for being with us this week a lot of different things we want to cover and so we'll get get into it first thing I wanted to let you know about is that we all have talked in the panel and I've actually talked with a few other people that we'd like to bring in occasionally to be a part of this and we've all agreed to do this again I don't know must be jetlag something came over me but no we've all agreed to do this again and we're gonna be doing it April 20th through 24 that's a Monday through Friday same time and same kind of day and all week long we'll post that will remind you let you know about it you we would encourage you if you have some people that you want to share it with so you can watch and then discuss with them later in your own sue means I'd be a great way to continue the conversation I know that a lot of times in all the years that we've been doing this and not this particularly thing the zoom thing but the conference is something that we hear very consistently is that people go home and they feel isolated they feel they're alone that no one really wants to talk to him about so digital John yeah and one of the things I think is really wonderful about what we've done this week is a lot of you have connected to each other and we would encourage you to keep those connections continue those conversations because now you have people that want to talk about these things and explore them and so we would encourage it to do that we also want to let you know we have tried to connect to Facebook live and we're having trouble with that in fact they're not even letting us anything nothing's coming up actually to try and do it anymore so we are recording it and we'll post it for those of you that who are on Zoom we'll post that announcement as well so today the the subject we wanted to address a little bit because all of the things we've addressed are pretty big and the the goal of this was not an any means to try and answer everybody's questions or to come up with some kind of final statement on something it was to begin and initiate conversation and dialogue as to where some of our thoughts are and to have you participate in that with us today I wanted to address the subject of how we interpret the Bible and immediately at the get-go which Bible are we talking about the Catholic Bible the Protestant Bible pre-cool - the Greek Orthodox Bible I mean there's Russian Orthodox I mean the proper ones thanks thanks Brad the whole Word of God wait a minute so that already brings up issues and differences of opinion as to what the Scriptures actually are I was raised Protestant so I'm most familiar with the Protestant version of the Canon or what we have it called the Old and New Testament the scriptures but we want to address a little bit and I'm actually going to direct this to myself today so I'm going to start us off and I've got three thoughts and then I will discuss everything I had tried to stay in line you're right it's that training man had to conform no I had to conform you know I so the first one is this as as again Menma give you a background I have been a teacher of the Bible at the university level for a long time and so I love the Scriptures and everybody on this panel loves the scriptures when you hear us say things or or bring up questions this isn't because we want to eject the Bible from our life whichever Bible we're using we love the scriptures because they've borne witness to the person that we've come to know and that's my first point the scriptures were never meant to be the thing that gives eternal life eternal life doesn't come through a text it comes through a person the Scriptures were meant to bear witness of a person and if we if we can I think stay on that track then the issues of inerrancy and is every letter exactly perfect and right all these things they kind of drop away because that doesn't matter as much I have heard if I've heard it once I heard a million times that's a slippery slope you're on and I say no as I'm sliding down I just have this picture in my mind anyway but I have a nice I have a nice accent I've I've arrested my slide they bear witness of the word who is the Incarnate Word the Lord Jesus the Son of God and revelation as I first I don't actually I don't know where I first heard this at first registered to me from Baxter but I know he heard it from other people because this is something that has been been said throughout the ages that revelation is found in a person and so let me read it to you this way revelation is about the personal self disclosure of God and if this is true which I believe and I think we all do that revelation of God means the unveiling of God himself then it's not just the transmission of accurate truths or information about God then it follows that our reception of that revelation requires an encounter not with information or ideas but with a person and so that my point is is that when we start to talk about the interpretation of Scripture and how we view it I think we need to keep in mind it's a text it's to bear witness it's not the point it's not the end game the second thing I wanted to say is when I read scripture and we alluded to this several times over the week that there are things that we have read that seem to indicate to us that God isn't very good and that's a problem it's a problem because he is good and we know this not just because a text tells us this we know this because we've experienced it in our lives the goodness of God so when I read something that appears to me to sound like God isn't good like he commits genocide or some other atrocity that URI