geekery.of.all.sorts

I've been thinking about Jesus and his title 'The Word of God', for a while now...here's some notes. I was first introduced to this as a serious angle of study and major theme of the New Testament ( rather than a nice verse in John 1 ) when I read 'Prayer' by a German theologan named Hans Urs von Balthasar.  http://www.amazon.com/Prayer-Hans-Urs-von-Balthasar/dp/0898700744   This is probably as difficult a book as I've ever read - but it was transformative for me in a variety of ways.  I need to go back and find a copy and see if it stands up after 10 years. Jesus is represented in scripture as the Word of God - a title that needs to be understood 'as the scripture says', not from the definition our church culture has put on it.  Good evangelical protestant types tend to worship the Bible like it's part of the trinity (usually replacing Holy Spirit). When we say 'The Word of God' we usually are referring to the Bible.  Now, the Bible

My good friend Will commented on my last post, sharing 3 essential problems that make studying eschatology. I can't speak to the first without further study, can't argue at all with the second - but the third I have thoughts on. Here they are: He said that regarding eschatology, it is the realm of mystery, and 'mystery remains mystery'. Here's my response: Mystery didn't remain mystery for Paul, who stated that the mystery of gospel which had been held since the creation of the world had been revealed, so that the Gentiles could share in the salvation that comes from Christ. See Romans 16 and Eph 3. Daniel was told to seal up his the words until the time of the end - it's spoken twice in Dan 12, the second time affirming that the mysteries shown to Daniel would be sealed until that time. The use of the word 'until' indicates to me that those mysteries would be UNsealed when the time came. It's consistent with the unfolding nature of divine re

I'm a bit interested in Eschatology. For those of you who don't know what eschatology is, it's the study of eschat . Really, no, I'm just kidding. I don't even know what eschat is... But I heard some fairly convincing stuff from a preterist this last week. Preterists believe that the last days described in the Bible happened in the first century, and that it's all done. Well, I don't think that's right. So I've been thinking on that. Here's a bit of it: Preterists take the time words very seriously - the statements that are made in Matthew 24, Revelation 1-3, and elsewhere, where Jesus says that 'this generation' would see the kingdom, or that 'the time is near', or 'these things must soon come to pass'. I was challenged to take those seriously as well - I had not given them as much thought as other elements of those same passages...but I find the strict preterist interpretation simplistic, as I understand it. Ba