As it truly is

I'm busy writing a sermon about "holiness", based on Jesus' dealings in Mark 4-5 with those people and places which were considered unclean. (tombs, demons, a woman with an emission of blood, the dead) I was just about to title the sermon "True Holiness" when I caught myself.

I have a visceral negative reaction to any theology which talks about "True Noun" or "Biblical Noun". It's certainly my postmodern culture speaking. I can't believe that the Bible is narrow enough (or even small enough) for us to pick out and anoint one specific interpretation of theology, nor do I know that, between the tens of thousands of denominational differences, the opinion I (or anyone else - certainly not anyone else!) settles upon is shared by God. I would not have liked to listen to a sermon called "True Holiness", so I shall not impose it upon others.

I have a problem here, though, because I'm not being consistent. Previously I argued that we have the same Spirit as Paul and all the other canonical apostles, and so (presumably, and implied) should be able to speak with the same authority as them. And they certainly did not hold to a tentative interpretation of Scripture:

So we also give thanks to God continually for you, because when you heard the word of God through us, you received it not as words of man, but as it truly is, the word of God.

Worse, they commanded non-apostles not to hold to a tentative interpretation either: (adding more weight to my idea that we have the same Spirit as them.)

If someone speaks, do it as the oracles of God.

So if I wish to be consistent I am left with an uncomfortable choice: either the apostles were overreaching and claiming something that may not have been true, or we are to assert the same claim ourselves. (Incidentally, I have no idea how the people who teach that prophets should pussy-foot around and say "Well, I may be wrong, but I think the Lord is saying..." handle this verse in 1 Peter.)

Thankfully, the other legacy of my postmodern culture is the knowledge that slavish consistency is overrated.

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