and our right minds would never do then there's options one my misunderstanding skewed my my perspective is skewed its off and I need to work and try and see where it's off it could be secondly that the person who's writing this I'm understanding as best I can what they're saying and their perspective is skewed because they are in a process of relationship just like we are and they're learning and growing and we're reading it that's a that's a more difficult one because to be honest to be candid that puts me in a position of an examiner or judge of the text and we'll come back to that later how do we resolve that tension but it's still an option the third one is that we've run you know head-on into a mystery something where it has it's a paradox it's not a contradiction it's a paradox and Katie will let you talk about this a little bit but I think that's one of one of the mistakes that I made for so many years is that I called contradictions paradoxes and I was content to live with them I didn't understand the difference between the two even as a Bible teacher so if I read something that tells me that God isn't good or that he I'm a better father than he is or I'm just a better person than he is I think we need to reject that and we need to go back which brings me to my third point as I go back it is a text it's an ancient text it's written in different languages in different culture there are so many there are such a huge distance between this texts these texts and us that it involves work to actually try and even get close to maybe what we think might they might be saying and to come at it with dogmatism I just think is a lack of humility I think it's a lack of trust this would be my opinion but I know that's where was for me the more dogmatic I was the more it really revealed my lack of trust my lack of humility in going to the person so my third point is is that when we study the Scriptures and it requires study that we asked Jesus and this is something that you'll hear Baxter say over and over again but again if Jesus if this relationship is eternal life and if it's real then and I assume he wants to speak to us I assume he's speaking all the time and that difficulty isn't in him speaking it's in me listening it's in me understanding or recognizing him speaking so if I ask him I believe that he'll help us understand that doesn't mean that we'll have the answers that we want we may never have the answers and that's okay because that requires me to trust and that's a great place to be where we need to be because it's a relationship it's not a school right it's not an education although we're being edgy when you're looking at the revelation of Scripture particularly the Hebrew Scripture you have and this I think Baxter and Brad and I think this came from was it David Goya who said that that it's the Hebrew Scriptures are not just an unfolding of of the revelation of the character in nature of God culminating in the in the person of Jesus but it's also the exposure of of human lostness inside of religious ideology about the character and nature of God and and that's an unfolding thing you have to remember that folks at the beginning of the story don't know what folks at the end of the story do and and and they could catch little glimpses of Jesus but they didn't understand the way that we now look back through the person of Jesus and Jesus becomes the point of clarity both encounter wise and just intelligence wise with regard to our apprehension of Scripture and so I don't know if those are three things or not even keep trying but they're good did John's first point this is a question if God wants to disclose you know mm if God wants to disclose what he's like and he wants to disclose to us in whose image we've been made what it's like to be God and what it's like to be human does he send a book or does he send a human who's God so you know if he's wanting to to reveal himself to us you know and we're made in His image of course he's gonna send a human who's God and not a book because a book can't be one with the father a book cannot do what say what the father says and do what the father does you know a you know the book cannot receive from the father but just you know the son you know Jesus proceeds from the father and he reveals to us what it means to be him and what means to be God and then he becomes in himself the interpretation of of the prophets and and Moses and and the wisdom literature and what he says and what he does because that now in this person as john paul ii said were eavesdropping on the conversation and the activity that the father son and spirit always have been you know this we now see in his words and actions what their divine life is like the perichoresis is like because he's now one of us in the flesh so yeah and as to the second bit i about like finding you know finding something he doesn't sound like Christ in the Old Testament I think Brad story about Vladek is the I mean that's the you know that's the best story I think is when you're talking to him about Samuel and he that's very I don't know Brad could tell that story but I think it's a really really good story I can tell it succinctly but you want to finish up your thought first well the only other thing in light of what John was saying is that I do I love the scripture but I I don't imagine that I'm reading it by myself I'm I'm part of a community that reads it and has read it so beautifully for 20 20 century so for instance I mean we're coming up on Holy Week and we're gonna be at the foot of the cross and I mean how beautiful it is it that origin meditating