I may be missing something here. The title of this podcast leads me to believe that you are going to address the concept of Jehovah as a title or office. All I got out of that were scant thoughts about the office or title and most of the discussion centered on "Who" was "who." It shouldn't be about individuals whether Jehovah is an individual or Christ is an individual. You were going to talk about titles and I didn't capture that from this podcast. I don't really get bogged down in whether the Church concept of Jehovah=Jesus or the fundamentalist concept of Jehovah=God, but rather it all fits if you focus on the job description of the office of Jehovah and the job description of an office of a Christ. I would venture that there are times when Jesus of Nazareth (as an individual) would act in the office or job description for a time as a Jehovah and there is overlap of the office of Christ. They are both that "second player or God" in a Godhead function or quorum; but I think that the empowerment of that office that they are called to act in rather than trying to decide which individual or entity is in that office or title. Can we get back to the job description of the office of Jehovah, the job description of Elohim or Eloi, and the office of Witness. In our civilization, we tend to equate a person as Jehovah, but that would not be correct and we need to get away with that way of thinking just as saying that I have the office of bishop, but that is not my name. I hope that I'm getting my point across. I think you spent considerable time categorizing Jehovah=God and Jehovah = Christ and that there is overlap in interpretation. If you get us thinking in terms of offices, then we don't have to worry if Jehovah = Christ or if such a person was exalted before He came here. It's the office occupied by that entity or identity. What am I missing?
yup - you missed two things. :^D one of which I was a little frustrated over in the episode because it took me by surprise.
1. Toward the end of the podcast, I mentioned that I thought I would have gotten farther in the podcast so I'll be continuing the podcast later. It will cover the issue of titles more thoroughly.
2. I find that just explaining titles and offices doesn't stick for a lot of people. My first wife reverted back to a literal reading over and over and over again because it was so engrained in her upbringing. The concept is easy but they just don't stick with it and then later, they come back asking questions that basically say: "I need you to tell me that again." I cover the sections in the book where a literal reading of the quotes creates the same problem I was describing before, but also demonstrates that the early brethren understood the term Jehovah to more appropriately apply to God the Father. I go through this exercise to (1) show that the understanding of the early brethren is NOT what is taught in the modern church (for those that care or who want to argue that titles and offices contradicts the teachings of the modern brethren or similar arguments) and (2) reading the text that way leads to confirmation bias - that's why I spend extra time showing that quotes can often be read in two different ways but we fail to see that more often than most people like to admit. Basically, I'm trying to show that our "knee jerk" way of readings scriptures (and quotes from the early brethren) is flawed - and this flaw invades other doctrinal issues as well. The literal reading or the "this is obviously what this passage is saying" approach is terribly flawed because we read it from a modern westerner's perspective when the author is usually speaking to an ancient Hebrew's perspective -- totally different audience with a totally different way of interpreting what is being said. With that emphasized, the value and need for an alternate approach is more clear (in my opinion) because they take the time to see the flaw in their default approach so when they come across a difficult passage in scripture or the historical record, they have a mental memory that pops up to say "don't forget to read this as a title/office."
In short, I've found teaching the principle of titles and offices doesn't stick with most people unless you first demonstrate that their current way of reading the scriptures is principally flawed.
HOPEFULLY, by doing that, we see other areas where our knee jerk methods of reading scriptures are similarly flawed and that will help us all to read texts more carefully or at least more like the original authors intended us to read them.
I would love it if there were better descriptions of what those titles/offices represent. We have a few statements that, in my estimation, are more casual than truly revelatory that give us glimpses, but almost nothing that truly enlightens our understanding of these offices. That would probably be a really good study: find the half dozen quotes that describe the functions of those offices and see if they are congruent and thereby more likely to represent an oral teaching we have little to no record of or incongruent and thereby more likely to represent speculation or simplistic understandings of individuals who spoke without revelation on the topic.
By the way, I really appreciate you comments and questions - they are showing me holes in my presentation that offer me more podcast ideas and help me to better understand what I'm not explaining well.
This one makes me think I should do a podcast on Kenneth Bailey -- he's a Christian who grew up in Palestine and complains how westerners read scriptures because we don't understand ancient Hebrew idioms and basic Semitic lifestyles that dramatically affect how we read scriptures. His stuff on the Nativity is especially powerful -- I'll be doing a podcast on that one way or the other. Awesome stuff. I'll also be doing some similar stuff around Christmas going over apocryphal/pseudepigraphical works that explain the symbolism of gold/frankinsense/myrrh from an ancient Christian perspective -- and all of this ties together.
