In case anyone is interested, here is my personal translation of 1 Corinthians 13 from years back:

1. If I speak in the languages of mankind and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal,
2. And if I have prophecy and know all secrets and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to transfer mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
3. And if I feed away all my possessions and deliver my body to be burned and do not have love, it is of no advantage to me.
4. Love is patient; it is kind; it is not envious. Love does not boast or is not arrogant.
5. It does not behave unbecomingly; it is not self-seeking; it does not get irritated; it does not take stock of wrongs suffered.
6. It does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in reality.
7. It covers everyone; it trusts everyone; it expects [the best of] everyone; it endures everyone.
8. Love never falls [from a position that one cannot keep]. As for prophecies, they will become inoperative. As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will be rendered inoperative.
9. For we know partially and we prophesy partially.
10. But when the complete comes, the incomplete will become inoperative.
11. When I was a child, I spoke as a child; I thought as a child; I reasoned as a child. When I became a man, I put an end to childish ways.
12. For now we see through a mirror, obscurely, but then face to face. Now I know partially, but then will know thoroughly even as I am thoroughly known.
13. So now, faith, hope, and love remain—these three. But the greatest of these is love.

Note: Mirrors were different in those days. They were metallic, and often gave a dim or distorted image.

Actually, Jeff, i was complimenting you. If someone can put theological statements into a “politically correct” format, they really don’t offend whoever hears them (even if folks don’t agree with them). Including Holy Fools and P-Zombies. I give your responses a thumps up Both Donald T. and Hilary C., should take some lessons from you.

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Super, I’ll take it as such and thank you. I wasn’t really hurt, but sometimes it seems to me that the holy foolery might lose sight of productive conversation and maybe even love. I am sure it is an appearance only, so no worries.

Yes good point I stand corrected on that reference. Someone once suggested to me that Revelation is at the end of canonical lists not only because of its timing, but also to neatly place that verse at the end of the canon. I guess that thought stuck in my brain. One certainly cannot make that argument from Scripture and further, I don’t think that one can argue there is inspiration to the order of the books. I still hold that the special God-breathed books from God are completed with no more to be added. 1 Cor 13 is enough proof for me.

Paidon, do you believe that God is still breathing inspired works today? How many books do you place on the list?

Again, John 21:25 says this: And there are also many other things that Jesus did which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written." The definition of inspire is “to fill someone with the urge to do or feel something, especially to do something creative.” I find that when it comes to the Bible, people suddenly want to change the normal definitions of the words. I don’t understand this. All truth comes from God. So when people write of truths they find in life, I would say they were inspired by God. Open up a hymnal for example. These words are inspired by God. What makes the book of Psalms any different?

Rest assured, “productive conversation” has NEVER been a goal of Holy Foolery. But Love is the essence in Christ and the foolishness of the world, is paramount. We just need Holy Fools (and P-Zombies), to drill in this message - in different ways.

The Psalms are God’s word and are without error, hymnals are man’s words and are not without error.

C. S. Lewis wrote: “I disliked very much their hymns, which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music.”

Is this Psalm God’s word?

O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed,
blessed shall he be who repays you
with what you have done to us!
Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones
and dashes them against the rock!
(Psalm 137:8,9)

Did God bless those who dashed babies’ heads against a rock? Are not those who do so committing a moral error?
None of “man’s words” that are in the hymnals that I have examined, ever suggest doing such a thing.

Apparently so.

Let God defend himself on that point for He is the one who also drowned the entire world except for 8 people in time past. God is the one who leveled Jerusalem to the ground for their rejection of Christ bringing unimaginable suffering on man, woman, and child. Josephus writes that mothers killed and ate their children while under Roman siege, all the result of God’s punishment upon the unbelieving Jews. So for us death is a very big deal, not so for God. He owns us and who is to say the death by even any means is so tragic. Consider that God ushers 150,000 people through death’s door daily. This is routine work for Him. Check out the parable of the Talents. Jesus compares himself to the master who throws a worthless servant outside into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Consider that God also commanded Israel to kill every man woman and child in Canaan as they entered the promised land.

All this and God still remains the all wise God of love. So we see his love burns like a hot iron through our notions of comfort and pain free living in this life. God is serious about holiness and if we disregard him he is perfectly willing to bring pain, suffering, and even death. If any mere mortal did the things God did in these matters he would be a criminal of the worst degree, but God because he is God must be feared because of the tragedies he is perfectly willing to bring about, while still indisputably remaining the God of all love.

