JohnV
Puritan Board Post-Graduate
Jim:
There are different ways to get those quotes into separate boxes. You could just click on the quote button in the upper right hand corner of each post; or you could look up the codes. I often just click on the [, then type "quote" ( without the quotation marks ) and then the right hand ]. Then after the quote I want to quote is in place I type the same thing again, only with a backslash in front of the word "quote", but after the [ .
Of course that's only when I don't depend on the quotes mystically appearing.
In answer to your question about mysticism, I want to be careful about how I make an answer. If I've left the impression of mysticism, then I've overstated the case. But I've done so because I want to convey that there is a deep reality to Christianity. It is not merely using the word "relationship", or "communion", but having these terms really mean what they mean. The relationship is real, and the communion if real. There really is answer to prayer. It is not at all what the world thinks of prayer, or of relationship to God.
Yes, you are right that it is not direct like that we have with our fellow men. And yet it is direct, in a way that men cannot have with each other. I only wanted to convey that one can not only receive answer to prayer, but he can know that his prayers are heard by the real person of God the Father. One can know that his salvation is secure. One can know that he truly is in the Covenant. These are not mere wishful thinking; nor are they only true in the believing of them. Rather, one can believe in them because they are true. It is not just reading about it in the Bible, and binding it to oneself. It is finding that we have been bound by a real and loving God, Who does speak into this world, and who does touch our lives.
It is not mysticism to claim that. But it is mysticism to those who have no idea about it.
And this was my point. Knowing is more than intellectual exercise. It is more than formula. It is more than theory. It is more than building upon an impersonal Scripture. One grows mature in the faith as one leans on Christ through His Scripture and the Spirit, as he is faced with the many tests of his faith throughout life. It is dependency upon the person of Christ, not just upon the idea of Christ.
There are different ways to get those quotes into separate boxes. You could just click on the quote button in the upper right hand corner of each post; or you could look up the codes. I often just click on the [, then type "quote" ( without the quotation marks ) and then the right hand ]. Then after the quote I want to quote is in place I type the same thing again, only with a backslash in front of the word "quote", but after the [ .
Of course that's only when I don't depend on the quotes mystically appearing.
In answer to your question about mysticism, I want to be careful about how I make an answer. If I've left the impression of mysticism, then I've overstated the case. But I've done so because I want to convey that there is a deep reality to Christianity. It is not merely using the word "relationship", or "communion", but having these terms really mean what they mean. The relationship is real, and the communion if real. There really is answer to prayer. It is not at all what the world thinks of prayer, or of relationship to God.
Yes, you are right that it is not direct like that we have with our fellow men. And yet it is direct, in a way that men cannot have with each other. I only wanted to convey that one can not only receive answer to prayer, but he can know that his prayers are heard by the real person of God the Father. One can know that his salvation is secure. One can know that he truly is in the Covenant. These are not mere wishful thinking; nor are they only true in the believing of them. Rather, one can believe in them because they are true. It is not just reading about it in the Bible, and binding it to oneself. It is finding that we have been bound by a real and loving God, Who does speak into this world, and who does touch our lives.
It is not mysticism to claim that. But it is mysticism to those who have no idea about it.
And this was my point. Knowing is more than intellectual exercise. It is more than formula. It is more than theory. It is more than building upon an impersonal Scripture. One grows mature in the faith as one leans on Christ through His Scripture and the Spirit, as he is faced with the many tests of his faith throughout life. It is dependency upon the person of Christ, not just upon the idea of Christ.
2Co 4:6 For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.