welcome to the story.

And my heretical dialogue continues . . . Melissa Swearengin writes: Josh, After reading all the debate back and forth I'm afraid I've lost track of who said what and when! If I may, I'd like to address your comment, "Only God is bigger than the gospel." In John chapter 1 we learn God is the gospel. "In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Also, in reference to your saying that the gospel is neither rational or irrational, to me the gospel is not only completely rational, but everything! I've been doing papers all week for another class concerning the inerrancy, divine inspiration, and infallibility of His word. God's grace is not grounded in any one persons thought or any particular period of time, God's grace is grounded in the word- remember He is the word! So even though I may appreciate Godly views of authors or examples from history, my focus is on His word. When I'm trying to find any truth, for me it must be held up to the light of the gospel and examined. If anything is contrary to the bibles teaching- I'm not buying it. Regardless of what generation you come from, or historical time frame we refer to - the word of God never changes! Also somewhere I read one of your questions about whether we teach people about grace or connect them to grace--as much as I'd like to connect people to God's grace I know I'm not the Holy Spirit, only the Holy Spirit can do that! My job is to tell them the truth from His word and pray. Jesus tells us when we lift Him up He draws them to Him. Well anyway, I'm hoping our conversations could focus more on the word and less on personal opinions. It's great to have questions, but I want to find my answers from the bible because I completely trust it's authority. Me: I really enjoyed your comments Ms. Melissa. I especially agree with "Regardless of what generation you come from, or historical time frame we refer to - the word of God never changes!" Right on target there. But I would like to discuss a couple of your comments. Only because I'm bored at work, and would love nothing more than to continue this beneficial dialogue. When you were referring to John 1, "In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God" that was not referring to Christ as being the gospel. Although I wholeheartedly believe that He IS the gospel in its very essence. When John 1 refers to the "Word", it is not referring to the written, textual Scripture (or lower case "word"). The "Word" in John 1 is referring to the preincarnate and incarnate Christ. A person. Flesh and blood. Moving, breathing. An engaging man made up of dual natures. John 1 was not referring to the written, text-based (lowercase) word, but to the "God Among Us" Word. And what's more, only up until the last 600 years of history have the mass populations had a written "word". The 1000 or so years before that, only a few people had the "word". They then in turn communicated the WORD through narratives, stories, experiences, and an embodiment of the WORD. You also wrote: "God's grace is not grounded in any one persons thought or any particular period of time, God's grace is grounded in the word-remember He is the word!" Exactly! I do not believe that God's grace is grounded in the lower case word but in the upper case WORD. Christ Himself. I think sometimes we bordered on idolatry. And you're going to think I'm a heretic when I say this, but I think its based on a worship of the Bible. When we set the word up and over against the WORD, then we have idolatry. I don't care which way you shake it out. I do not believe that God's grace is grounded in any thought or particular period of time, but it would be very hard to ignore the different ways God engages people in different times, places, and contexts. God came to a specific place, at a specific time, to a specific people, with a specific agenda. I believe that agenda never changes. But I think we would all agree that God came to us in a different way than He did a 1st century Jewish tax-collector, or a Levitical priest, or Abraham in Ur, or to St. Augustine, or to you in 1960, or to me in 1996. God engages us in our context. He never changes. Thats not up for debate. But I do believe He interacts with us in our specifics. I think we have forgotten that, especially when it comes to anyone who doesn't do church the same way we do. This is especially true of our Western missionaries who do nothing more than go and start First Baptist Nigeria or First Baptist Chile, complete with the same style choir, music, teaching style, and architecture. We do nothing to present the gospel in an indigenous or contextualized way, forgetting that we were presented the gospel in this manner. Now in reference to the gospel being rational. Once again I'm going to come off sounding like a heretic, but I do not believe the gospel is rational. It makes no sense to me. If you think its rational, then all power to you. But to me it does not make sense. But the funny thing is . . . I'm ok with that. How do you explain that a God who has existed for all of time, who threw the heavens, stars, and planets out into the expanse at the perfect distance and perfect tilt? How do you explain an eternal God who created man out of the dust of the ground and the woman out of his rib? How do you explain a God who floods the whole Earth and wipes it out only to start over again? How do you explain God picking a man named Abraham and out of Him creating an entire nation that the rest of the world will revolve around for centuries? How do you explain a God who takes this little nation Israel and gives them the ever so smallest piece of land in comparison with the rest of Earth and the rest of the universe, and let that nation serve as the hinge for which all of history swings on? How do you explain that God would purposefully lead them into Egypt only to lead them back out? How do you explain that God would be so patient with a people who were so rebellious? How do you explain that out of that little nation, a King would come that would one day rule all of humanity? How do you explain that God would send Himself (in dual natures mind you, which also isn't very rational) as a Jewish carpenter, born from a virgin, into this world? How do you explain why He had to let Jesus be crucified when (since He was God) could have chosen a thousand other ways to redeem man? How do you explain that after Jesus was crucified by God's beloved Israel, that He would raise from the dead, and ascend into Heaven? How do you explain how He would use people like Paul, Peter, you, and me, to be extensions of Himself in this world in order to redeem it? How do you explain that one day, He's going to come back with a host of angels to fight Satan and demons? How do you explain that after that a brand spanking new Earth is going to descend out of the heavens? You see . . . that's not very rational. I can't really explain all that. I'm sure you could come up with some very good doctrine that would give some meaning to all that, but ultimately, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense rationally. And on top of that, the fact that God would choose me, someone so fickle, unholy, rebellious, lustful, bitter, and sinful. That He would give me grace. And then call me into ministry. To use me in big ways. That's also not very rational. In fact, that's very irrational. But you know what, to God that makes perfect sense. What other way would you expect the most creative being ever to redeem people? Only with something that seemed totally irrational to man. That's why the gospel is "foolishness to the Greeks". Because its wholly irrational to them, to me. But to God it makes perfect sense. That's why I think its trans-rational. It supercedes our plane of reasoning. Neither rational nor irrational. But perfect for a creative God. In seminary, we are challenged to prove faith through reason and rationality. We are taught rational arguments for the existence of God, archeological proof for the accuracy of Scripture. We are given exegetical tools to dig into Scripture and the authorial intent. To me, this approach has a negative effect on me. It makes faith an object to be proven. My head becomes filled with arguments, proof texts, distinctions, and a kind of intellectual arrogance. All the while, God becomes more and more of an object; faith becomes a system; and my heart grows cold. If we're not careful, with this approach, we will take faith out the equation, and replace it with rational, logical arguments. And to me, I just don't see the gospel as rational or logical. I see it as being to big for me or my puny words. I didn't come to God through reason, rationality, or logic. I came to God through faith in grace and an experience of grace. The early church father from the late 2nd century, Tertullian, wrote, "The pagans don't cry 'Look at the power of their rational arguments' but 'See how they love one another!" Granted Tertullian didn't write a great literary piece like the Left Behind novels or any other great book by one of our white, upper-middle-class, suburban, Southern Baptist, Caucasian, democratic, Americans, who lived in this day and age - the modern age. Instead, he lived in the 2nd century, the ancient age. So depending on your view or appreciation of history, his quote may or may not have any bearing on our conversation. But I think it does. And I thank God that there were people in the past, people who are in the present, and the people who will be in the future, that contend that the gospel can not be explained rationally. More to come I'm sure . . .