I hope your preacher is better than my weatherman.
This morning my weatherman leads with this: "There is a cold front coming." When he said this there was a graphic of my reagion of the country with orange and yellow colors where I live and green and blue colors to the north and west. The temp here: 68. The temp in Kansas City, where the cold front is currently located: 47.
But then my weatherman closes the weather section of the news with the extended forecast:
Highs:
Saturday - 74
Sunday - 76
Monday - 76
Tuesday - 81
Wednesday - 76
So, on which of these days does the cold front show up?
What I believe is happening is this meteorological poser is proof-texting unrelated National Weather Service feeds and calling it a forecast.
Now, about your preacher. I know it is more true in the past than now, but restoration preachers are notorious for doing cut and paste scripture butchering and calling it sermon prep. Just like my weatherman's forecast that was probably true to the NWS feeds he was getting, it meant nothing becuase it was not interpretted for my context.
Ever been victimized by so-called preaching which was really violence to scripture?
1 comment:
I think the proof-text hermeneutic was a function of of a fundamental misconception about what "restoration" is all about.
God is a "restoring" God, to be sure. But the church is an instrument in that process, not the object of restoration itself. Restoration is geared toward people, societies, and creation itself. If you assume all God wants to restore is a church, your vision becomes narrow, and you end up forcing an awkward hermeneutic on all of scripture. To borrow your analogy, you end up looking for cold fronts where there aren't any.
I like a broader, more narrative-oriented view that tries to keep the big picture of God's kingdom in mind.
Having said all of that, there are a lot of people that I love who have labored under that approach for many years. I, like you, believe it is a flawed approach - and I think it needs to be pointed out.
But one of my biggest concerns now is this: can we find a way to honor those who came before us while also pointing to a future that may be dramatically different from what they envisioned?
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