One thing that came to mind reading this chapter is the gift of prophecy. Page 51 says "God's words as spoken through human lips ceased to be given when the New Testament canon was completed". After reading that, my mind went to spiritual gifts, specifically prophecy, which I believe continues in the present day. So I was wondering if he meant that he does not believe in prophecy, or if he had some other meaning in mind. Luckily there was a footnote leading to chapter 53 (about gifts of the holy spirit). I admit to cheating and reading ahead a bit. His definition of Prophecy is "telling something that God has spontaneously brought to mind" and later he notes that prophets "did not speak with authority equal to the words of scripture."
I guess that if you had asked me, I would have said that any word (if tested and found to be truly from God) would be full of authority. Of course, such a word (if truly from God) would never contradict what we have been given in the scriptures. I will (in a vain attempt to stay somewhat on topic) reserve judgment on the contents of chapter 53 until we get to that part (enough material there for a thorough discussion).
Another piece that interested me (and this was made clear in the introduction) was the author's belief that scripture should be taken literally. I expect that this will be more of a discussion as we get to later chapters (creation, for example) but I noticed it when he brought up "let there be light" as an example of God speaking. I tend to believe that not all Biblical passages are designed to be taken literally, and it is my hope that throughout this study (the first 8 chapters talk a lot about this topic) we will be able to determine how to correctly interpret scripture - be it literally, metaphorically, or in some other way. The creation chapter should be especially interesting in this regard.
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One thing that came to mind reading this chapter is the gift of prophecy. Page 51 says "God's words as spoken through human lips ceased to be given when the New Testament canon was completed". After reading that, my mind went to spiritual gifts, specifically prophecy, which I believe continues in the present day. So I was wondering if he meant that he does not believe in prophecy, or if he had some other meaning in mind. Luckily there was a footnote leading to chapter 53 (about gifts of the holy spirit). I admit to cheating and reading ahead a bit. His definition of Prophecy is "telling something that God has spontaneously brought to mind" and later he notes that prophets "did not speak with authority equal to the words of scripture."
I guess that if you had asked me, I would have said that any word (if tested and found to be truly from God) would be full of authority. Of course, such a word (if truly from God) would never contradict what we have been given in the scriptures. I will (in a vain attempt to stay somewhat on topic) reserve judgment on the contents of chapter 53 until we get to that part (enough material there for a thorough discussion).
Another piece that interested me (and this was made clear in the introduction) was the author's belief that scripture should be taken literally. I expect that this will be more of a discussion as we get to later chapters (creation, for example) but I noticed it when he brought up "let there be light" as an example of God speaking. I tend to believe that not all Biblical passages are designed to be taken literally, and it is my hope that throughout this study (the first 8 chapters talk a lot about this topic) we will be able to determine how to correctly interpret scripture - be it literally, metaphorically, or in some other way. The creation chapter should be especially interesting in this regard.
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