on John's Gospel when John is standing at the foot of the cross and he he hears because he's reading the gospel years Jesus say Mary this is your son John this is your mother that he is able to in his imagination because he's been reading the scriptures with the community origins been reading it for three he's not reading for himself he's reading it with 300 years of of reading it before you know he got there before he was on the scene and so he was able to say in a mystery and when wisdom he was able to say when Jesus says to Mary behold your son and and to John behold Your Mother he's not saying you know this is another son of yours but that this is Jesus who's standing at the foot of the cross with you this is he there's no separation between John he's standing at the cross and the one who's hanging on the cross you know this is literally Christ who I'm introducing you to that doesn't come out of thin it doesn't come out at first of all if you have to the Holy Spirit to read the gospel in that way and you have to be you have to be in conversation with a community that's reading it's not your book it belongs to the community so anyway Brad yeah so bloody Lazar I remember when this was unraveling for me this is probably 2003 and I was in torment as I'm reading these scriptures about allegedly God commanding genocide including the babies Deuteronomy where they're saying you know go and slave the women take a pull out there you know cut their fingernails and toenails and shave their heads and have them for a month like stuff like that right and it's because I love I love the Scriptures but so I went to him and I'm like what do you do with 4 Samuel 15 it's where where Samuel tells Saul that God has commanded this this genocide and and then he's he said well he obviously didn't but but it says he did it it's not just Samuel saying it the narrator says it it's it's the Word of God that's when he does the know hang on let me get the camera no Jesus Christ is the word of God and any scripture that claims to be a revelation of God must bow to the Living God when he came in the flesh and and then so that was one thing that the Scriptures then bow before the Living Christ and who has he's the final authority for faith in practice the follow-up question I did was that do we get rid of these scriptures this is what Marcion said he was a literalist and because he was a literalist he wanted to get just toss it and he said absolutely not that these scriptures are not only a revelation about God their first samuel 15 is a revelation about us and the human condition and the way we project our are violet tribalism in our generational bigotry onto into God's own mouth and we need the scripture because we're still doing it yeah so you hold it up as a mirror and so that that was a real hinge point in my in my journey seeing that I could that the scriptures are secondary and authority to the Living God who came in the flesh but all the Scriptures are necessary as a revelation sometimes of God but when they're on Christ like it's a revelation of humanity and and of human religion and the damage and that it can do but if you read that in the context of the Gospels they you're like wow this is an important mirror I need to hold it up to my face and see who I am thanks for letting me share that story that's a great deal for me ya know we love it we love that story glad you could remember it I memorized it yeah I memorized it the way Baxter memorizes Kelvin it's amazing you know somebody's I can give you a Calvin quote now we shall have a perfect definition of faith if we call it a firm and certain knowledge of the benevolence of God towards us founded upon the free to giving promise in Jesus Christ books revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts in the Holy Ghost amen you take that definition I'll take that to the bank I want to share a real quick story of how this because there's a lot of it was a process for me in thinking through these things and it still is the process isn't over but one of the stories one of the things that happened to me that that kind of brought this home similar to Brad's except I didn't have a finger pointing you know in my face I took my my family to the Grand Canyon as a it was our first family trip and if you've ever been to the Grand Canyon you know that when you get out of the car at a pullout you still don't see anything because it's a whole crowd it's not like a mountain that sticks up so you kind of walk out of the parking line and we got out of the car I was so excited because I had wanted to do this from before I ever we ever had children this was a life dream of mine because I had had a profound experience in my own life with God at the Grand Canyon and I wanted to take my family there so we get out of the car and I'm so excited I can't I can't even I I'm just like a little kid in a candy store and I kind of raced the kids over to the edge and we get to the edge of the Grand Canyon and they're all like it's just and I'm in parental nirvana I mean this is awesome this is everything that I had wanted to happen my kids love the Grand Canyon and then like less than ten minutes later my oldest and my youngest are talking to their mom and in whispers and they're glancing over at me with this not fear but kind of like we got to keep this a secret from dad and I saw I look at him I go what is it and they go well can we go get some ice cream I'm like like it was like I was like you know the boneless chicken like someone had just let the air out of my body and the smile disappeared from my face that I thought it