I may be missing something here. The title of this podcast leads me to believe that you are going to address the concept of Jehovah as a title or office. All I got out of that were scant thoughts about the office or title and most of the discussion centered on "Who" was "who." It shouldn't be about individuals whether Jehovah is an individual or Christ is an individual. You were going to talk about titles and I didn't capture that from this podcast. I don't really get bogged down in whether the Church concept of Jehovah=Jesus or the fundamentalist concept of Jehovah=God, but rather it all fits if you focus on the job description of the office of Jehovah and the job description of an office of a Christ. I would venture that there are times when Jesus of Nazareth (as an individual) would act in the office or job description for a time as a Jehovah and there is overlap of the office of Christ. They are both that "second player or God" in a Godhead function or quorum; but I think that the empowerment of that office that they are called to act in rather than trying to decide which individual or entity is in that office or title. Can we get back to the job description of the office of Jehovah, the job description of Elohim or Eloi, and the office of Witness. In our civilization, we tend to equate a person as Jehovah, but that would not be correct and we need to get away with that way of thinking just as saying that I have the office of bishop, but that is not my name. I hope that I'm getting my point across. I think you spent considerable time categorizing Jehovah=God and Jehovah = Christ and that there is overlap in interpretation. If you get us thinking in terms of offices, then we don't have to worry if Jehovah = Christ or if such a person was exalted before He came here. It's the office occupied by that entity or identity. What am I missing?
yup - you missed two things. :^D one of which I was a little frustrated over in the episode because it took me by surprise.
1. Toward the end of the podcast, I mentioned that I thought I would have gotten farther in the podcast so I'll be continuing the podcast later. It will cover the issue of titles more thoroughly.
2. I find that just explaining titles and offices doesn't stick for a lot of people. My first wife reverted back to a literal reading over and over and over again because it was so engrained in her upbringing. The concept is easy but they just don't stick with it and then later, they come back asking questions that basically say: "I need you to tell me that again." I cover the sections in the book where a literal reading of the quotes creates the same problem I was describing before, but also demonstrates that the early brethren understood the term Jehovah to more appropriately apply to God the Father. I go through this exercise to (1) show that the understanding of the early brethren is NOT what is taught in the modern church (for those that care or who want to argue that titles and offices contradicts the teachings of the modern brethren or similar arguments) and (2) reading the text that way leads to confirmation bias - that's why I spend extra time showing that quotes can often be read in two different ways but we fail to see that more often than most people like to admit. Basically, I'm trying to show that our "knee jerk" way of readings scriptures (and quotes from the early brethren) is flawed - and this flaw invades other doctrinal issues as well. The literal reading or the "this is obviously what this passage is saying" approach is terribly flawed because we read it from a modern westerner's perspective when the author is usually speaking to an ancient Hebrew's perspective -- totally different audience with a totally different way of interpreting what is being said. With that emphasized, the value and need for an alternate approach is more clear (in my opinion) because they take the time to see the flaw in their default approach so when they come across a difficult passage in scripture or the historical record, they have a mental memory that pops up to say "don't forget to read this as a title/office."
In short, I've found teaching the principle of titles and offices doesn't stick with most people unless you first demonstrate that their current way of reading the scriptures is principally flawed.
HOPEFULLY, by doing that, we see other areas where our knee jerk methods of reading scriptures are similarly flawed and that will help us all to read texts more carefully or at least more like the original authors intended us to read them.
I would love it if there were better descriptions of what those titles/offices represent. We have a few statements that, in my estimation, are more casual than truly revelatory that give us glimpses, but almost nothing that truly enlightens our understanding of these offices. That would probably be a really good study: find the half dozen quotes that describe the functions of those offices and see if they are congruent and thereby more likely to represent an oral teaching we have little to no record of or incongruent and thereby more likely to represent speculation or simplistic understandings of individuals who spoke without revelation on the topic.
By the way, I really appreciate you comments and questions - they are showing me holes in my presentation that offer me more podcast ideas and help me to better understand what I'm not explaining well.
This one makes me think I should do a podcast on Kenneth Bailey -- he's a Christian who grew up in Palestine and complains how westerners read scriptures because we don't understand ancient Hebrew idioms and basic Semitic lifestyles that dramatically affect how we read scriptures. His stuff on the Nativity is especially powerful -- I'll be doing a podcast on that one way or the other. Awesome stuff. I'll also be doing some similar stuff around Christmas going over apocryphal/pseudepigraphical works that explain the symbolism of gold/frankinsense/myrrh from an ancient Christian perspective -- and all of this ties together.