We must stop judging God by our own human reasoning and refactor our understanding of God from the words of Scripture. God is not a gray bearded grandfather in the sky who thinks his children can do no wrong while he hands out candies. Instead he is a consuming fire.

Paidon, did you see my previous question? Do you believe that God is still breathing inspired works today? How many books do you place on the list?

With that dark portrait in mind, perhaps eternal conscious torment is less than what we deserve.

Good thing Jesus became humanity’s fire insurance appeasing and he rescued us from an angry God…

http://www.businesscartoons.co.uk/shop/images/uploads/5013bwc.gif

I fully agree

Hey. Come to think of it. Folks embracing ECT, annihilation and universalism - would all agree with that

Surely we must recognize a qualitative difference between canonical scripture on the one hand, and (on the other hand) inspiring writings in general?

Jeff, you say that we should not worship the Bible. The Bible was also written by men who were moved (inspired) by God. To me, this does not mean that these writers were merely taking dictation as God was speaking every word. Ecclesiastes 12:9-10 says this: And moreover, because the Preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge; yes, he pondered and sought out and set in order many proverbs. The Preacher sought to find acceptable words; and what was written was upright-words of truth." The word of God is a living and active word, and wisdom is gained through experience. God does not just speak to the few, He speaks to the many in our hearts and minds. And as we continue to go through life and experience these truths, we will continue to write about them in many different ways, through song, poetry, stories, etc. etc.

To say for example, the hymn “Amazing Grace” is somehow of less quality because it is not in the Bible does not make sense to me. Truth is truth and can be found in many places. Stories such as “To Kill a Mockingbird”, “The Wizard of Oz” and"East of Eden" travel through time and remain classics because they contain certain truths of life. Can one say these stories are not true because they are not in the Bible?

What? Certainly there are true statements outside the Bible!

If I write 1+1=2 on a slip of paper it is true, and furthermore it is as true as any statement of God inspired word, but that does not then make it the special God-breathed Scriptural message from God! Don’t you understand? God gave us special books, not merely dictated, but the Holy Spirit picked up men as His writing instrument, using their personalities and gifts to pen the pages of the these special books, without error in the original autographs, and though he used men to write, He is the author of the Bible and His word is flawless. These special books are then the sum of God’s written message to mankind and they contain everything we need to understand God and to learn to please him. The Bible is God’s special written message given to mankind.

Of course there are other truthful, valuable, and spiritual written words. The hymn amazing grace is wonderful and and contains no theological error that I am aware. Just because a work is not God-breathed does not mean it has to contain an error, but instead simply that it is not guaranteed to be with out error. So works of men, even if they have no errors are still none-the-less not in the category of God-breathed Scripture and so hymns might contain errors because they are the work of fallible men.

I am in basic agreement with Jeff. My criteria for canonicity and my emphasis on authoritative interpretation go beyond what he’s saying, though:

The canonical scriptures (defined as those passages read within the context of the Orthodox liturgy) and their infallible interpretation (i. e., the liturgy itself) are inerrant in their original language (Byzantine Greek). The liturgy contains all the truth that God has communicated to man through language. One can contemplate its words without fear of them containing error. No other writings on earth have that guarantee. Any other writing is, at best, probably correct.

But how do you KNOW they are without error in the original autographs? The original autographs do not exist, and so there is no evidence that your statement is true. It’s only a theoretical, mental concept.

Again, how do you know which writings are the ones that God preserved from error? You say you don’t rely on the decisions of church councils.
You say that, “The Christian Scriptures are documents of a special nature distinct from other human writings.” But WHICH writings are “The Christian Scriptures”, and how do you KNOW?

The Greek copies we have today do not have a great deal of variation. I can display errors, but I am sure that would not convince you of anything, for you would simply say (without evidence) that the error does not exist in the original autograph, and, of course, because the original does not exist, no one can prove otherwise.

How do you KNOW that it was God who did it?

How do you KNOW that God did that?

Jeff… these ARE legitimate questions Paidion raises which cannot be glibly brushed aside with some mere cavalier wave of the hand.

Regarding God’s flawless word I’ve already point us to Proverbs 30:5. Regarding the works of Moses as prophecy from God and not mere human writing, Deuteronomy 18:15, Luke 24:27, Hebrews 3:5, and many more proofs if you need them. The Pentateuch is prophecy from God through Moses, not mere human wisdom. Regarding God’s sovereign acts in punishing evil doers, Genesis 6:7, as prophesied by God through Moses. Regarding Christ’s will to destroy Jerusalem in 70ad for Israel’s rejection of the Messiah, Luke 20:9-18, spoken directly from the mouth of the Lord Jesus Christ.