was permanently plastered there for the next two years as a parent and I said okay but my middle daughter who always had the best relational radar of the family saw this and she walks up to me at eight years old tugs on my shirt and says dad I'll stay with you and like I just like melted like this this chair of this divine messenger came down from heaven and spoke to me and I learned something about the sacrificial love because if there was anyone in our family that loved ice cream it was my middle Louise alley she ate ice cream for breakfast lunch and dinner but she didn't want to go get ice cream she wanted to stay with her dad because she saw what she would appeared to her to be you know obviously hurt or concern on me and so she gave up ice cream to be with me and I learned about the sacrifice of love sacrificial love of God the character the nature of God through a relationship that's the point not through a text or through information it was through the experience of God in my daughter relating to me and I just had a profound impact on me as to how I took the Bible because I always took the Bible is more rotative than that I want to add something right to that and that is we have so abdicated our ability to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit to intellectual professionals that we don't we don't trust ourselves when we're reading something and we're going like that can't be right right and I'm saying you can trust that there are lots of parts that aren't right you could you'll find writers in the New Testament to our reading the Hebrew Scriptures and going that can't be right you know when Paul the Apostles quoting Deuteronomy and it says cursed by God as every man who hangs upon a tree he said that can't be right so he rewrote it you know curse does every man he took the BAI God part off of there why because Moses was still stuck inside of a paradigm that Paul looking through Jesus and listening to the Holy Spirit is going it's not right it's actually not right and and so bottom line is your teacher and your guide is the Holy Spirit when I was growing up they you know all the leaders would go like well you're just a slippery slope kind of language right you're just opening up the doors for people to believe anything now I'd go like well obviously you taught them anything they already do yeah or do you believe anything I know I know and it's like no the Holy Spirit is come to be your teacher and dwells within you now you're back to relationship and encounter again and and then the authority of that relationship is going to be exhibited in the fruit in your life all right and so if you if you want to know how good your exit Jesus is how good are you loving your enemy you know how good are you loving your neighbor and and that should tell you a lot about you know your your intellectual prowess with with words on pages mm-hmm thanks Paul um we're to the end of our time and so I want to give everybody a chance to with to give any final thought or comment to the week and to the people that are watching and listening Katie I'll start with you and we'll just let people go from there well in regards to your question and the thing that's on my mind I was thinking about this quote I read in a book and I can't remember the name of it but it was the whole went something like this that truth has a name and he's over in the woodshed oh thank you Katie that's a great scene it was in yeah it's in the shack it's in and it's in the book too and it's just like no truth has a name and he's covered in wood chips over you know whoa and he's actually building he didn't know it but he was building a casket but that's how we need to approach scripture and this whole thing thanks anybody else want to make a final word on the about anything Baxter well this whole discussion is taking me right back to my doctoral dissertation and all the work I was doing because I was completely enamored with the idea that the whole purpose of creation and the whole purpose of Jesus coming is not simply that we would know God what he has given to us is himself and he gives us to share in his own communion and fellowship and in his own spirit so we are participating in the self knowing of the Father Son and spirit that is just beautiful that's life that salvation that's adoption that's whatever words you want to use it's healing and wholeness so I think it's a singular disaster that we've reduced the concept of revelation to information has got nothing to do with the with the eternal point that what the Father Son and spirit have given to me and given to us is the mind of Jesus himself it's Jesus it's his own fellowship in his own community with his father that summits to me summarizes the entire scripture the point of the entire scripture and the future in eternity because that's what we're going to do forever is sharing the sons communion I'm here jb saying it now sharing in the sons communion with the father the spirit oh it's the original ii ah that's quite stemming back sir thanks welcome Brad it's your turn I have anything to say it's okay I want to just endorse John McNaughton that's exactly what it's called if if I had had my way it would still be called monster under my bed but I wanted to bring it up just because I think most of the people who are following us here are are undergoing a spiritual evolution and that is best done in community and so we've tried to be that this week we've tried to make opentable that this week but also feel if you'll grab John's book he will take you by the hand and you will have a companion who embodies the companionship