• Lawyers, Law, and Principle
  
• In Response To A Letter
  
• Blind Spots
  
• Hook's Points
  
• Want To Be A Preacher
  
• What I Hear From You
  
• Venerating Icons
  

(Freedom's Ring is not a forum for debate, but Terry's good-spirited response to a letter offers insights that many may benefit from. So we publish it, not as a confrontation or effort to embarrass Brent. Brent's letter, copied from the Guest Book of my web site appeared in the last mailout. Terry's note to me is in italics below. -Cecil)

Enjoyed so many of the comments from others that were included in this week's mailout. I took the liberty of writing to the one rather critical observer, and below is the text of my reply to him. I hope I was not too presumptuous in doing this.

Thanks again (or in addition to what all those others have said) for your courageous thinking, teaching and influence. I know it has made a great difference in my life (even though I was not ready for it when you first handed me a copy of "Free in Christ" at the Tulsa Workshop in '85 or '86. -Terry

Brent -- (I extend to you the courtesy of a name rather than the impersonal "Sir" by which you addressed Cecil Hook).

I do not know all of the persons or scenarios to which you refer as "bulldozing God's word out of the way," but I do know that many of the voices among Churches of Christ which are challenging the traditions that have often been referred to as "the old paths" are in fact much more diligent in trying to allow the Biblical text to speak. Many of our "old paths" are not all that old -- 150, 100 years, or less -- and many of us are allowing God's word to bulldoze tradition out of the way, something that I believe to be consistent with the teachings of Jesus (cf., e.g., Matt. 15:1ff.). What you seem not to realize is that most of us who no longer will allow tradition to pass uncontested as gospel -- who insist that "we are not under law but under grace" -- have done our time as die-hard legalists whose "narrow way" was actually our "narrow way of thinking," that the truth that sets men free is whatever our group believes and practices, and that the "pattern shown to thee on the mount" was a model for duplicating the New Testament church on earth (a model that requires us to carefully select some, but negate other, attributes of virtually every congregation described in Acts - Epistles. We believed it, defended it, preached it, and debated it -- until we found that we could not answer even some of the most basic questions of faith and doctrine by using that man-made, self-limiting, self-serving paradigm.

I can assure you that the transition from legalism to liberty was not made without soul-searching AND Scripture-searching. It was no easy pilgrimage from earned-righteousness-by-obedience to imputed-righteousness-by-faith, but it was worth the trip in terms of greater understanding of the word of God and of less manipulation of the text for the sake of protecting one's arguments and positions. Despite the charges of the most ardent defenders of the "faith once for all delivered to the saints [in the 19th and 20th centuries]" that this under-mines or negates obedience, to the contrary, it frees and impels us into greater service to God and a deeper commitment to honoring and being faithful to His word.

Brent, the mere quoting or citing of boat-loads of scripture references or tossing about Biblical quotes is no evidence of soundness of doctrine. Nor does hard-line defense of our established status quo prove that one is biblically conservative. A Biblical conservative truly does what our slogan claims: speaks where the Bible speaks, is silent where the Bible is silent." Goebel Music's Behold the Pattern (and other articles and books of a similar direction) is patently guilty of doing a great deal of speaking on matters which the Bible does not address ("is silent"), either explicitly or implicitly. At the same time, it avoids (or distorts) some rather clear teachings of Scripture (matters on which it "speaks" in abundance). I guess all I wish to convey to you is that I know and understand exactly where you are at theologically, and I can hardly expect you to understand anything else. But I do want to encourage you to consider how consistent is your method of ascertaining truth by the way in which you deal with difficult questions. I found that, in order to reach many of my conclusions, I had to speak where the Bible was silent, to ignore some things on which the Bible spoke abundantly, and to skip over far too many questions that arose under that line of reasoning.

Ultimately, it is not our wisdom or knowledge by which we come to know God or his truth -- it is through his Holy Spirit, whose message is contained in the vessels of human language (words) but whose truth is deeper than the words can possibly convey.

One more thing: 2 Peter 1:3 has no reference to the Bible, as your quote contended. "All things that pertain to life and godliness," Peter says, God has already (at the time of writing) given. 2nd Peter was not the last book of the New Testament to come about, so that the five writings of John (probably dated in the last two decades of the first century) and perhaps a couple other post-A.D. 70 books would not (by this definition) pertain to life and godliness. A perfect example of forcing a preconceived idea on the text. Read it again to discover what things God ALREADY had given in reference to life and godliness. [I remember using this verse in the Open Bible Study format of Ivan Stewart years ago, and a prospect with whom I was studying asked me how I knew this referred to the Bible. I blush with shame now to recall the verbal gymnastics and outright distortion which I used to "prove" my case. He did not become a Christian, at least not under my clever tutelage.]

I'll be praying for you. I know so many whose views were just like mine, and whose hearts I trust were basically sincere but who (like me) subscribe to and defend a position that frankly does not stand up under the pressure of scrutiny and under the weight of the biblical text itself. And God can work in hearts such as these, even though they may be zealously misdirected. Such seems to have been the case with the apostle Paul. The only hearts God may not work in to reveal truth are those who credit themselves with having already learned all the truth that really matters -- anything else to be learned is just icing on a cake that is already baked, cooled, and on the plate. Blessings in Christ, Terry Danley extra-point@juno.com

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