Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Shades of White, Part 3

I should mention that John talks of the Spirit's role in teaching...
"But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you." (John 14:26)
So there is how the Spirit helps us with Scripture - by teaching us "all things" and reminding us of Jesus's words.

Does teaching us "all things" mean that the Spirit is the exclusive source of knowledge?  No!  In the Venn diagram:



All things occupies the red circle, things we know occupies the green circle, and what is taught to us is in the yellow.  We are obviously not taught "all things" because "all things" would incorporate the hidden thoughts of people we've never met.  It would be too much knowledge for one brain to handle!  Does it mean that everything we learn will come from the Spirit?  No!  We learned things before the Spirit came into our lives, and those things still act as a filter for new, incoming knowledge.

Let's say you're a Christian who is just hearing, for the first time, about global warming.  The knowledge is coming from scientists.  Once you hear about it, then you are tasked with determining how that new knowledge applies to God.  It challenges what you think you know about the Bible.  So, going back to the Bible, you read with this new knowledge, and when you read the Old Testament account of Noah and the promise that God will never send another great flood on Earth, you realize that that promise only applies to God sending floods, not to mankind.

That moment of realization is a moment of teaching - a teaching of something that might be called truth, although even it could be changed, because you don't know what the Spirit will teach you next.  This is how the Spirit teaches us all things - by giving us a heart that is open to new knowledge, and the courage to know that any new knowledge that comes in doesn't destroy our faith or our ability to believe in the unbelievable.

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