The New Understanding
of the Word
The Rev. James P. Cooper
P
(Reprinted with permission from the New Church Canadian)
erhaps one of the most basic assumptions we would make about a
Christian is that he should revere and honor the Word of God. It should
be a fundamental part of every Christian’s belief that the Word was written by
God through the prophets in order to give mankind those truths which will
lead us to happy, productive lives in this world, and to eternal happiness in
the next. The difficulty is that although we may believe these things are so, it is
far more difficult for us to actually find them in the Old and New Testaments.
Take for example a husband and wife who are having difficulties in their
marriage. Where are the scriptures that will help them overcome their fears
and begin to resolve their differences through good communication? Where
are the scriptures that show teens the dangers of substance abuse? We could
go on, but our purpose here is not to criticize the structure of Scripture, but
merely to point out that the Bible does not appear to speak directly to many of
the issues that are most critical to us in our daily lives.
Are we perhaps expecting too much from the Old and New Testaments?
But how can we expect too much if it is God’s Divine Word? But what about
the apparent contradictions, where an Old Testament passage seems to say
one thing, while a New Testament passage seems to say the opposite: which
teaching should we follow?
It is dilemmas like these that have led some Christian denominations to
exclude certain parts of the Word. Some denominations focus on the teachings
of the Old Testament, while others focus almost entirely on the Gospels or the
Epistles depending on their doctrinal point of view and their philosophical
leanings.
It is a principle of the law, and many other professions, that a document
must be internally consistent. That means that when you write something,
the position or point of view you take should not be one thing in one place,
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