Hey, yeah, so I’m back in Sweden after eight months in Australia, but I’m more than happy to read the text today and it’s from the second letter of Peter, chapter one:
“For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. He received honour and glory from God, the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory saying, “this is my son, whom I love with him I am very pleased”. Sorry, it should say “with him I’m well pleased”.
“We ourselves, we heard the voice that came from heaven when we were with him on that sacred Mountain. We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it as to a light shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the Morning Star rises in your hearts.
Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of scripture came about by rhe prophet’s own interpretation of things, for prophecy never had its origin in the human will but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks, be to God.
Yeah, so, this is a letter written by the Apostle Peter, one of Jesus’s closest associates, and I think, he’s making three important points here:
One, there is a lot of lies out there and false prophets – a lot of shallow philosophies and cleverly devised stories. This is not one of them. This is not a story. This is true, and this is experienced by Peter himself.
Secondly, because it’s true and not just the story, the Scripture can be a light in a dark room. It can be a torch as we walk through the world, but – and this is the third (making sure I have the right number) the third point – but we have to remember that the Scripture is not a work by the human mind entirely. It’s not the work of human effort only it is the voice of God spoken through humans through the human, and that makes interpreting and understanding the Bible a difficult but very important task.
In another letter in the New Testament, it says “the letter kills, but the spirit gives life”, and I think it’s good to keep that quote in the back of your head when you read the Bible – “the letter kills, but the spirit gives life”. And what does that mean, though? I think it means that the Bible, if you only read it on the surface, can be a very dangerous book. It can be a book that literally kills, and I think we’ve seen that too many times throughout history.
That’s not the way you should read a holy text, and I think, I think I have good reasons to believe that when you read, when you approach a holy text, when you approach the Bible, you should do so ideally in a state of prayer with your soul open to what we could call the whispering guidance of the Spirit.
I think that’s probably true – that when you, when you approach the Bible, you should do so in a spirit of Prayer in your souls as open as possible, and that way I think that the Bible will reveal its depth and its true meaning, and also in that way, reading the the Scripture will become a matter of mysticism.
Anyway, these are my thoughts on this text from Peter. I think it’s has something to tell us throughout the ages, and what are your thoughts on this text? I think that’s interesting to hear, and what are your thoughts on the truths of the Scripture – you know, the Divine and the human, and the Divine through the human.
Yeah, I’m checking out here and I’m wishing you a good day and I’m handing it over to Dave.
- First broadcast on http://thesundayeucharist.com February 19, 2023
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