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Two types of general revelation
Postmodernism concepts
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Recommended: Two types of general revelation
General and special revelation have similarities, but also have their differences. With both, they both come from God, though just in different ways. With general revelation they come from the Word of God, and as for special revelation, it comes directly from God when he speaks to a single or group of people. General and special revelation definitely has more differences than similarities. One major difference is that general revelation is available for all people at all times and places, while special revelation is available to few people at particular times and places. The similarities and differences show how personal God is to each and every child of His. He allows for all of us to be able to have knowledge pertaining to Him and His word. …show more content…
Although Postmodernism is all around the world today—there is something that is much more significant that affects the lives of many, and that is the Word of God. When referencing the Word of God, there are two ways that it can be interpreted. The first being to Scripture, and the second being Jesus. While there is scripture to support either, many try to refrain from referencing Scripture as the “Word of God” because Jesus is the “true, living, and eternal Word of God”. Though as mentioned in the book, people continue to reference Scripture as the Word of God—while still knowing that Jesus is the true Word of God. Postmodernism is a theology that can be misinterpreted by those who have different ways of living out the Word of God, but no matter the interpretation or the theology, the Word of God is what brings different cultures, theologies, and religions together. “The complex, ambivalent, and hybrid biblical texts are the intersections of multiple cultures…”. This sentence explains the reason why it is so significant that Guadiola makes the statement about how the polyphonic hermeneutics speaks to the intricacies of the text and complexity of multiple readers. The Word of God helps and reaches the many, and brings together cultures that may not even know about one
I do not so much wish to emphasize the deconstructive rhetoric of this approach as the fact that religious texts lend themselves to creative readings that originate in the reader's experiences or historical circumstances. In other words, the history of Scriptural interpretation exemplifies the text's role as a space where emerging ideologies may be refigured and incorporated into an authoritative cultural tradition. One may think of the genesis of such readings in terms of Harold Bloom's notion of literary succession as "an act of creative correction," the difference in this case being that Anne Hutchinson's creative act involves reviewing the Scripture itself and deriving spiritual knowledge from a finite textual canon (Bloom 30).
The church has a problem. The eternally relevant message with which she has been entrusted no longer readily finds a willing ear. According to Henderson, the solution lies in first understanding how our world thinks and then, beginning where people are at, bring them to see "the functional relevance for their lives of the actual relevance of our message". In high school speech classes, we were taught to "know your audience." As a careless high schooler, I didn't really care what she meant, but it eventually made sense (once I actually decided to think about it). You wouldn't use sock puppets to explain math to accountants; you wouldn't use in-depth power-point presentations to explain math to first graders. With this in mind, why do many Americans still try to talk about Jesus using the methods used thirty years ago? Why do we use Christian "jargon" to explain Christianity to those outside the faith? Henderson contends that modern American Christians must change their approach to sharing the faith in order to fit modern America. The pattern of Henderson's book is straightforward: he examines a particular aspect/mindset/value of modern Americans; he then gives ideas about how a Christian might share Words of Eternal Life with such an American. Henderson's writing is both straightforward and enjoyable. He gets right to the heart of the American mindset, then illustrates it with descriptions from scenes from popular movies, personal anecdotes, jokes, etc. In all, Henderson does the modern Christian a great service in writing "Culture Shift." Jesus told Christians to tell others about him ("Go, therefore, and baptize all nations...") and Henderson can help us along the way through this book
Macey, David. “Postmodernity.” The Penguin Dictionary of Critical Theory. London: Penguin Books, 2001. 307-309. Print.
When looking at the common theme that Barth develops in God Here and Now, it becomes apparent for the need of congregation to justify, ratify, and promote the Bible as the living word of God. When and where the Bible constitutes its own authority and significance, it mediates the very presence of God through the congregation. Encountering this presence in the Church, among those whose lives presume living through the Bible’s power and meaning. Barth states that the Bible must become God's Word and this occurs only when God wills to address us in and through it. The Christ-event is God's definitive self-disclosure, while Scripture and preaching are made to correspond to him as a faithful witness becomes the perfect statement according to Barth (Barth, 2003, p. 61).
21 Oct. 2013. Lecture. The. Peterson, Eugene H. The Message, Remix: The Bible in Contemporary Language.
The book is mean-spirited and vicious in its attacks upon the godly evangelical scholars who labored so hard to produce the modern versions, not to undermine the Word, but to make it more understandable to the average reader.
