<>God's power… wisdom… discernment. How do these things differ? Discernment is an ability to receive and perceive the core of a matter and to know its significance, including consequences that follow. That is probably a prerequisite to Wisdom since the distillation of knowledge and circumstances depends on perceptiveness and then the courage and decisiveness to take action, ideally proactively rather than after the thing occurs. Knowledge is to anatomy as wisdom is to physiology and ontogeny. In other words, building up a picture of a subject in one's mind is knowledge. But then understanding the developmental phases and crucial timing (and rhythm and harmony) of matters is an active, living, personal and context-filled matter; not something abstract and frozen in time.
<>Epistles: general message vs. personal response (or the first in a series of correspondence for which we have only this part of that chain). Philemon is a personal letter all about the matters concerning the writer and reader. But the circulating, general epistles like those to the church/eklesia at Corinth, Thessalonica, Ephesus and so forth were written as an open letter with messages in general, not limited to specifically named persons and gatherings. So it is fair today to seek deeper or wider meanings that just the layers between immediate writer and reader(s).
<>Writing to the Greeks at Corinth, Thessalonica, Ephesus and so on. Paul was fluent and learned in Greek so he could use their own medicine (worldliness, guru model of philosophy, search for esoteric knowledge as key to higher consciousness or eternity) against them. But what about letters to non-Greeks: Persians, Zoroastrians, Jews, Egyptians, Carthaginians, Phoenicians, etc? Would those (general, circulating/open) letters also speak in the terms that preoccupied those readers/hearers? Example?
<>Gutenberg's crutch: we depend on printed Word of God instead of memory/learning by-heart. Does this externalize the Word from our hearts? In time of crisis, do we have a few verses to call on by heart, or must we reach for a (printed) Bible? By deliberating passages and looking of word usage/roots, are we brought closer or deeper to God's heart, or on the contrary do we insert more and more minutia that introduces distance from God's will and His creation.
No comments:
Post a Comment