By newparadigmthinkers
Can simple lessons from dairy farming radically ‘shift’ you paradigm about the Gospel of Jesus Christ? It certainly did mine!
Three basic procedures used daily in producing the milk we consume are useful in understanding the way in which our common traditional concept of the Gospel was formed in our thinking.
How the ‘old paradigm’ of ’the Gospel’ was formatted in our mind, and why the ‘new paradigm’ is radically different, not so much in terms of‘content’ but of ‘context’.
The context of an expanded vision of Who Christ Jesus really is within the Trinity, and a larger appreciation of the scope and circumference of His vicarious intervention through His Incarnation into and on behalf of mankind!
The first concept is Separation.
Cream, having a less dense consistency that skim milk, naturally rises to the top when given time.
The second concept is about making milk ‘homogeneous’
This is simply a process of using great artificial pressure to reduce the cream or fat particles, naturally separated because of the vast difference in consistency, and by force, dispersing these reduced cream particles throughout the milk. By emulsifying the fat content, you artificially make the milk uniform in consistency….very much like making mash potatoes!
The third concept is Centrifuging
Centrifuging is a mechanical process used to separate the cream from the skim milk. This is done by spinning milk around a fixed point, a rotating central axis. Under the influence of the centrifugal force created, the fat globules or cream, being less dense than the skim milk, move inwards toward the axis of rotation while the skim milk will separate and move outwards.
How does this apply to the way we interpret the Bible and know the Gospel?
Our understanding of the Gospel is based on our Theology. Theology generally consists of various ‘doctrines’ about God, and the various ‘thing’ related to God’. Doctrines are usually formulated by finding Bible verses containing similar or identical words and ideas and blending them together to ‘make reasonable sense’ of the subject.
This process of reflection on the Scriptures is essentially an effort to‘objectify’and ‘systematize’ knowledge into a uniform and ‘agreed upon’ opinion about an aspect of ‘the things God’. This process of theologizing is not much different from the method of homogenizing, discussed above!
The forcing, mashing and equalizing of different Scriptures and religious concepts together into a single ‘reasonable’ theory to ‘believe’ in.Usually elevating and ascribing divine sanction to our ‘theology’, simply because it’s based on the ‘Word of God’!
So what then is the problem with theology?
A dilemma is created when human nature losing sight of what ‘doctrine’ is,and where ‘doctrine’ comes from, elevates ‘doctrine’ above and beyond where’ doctrine’ belongs. When we confuse the doctrines of ‘Divine authority’ and the ‘in-errancy of Scripture’ and erroneously confer infallibility onto our human and man made theories and doctrines.When we apply our man made ’doctrines’ to dictate and limit ‘Who God the Father is, and what God may, and may not do‘!
When we use our human reasoning to define and prescribe ‘Who the Son, Jesus Christ is, and what God may, and may not accomplish through Him on man’s behalf’
Let us now consider how Jesus handled a complicated theological issue
Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying,“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”
Jesus said to him, “‘you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:35-40
The ’Fixed Point’ or ‘Central Axis of Rotation’ in the consciousness of Jesus Christ was that of Love.
In His reasoning processes He separated out from the entire Old Testament only two Scriptures, as having a weight of importance over and above all other commandments, admonitions and instructions.
He literally and figuratively separated the spiritual cream from thereligious skim milk!
On another occasion He through ‘revelation knowledge’ clearly indicated that He Himself, as a Person, was indeed the very ‘central axis’, the ‘major theme’ of the entire Old Testament!
Then He said to them, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.” And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures. Luke 24:44 – 45
What does the example of Jesus show us?
We are to make the revelation of Jesus Christ, and Who He is, and Who he represents within the Triune Godhead, the exclusive Master Key to our interpretation and understanding of the all the dynamics of God and humanity.
Jesus Christ is the only fundamental hermeneutic for meaningfully interpreting the Bible, God, mankind, the universe and all of Creation.