N.T Wright (2008) stated that “When we read the scriptures as Christians, we read it precisely as people of the new covenant and of the new creation” (p.281). In this statement, the author reveals a paradigm of scriptural interpretation that exists for him as a Christian, theologian, and profession and Bishop. When one surveys the entirety of modern Christendom, one finds a variety of methods and perspectives on biblical interpretation, and indeed on the how one defines the meaning in the parables of Jesus. Capon (2002) and Snodgrass (2008) offer differing perspectives on how one should approach the scriptures and how the true sense of meaning should be extracted. This paper will serve as a brief examination of the methodologies presented by these two authors. Let us begin, with an
The first part of the book begins by Wright telling the readers a little about himself and his thoughts on how people, including the church, overlook Jesus and belittles his reign. Early on, Wright discusses that the purpose of the book is to retell Jesus’ message, but in a way that it filters out the worldly explanation we have come to know. In fact, if we are to know just who Jesus was, we need to know the culture, attitudes, and assumptions of the first century Palestine. It becomes apparent in this section of the book that Wright uses liberal and conservative approaches to define Christians in this modern day. Conservative Christians believe God intervenes, while liberal Christians believe that God allows innate human development. In this part of the book Wright discusses the ‘perfect storm’ – which is found out to be three-sided. A storm in the west is created by the growing power of the Roman Empire, who politically reigned over the people in the Israel. Another storm brewed in the east, says Wright, the Israelites who have been in search of the return of God to their people. Lastly, a hurricane approached as well, which will be discussed in the next chapter. Throughout the first part of the book, it seems, Wright establishes that God did set up his kingdom in Israel and the world throu...
The term Wesleyan Quadrilateral is a theological method used to study scripture. It was believed that theologian John Wesley studied scriptures in the Bible using three lenses, hence where the Wesleyan Quadrilateral gets its name. These three lenses are tradition, reason, and experience. While quad means four and tradition, reason, and experience are only three terms, they each communicate a way that scripture can be studied, therefore the term scripture completes the quadrilateral. It is important to study scripture using the Wesleyan Quadrilateral because Wesley was known as being a relevant theologian and his views on scripture have lasted over two centuries. The Wesleyan quadrilateral is still relevant today as it provides a method for discovering the things of God, ourselves, and lets us know who God really is. For the purposes of this reflection paper I would like to summarize the four components of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral and then reflect personally upon each term as how it relates to the Christian theologian.
Postmodernism has always been somewhat present during every generation of people in America. In fact, it alludes to future ideas that are cutting edge when compared to the theologies of the modern times. The Emergent church can be classified as postmodern, because it is in fact an “emerging” movement. Perhaps the question we should ask is if it’s just a phase in America, or is it here to stay? We should first answer the questions that it brings up, before we can answer what it actually represents. However, there is one thing we do know, which is that the name comes from the fact that this “movement” is gradually changing the philosophy of Christianity.
For centuries now Christians have claimed to possess the special revelation of an omnipotent, loving Deity who is sovereign over all of His creation. This special revelation is in written form and is what has come to be known as The Bible which consists of two books. The first book is the Hebrew Scriptures, written by prophets in a time that was before Christ, and the second book is the New Testament, which was written by Apostles and disciples of the risen Lord after His ascension. It is well documented that Christians in the context of the early first century were used to viewing a set of writings as being not only authoritative, but divinely inspired. The fact that there were certain books out in the public that were written by followers of Jesus and recognized as being just as authoritative as the Hebrew Scriptures was never under debate. The disagreement between some groups of Christians and Gnostics centered on which exact group of books were divinely inspired and which were not. The debate also took place over the way we can know for sure what God would have us include in a book of divinely inspired writings. This ultimately led to the formation of the Biblical canon in the next centuries. Some may ask, “Isn’t Jesus really the only thing that we can and should call God’s Word?” and “Isn’t the Bible just a man made collection of writings all centered on the same thing, Jesus Christ?” This paper summarizes some of the evidences for the Old and New Testament canon’s accuracy in choosing God breathed, authoritative writings and then reflects on the wide ranging
General revelation is different than special revelation. General revelation is available to everyone, anywhere in the world and can be seen as God revealing himself in the world around us. In contrast, special revelation includes miracles, prophets, and special messages received from God. Special revelation show God’s revelation of himself through the Bible and Jesus Christ. The true and accurate record of special revelation is found in the Bible. The greatest special revelation is found in Jesus Christ as God who took on flesh and came to earth and ultimately suffered and died for us.
In tying it all together and having navigated many different paths of “worldviews” my ability to think world-viewishly has been shaped in that I was challenged by countless interpretations as to what constitutes authentic truth/reality in a postmodern world. In my quest to analyze these issues and gain a distinct understanding as to why certain worldviews present truth and reality as that which is certain—however unproven, I was forced to change the lens by which I had previously viewed various worldviews in the past. I have concluded that the only real truth lie within the Christian worldview. As Christians we are called to be committed to the truth, more so the truth of the gospel. So what is truth? Sire cites that truth is a fact that corresponds to reality. Truth is a fact that by its very nature is immutable—cannot be changed. It is prepositional. So then how should a Christian present truth in a postmodern age of new age thinkers? Upon examining various world views and encountering what they consider to be truth and arriving at this point of understanding along with the challenges which were presented in our studies I offer a brief overview of my conclusions of various worldviews whose truth cannot be substantiated nor validated, then make my case for truth/reality as a Christian living a postmodern world.
Poststructuralism stresses that the meaning found in text is different for everybody as everyone brings their previous readings and understandings to the text. Under this
Postmodernism attempts to call into question or challenge the notion of a single absolute unified master narrative without simply replacing it with another. It is a paradoxical, recursive, and problematic method of critique.