of Jesus and and I just I really feel like this isn't about going off the end of a limb this is about growing up we've been taught so I guess I did have something to say we've been taught we've been taught not to question and that was a euphemism for don't grow up let us infantilize you so that we can you so that you'll be dependent you'll be dependent and nobody on this panel would want others to be our dependents we are saying if there's anything in us that resonates with you it's because you're watching people who've been willing to have a spiritual revolution and evolution and that we're still we're still barely toddlers with crayons but we we are committed to growing up and that means not being static in 500 year old views of God you know that's just so don't don't it's and then if we want to use slippery slope language hello life is a slippery slope wake up and then find your anchor on that slippery slope we've got an anchor we don't feel like we're sliding around I feel like we all all of us here we feel deeply rooted in in the secure foundation of Jesus Christ and that lets us experiment theology without fear that's the bottom line daddy so good so Jonathan let us know John that Facebook live is working and would you please announce again what we're going to do in a couple weeks yes okay several things first of all we're gonna do this again the webinar April 20th through 24 same time at 1:30 Pacific Daylight Time p.m. and all these people will be there again and we'll round two between now and then we would encourage you if you have questions as you're thinking and discussing with each other or with your wife or husband your children friends whatever to email us at OpenTable conference at gmail.com and I will pass these on to the panel and we will use this as part of what we'll talk about or what we'll discuss a couple weeks from now when we do this again okay so hope in table conference at gmail.com you can write to us give us questions comments etc also we're gonna post later today not only the recording for those of you who are on Facebook live that came in late because of the technology problems a book from each one of the panelists that they've written several people here have written more than one book Kenneth is where we keep telling him he has to but he just keeps writing articles Katie and I are I've written one so we just keep showing the one but the others have picked one that they want to let you know about if you haven't read that list will be on Facebook and there'll be a link right there to take you directly to where you can get the book I know that shipping and all that kind of stuff is behind because of the the times we find herself in but it's just a resource for you if you want to read further in this conversation I just have a past throw word do I have died on so I a really interesting time right that we're living in and I just want to remind people especially people that are you know involved in OpenTable that your date there's a lot of information a lot of news a lot of stuff coming out us and all these kind of thoughts and feelings that you might be having it everything that's coming at you it's okay to be anxious okay to be afraid pay to be perplexed to wonder and to take all of that to God also I want to remind you that we're not ontological we're not God and so we should regulate and modulate how much we're taking on the contemporary person has to take way more in than I think the human mind or body or our emotion or complex whereas met to you take in and so turn off the TV turn off the radio turn off social media not to bury your head in the sand but just to recognize that you there's only one human that was that has the capacity to bear that all of the weight of the world and so I want to encourage you to recognize your limitation and to give yourself some grace and rest amen I'd like to die in a way I'm gonna end with a prayer for us and for every everyone else here that's been watching and so here goes Papa that the heaven and earth and all that is contained in memory years we're yours and in this time and experience of isolation we ask that you would draw us near to yourself may we feel your hug a little bit tighter and your love a little bit stronger thank you for this gift of technology that's helped us stay connected it's another reminder of what can happen when we participate in your creative genius we ask on behalf of the people that are experiencing real physical financial emotional psychological suffering because of this disease that they would experience your loving sacred presence guide and motivate us to participate in ways that bear witness to your great love for Humanity we're grateful beyond what our words can express Papa that you have included us in the life and love of your beloved son which we are coming to realize is life from the very center of the communion that you are never to be abandoned never be betrayed or lost please continue to teach and guide and comfort us and our struggle to know what our delusions are and then to reject them so that we might live more fully out of the truth of our being created by and in for the Incarnate son amen amen it's powerful thank you guys well thank you all you panelists for being a part of this it means the world to me and I know it did to a bunch of other people thank you for all all of you for watching and participating with us you'll see on the 20th yep all right thank you guys I got things bye-bye all right

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Id: J5ZpTwD5CAA

Length: 37min 12sec (2232 seconds)

Published: Thu May 07 2020