Failure to do so has produced the accumulated confusing and conflicting ‘mash potatoes’ of ‘homogenised’ mixed Theology we erroneously sometimes refer to as ‘the Gospel’A ‘new paradigm’…..redefining the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
Using the ‘centrifugal force’ of Jesus Christ, both Son of God and Son of Man, as our fixed pivotal point we need to separate the cream of Spiritual Reality from the skim milk of man made religious interpretation.
We need to re-interpret the Scriptures in the light of Him who entered our human darkness as the Light of the World that enlightens every man!
Re-define the Gospel in the light of Who Jesus is, and what the Trinity did to humanity through His vicarious Incarnation, Life, Death, Burial, Resurrection, Ascension and Glorification!A ‘new paradigm’….redefining Humanity!
We will then be compelled to re-define our opinion of mankind’s intrinsic value, to lift our vision beyond a limited human religious perspective confined to ‘sin and salvation’.
Adam’s failure and fall into sin will no longer determine our point of departure, but rather the very origin and spiritual genesis of mankind within Divinity. Mankind birthed and destined for inclusion and infusion into the loving and joyful union and communion of the Trinity.
A ‘new paradigm’……the ecclesia as true Agents of Transformation
We the ecclesia, the called out ones, if we are to become part of the answer for mankind’s spiritual dilemma, agents of change, and not part of the problem, need to become transformed in the spirit of our minds.
Boldly embracing a new paradigm of thinking, we must confront our unconscious personal fears and emotional choking points. Be willing to face our hostile contemporaries in the faith and question the ecclesiastical status quo.
With spiritual fortitude and intellectual courage we need to dismantle the strongholds produced by the redundant and stagnant religious paradigmsand the blind spots of our ‘homogenised’ theology.We need a mental shift, but also a spiritual transition, from the old to a new paradigm of thinking ….ironically a most ancient paradigm of thinking….as ancient as the Eternal…..recorded in Scripture as follows;
‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to thepraise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.’
Ephesians 1:3 – 6
Can simple lessons from dairy farming radically ‘shift’ you paradigm about the Gospel of Jesus Christ? It certainly did mine!
Three basic procedures used daily in producing the milk we consume are useful in understanding the way in which our common traditional concept of the Gospel was formed in our thinking.
How the ‘old paradigm’ of ’the Gospel’ was formatted in our mind, and why the ‘new paradigm’ is radically different, not so much in terms of‘content’ but of ‘context’.
The context of an expanded vision of Who Christ Jesus really is within the Trinity, and a larger appreciation of the scope and circumference of His vicarious intervention through His Incarnation into and on behalf of mankind!
The first concept is Separation.
Cream, having a less dense consistency that skim milk, naturally rises to the top when given time.
The second concept is about making milk ‘homogeneous’
This is simply a process of using great artificial pressure to reduce the cream or fat particles, naturally separated because of the vast difference in consistency, and by force, dispersing these reduced cream particles throughout the milk. By emulsifying the fat content, you artificially make the milk uniform in consistency….very much like making mash potatoes!
The third concept is CentrifugingCentrifuging is a mechanical process used to separate the cream from the skim milk. This is done by spinning milk around a fixed point, a rotating central axis. Under the influence of the centrifugal force created, the fat globules or cream, being less dense than the skim milk, move inwards toward the axis of rotation while the skim milk will separate and move outwards.
How does this apply to the way we interpret the Bible and know the Gospel?
Our understanding of the Gospel is based on our Theology. Theology generally consists of various ‘doctrines’ about God, and the various ‘thing’ related to God’. Doctrines are usually formulated by finding Bible verses containing similar or identical words and ideas and blending them together to ‘make reasonable sense’ of the subject.
This process of reflection on the Scriptures is essentially an effort to‘objectify’and ‘systematize’ knowledge into a uniform and ‘agreed upon’ opinion about an aspect of ‘the things God’. This process of theologizing is not much different from the method of homogenizing, discussed above!
