A Thinking Reed

A follow-up

Written by

Lee M.

in

Looking at it again it seems to me that this post was somewhat unclear, or at least didn’t say quite what I wanted to say.

The point I was trying to make was that just because we can’t point to a place in the Bible where Jesus pronounces explicitly on issue x, it doesn’t follow that he has no opinion on x or that there’s no right answer (or that we have no way of knowing what the right answer is).

The flip side, though, is that the further we get from broad principles into specifics, the harder it is to claim the authority of the Lord for our particular position. Jesus told us to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, but he didn’t tell us exactly the best way to go about doing it. When we try and put that command into practice we always rely on our own imperfect knowledge and intentions.

Comments

2 responses to “A follow-up”

  1. Joshie

    I dunno maybe I misunderstood the first post but I also got out of it that we have more than the teachings Jesus to go by. We have the whole of the inspired Tradition, from Genesis to Revelation to Chalcedon and beyond. But maybe I was reading too much into it.

    Reply
  2. Lee

    I think that’s right – the words of Jesus don’t exist in a vacuum but are embedded in the whole of Scripture which is itself interpreted by the tradition (preeminently the creeds whic supply a kind of “rule of faith”).

    Reply

Leave a comment

More posts