Is God in the Information Sharing Business?

Last updated on: December 6, 2014 at 11:32 am by Michael Hardin

Is God in the Information Sharing Business? 2014-12-06T11:32:22-04:00 Michael Hardin

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I am currently teaching a five week series at our home church on Paul, the Torah and Jerusalem Christianity. Two are ‘in the can’ with three to go. For several decades I have been pondering the development of the apostolic churches. It is like a giant jigsaw puzzle and many scholars have taken their hand to this particular task. I have, after much consternation, become convinced of the older thesis of F.C. Baur that there was a deep division between Paul and the Peter/James tradition. I mention this as preamble because last night I had a dream and in that dream I had a dream, kind of like the movie Inception. In the second layer of the dream I was reflecting on this puzzle when it came to me: I Peter has a number of markers that reflect a sacrificial theological position and 1 Corinthians reflects certain ‘Johannine’ elements (I had already worked out those elements in 2 Corinthians but had not found them in 1 Corinthians). I was so elated, I woke (from the dream within the dream) to tell Lorri all about it. This morning I asked her if I had woken up in the night to share this with her, to which she replied negatively, so with a more muted enthusiasm I shared with her the dream within a dream insights.

All of this is preamble for what I wish to write about this morning.

If I was given to charismatic vocabulary, it would be tempting to say “The Lord revealed to me” the material of that inner dream. It certainly feels right. However, as I have reflected on this I have become persuaded that it would be completely disingenuous of me to claim that what I dreamed was ‘from the Lord.’ That would be to give it an authority which it simply does not and could not possess. My ‘dream’ exegesis may well be incorrect; the Baur thesis ‘might’ not hold water. To say that the insights I sensed in the dream within a dream came ‘from God’ raise a number of questions for me inasmuch as I seem to encounter a lot of people on Facebook who make all sorts of claims about what God ‘has revealed to them’ about the meaning of biblical texts.

I first note that Paul only speaks about ‘receiving a word from the Lord’ in the letter to the Corinthians. In that letter, in one place, chapter 15, he says “I received from the Lord, that which I pass on to you.” In Chapter 7:25 there is a similar saying but a different Greek construction. The construction in 7:25 is a simple genitive, while the construction in I Cor 15 uses the preposition ‘apo’ and adopts technical rabbinic language with the use of the verbs for ‘receive’ and ‘pass on’. Together these two are indicators that what Paul has received has not come as a download from God but something which he has been taught by others.

One might turn to Ephesians chapter 3. Like many, I am not convinced that Paul wrote Ephesians but for sake of argument, let us suppose that he did in fact author that letter. Even in chapter 3 there is no evidence, particularly from verses 3-6 that Paul has received a ‘divine download’ or that ‘he has been taught by the Lord.’ That which is ‘made known’ (gnorizo) is the revealing (apokalypto) of the ‘mystery’, which has to do with the inclusion of the Gentiles into the greater salvation historical story. This now revealed mystery was ‘not known’ (ouk gnorizo) has now been revealed (apokalypto) to the ‘apostles and prophets’ of the primitive church. That which is revealed are not generic mysteries, nor secrets reserved for a few, nor is it divine information about the make-up of angelic or demonic hierarchies or any other sort of celestial imaginings; what is revealed is a sociology.

In 2013 on Facebook I dealt with the text from 1 John 2:27ff (found in What the Facebook?, pgs 81-82):

“What is it that the Spirit teaches? What are the “all things” (I John 2:27ff) which can be known? For the writer of the Fourth Gospel and the Epistles, this is not generic knowledge or information, as though the Spirit was some divine Google search engine where we typed in a word or text and out pops the answer. Rather, the Spirit always and ever brings us back to the Crucified, to the victim. In other words, it is the work of the Spirit to show us ourselves as persecutors of others. Jesus says as much when he says that “when the Spirit comes he will convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment.” Sin has to do with the unbelief that Jesus could be God-enfleshed hanging from a cross, righteousness has to do with the vindication of the victim (“I go to my Father”), and judgment with the exposure of the satanic mechanism of sacred violence (“the ruler of this world stands condemned”). In all three cases, it is the work of the Spirit to point to the Crucified as the victim of a scapegoating process and to remind us of how and when and where we also do so to others. In this way the work of the Spirit transforms our relationships by challenging our views of others whom we would extrude, exclude, marginalize, hate or discriminate against. In short, the work of the Spirit has to do, not with intellectual information, per se, but with relational transformation (which includes but is not limited to changing our thinking processes). We are transformed from sacrificial ways of relating to loving ways of being together.”

In both Paul and the for the writer of 1 John, the Spirit testifies to the sociological uniting of two distinct people groups, the Jews and the Gentiles. In both writers this unity stems from the reconciling work of Jesus Christ crucified. The mystery which is revealed of which Paul speaks and the anointing of the Spirit who testifies and teaches are one and the same thing: a witness to the work of God to in Christ to make enemies friends.

This leads me to then say that while I appreciated the insight I experienced from my dream within a dream, it was just that, an insight, that may or may not be accurate or correct. One thing I can say is that it is not TRUTH. It is only insight, my insight. Was it prompted by the Spirit? Who can say? Certainly not I. I would contend that too many people confuse their insights with ‘divine downloads.’ They give to their human insight a divine authority it was never meant to have. Some go further and seek to persuade others that this ‘insight’, because it had to have come from God, must be validated by their audience’s obedience (or obeisance).

God may well speak to you. Just don’t expect others to believe it just because you claim it. A self-authorizing claim is no claim at all.

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