The forcing, mashing and equalizing of different Scriptures and religious concepts together into a single ‘reasonable’ theory to ‘believe’ in.Usually elevating and ascribing divine sanction to our ‘theology’, simply because it’s based on the ‘Word of God’!
So what then is the problem with theology?
A dilemma is created when human nature losing sight of what ‘doctrine’ is,and where ‘doctrine’ comes from, elevates ‘doctrine’ above and beyond where’ doctrine’ belongs. When we confuse the doctrines of ‘Divine authority’ and the ‘in-errancy of Scripture’ and erroneously confer infallibility onto our human and man made theories and doctrines.
When we apply our man made ’doctrines’ to dictate and limit ‘Who God the Father is, and what God may, and may not do‘!
When we use our human reasoning to define and prescribe ‘Who the Son, Jesus Christ is, and what God may, and may not accomplish through Him on man’s behalf’
Let us now consider how Jesus handled a complicated theological issue
Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying,“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”
Jesus said to him, “‘you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:35-40
The ’Fixed Point’ or ‘Central Axis of Rotation’ in the consciousness of Jesus Christ was that of Love.
In His reasoning processes He separated out from the entire Old Testament only two Scriptures, as having a weight of importance over and above all other commandments, admonitions and instructions.
He literally and figuratively separated the spiritual cream from thereligious skim milk!On another occasion He through ‘revelation knowledge’ clearly indicated that He Himself, as a Person, was indeed the very ‘central axis’, the ‘major theme’ of the entire Old Testament!
Then He said to them, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.” And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures. Luke 24:44 – 45
What does the example of Jesus show us?
We are to make the revelation of Jesus Christ, and Who He is, and Who he represents within the Triune Godhead, the exclusive Master Key to our interpretation and understanding of the all the dynamics of God and humanity.
Jesus Christ is the only fundamental hermeneutic for meaningfully interpreting the Bible, God, mankind, the universe and all of Creation.
Failure to do so has produced the accumulated confusing and conflicting ‘mash potatoes’ of ‘homogenised’ mixed Theology we erroneously sometimes refer to as ‘the Gospel’
A ‘new paradigm’…..redefining the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
Using the ‘centrifugal force’ of Jesus Christ, both Son of God and Son of Man, as our fixed pivotal point we need to separate the cream of Spiritual Reality from the skim milk of man made religious interpretation.
We need to re-interpret the Scriptures in the light of Him who entered our human darkness as the Light of the World that enlightens every man!
Re-define the Gospel in the light of Who Jesus is, and what the Trinity did to humanity through His vicarious Incarnation, Life, Death, Burial, Resurrection, Ascension and Glorification!
A ‘new paradigm’….redefining Humanity!
We will then be compelled to re-define our opinion of mankind’s intrinsic value, to lift our vision beyond a limited human religious perspective confined to ‘sin and salvation’.
Adam’s failure and fall into sin will no longer determine our point of departure, but rather the very origin and spiritual genesis of mankind within Divinity. Mankind birthed and destined for inclusion and infusion into the loving and joyful union and communion of the Trinity.
A ‘new paradigm’……the ecclesia as true Agents of Transformation
We the ecclesia, the called out ones, if we are to become part of the answer for mankind’s spiritual dilemma, agents of change, and not part of the problem, need to become transformed in the spirit of our minds.
Boldly embracing a new paradigm of thinking, we must confront our unconscious personal fears and emotional choking points. Be willing to face our hostile contemporaries in the faith and question the ecclesiastical status quo.
With spiritual fortitude and intellectual courage we need to dismantle the strongholds produced by the redundant and stagnant religious paradigmsand the blind spots of our ‘homogenised’ theology.
We need a mental shift, but also a spiritual transition, from the old to a new paradigm of thinking ….ironically a most ancient paradigm of thinking….as ancient as the Eternal…..recorded in Scripture as follows;
‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to thepraise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.’
Ephesians 1:3 – 6
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