Roots

Obadiahslope wrote: ”The critical area of difference IMHO is the doctrine of revelation and the place of scripture.”

Now, these are Indo-European concepts, not Biblical ones. They come from the anti-Cosmic Hellenistic Philosophy of old Alex. Cosmos is created by the Demiourgos, the Soul/sperm of man (women don’t have sperm and consequently no souls) is im-prisoned in the Dust of the Vale of Tears.

Real reality is somewhere else; in the World of Ideas.

“Revelation/Salvation” of this “truth” (which is Absolute Truth!) is either direct or by a Holy Scripture in the singular, singularly fallen from the skies.

This explains how Nigerian Archbishop Akinola can say to Peter Boyer of The New Yorker that he “knows” the “mind” of God. The small “nous” of man has direct access to the big Nous of The Highest Being, through “revelation”.

The idea of a "sufficient" and "harmonic" Scripture in the singular, being in it self “revelation” and leading to “salvation” is not how the Church sees her holy scriptures in the plural.

To the Church, the holy scriptures are not “revelation/salvation”, but witnesses. They witness to the good Works of the Holy Spirit in God’s good Creation, in the Lives of humans and in the Congre-gation.

Further, to a Lutheran tradition, “the Word of God” is the spoken word; preaching, not the print. The same goes for Hebrew and Arabic; kitav/b being the word written, Koran referring to the real thing; the spoken word; the address.

The 1593 Church of Sweden Confessio fídei says in its 1st article, that it’s the “writs of the holy Prophets, the holy Evangelists and the holy Apostles”, that are God’s word written. This is a rebuttal of the Calvinist formula “the Prophets and the Apostles” (anta-gonistically) referring to (a shortened) OT and NT.

Other scriptures are not in themselves “canonical”, leaving both the Books of Mose (not being written by Moses, who is not a Prophet) and the late OT Hellenistic deutero-canonical scriptures – “apocrypha” to Calvinism (we put these together in a section of their own between the OT and NT) – and the 2nd century NT deutero-canonical scriptures into social disciplining – "canonical" to Calvinism – in a middle ground, where they are appreciated for their merits, not for their Errors (subordination of women and slaves, and so on).

To which one must add the Indo-European concepts of “law” and “works”. “Law” in our Bibles is a corruption of Tradition. Judaism never was about law. Only Calvinism is legalistic.

Calvinism continues the anti-cosmic Indo-European Academic teachings of a Salvation from the Prison of the Spirit in the Dust of the Vale of Tears of the Demiourgos, to The Highest Being through Merit achieved by Works of Law.

Karma and Mocksha.

Lutheranism rejects both the Works of Rome and Calvinism. Only that which is necessary for Salvation is necessary for Salvation! If anything not necessary is claimed to be, it must be rejected flatly!

To the Bible Creation is God’s good work – and only the works of God are Good works. The Bible witnesses to the good works of God – and is to be read, loved and cherished.

And not least; correctly translated ;=)

(överfört från Father Jake's blog)