Tuesday, August 22, 2006

The Holy Spirit and the Interrelation of the Body

I wanted to use the last post's question concerning the authority and ability of various members of the Body as a stepping stone to a very important discussion on what role the Holy Spirit takes in interrelating the Body and where such knowledge might be found in the Scriptures. I am not yet fully ready to back up my view with specific Biblical passages so I will spend some time over the next several days seeking passages within the New Testament that refer to the Holy Spirit's involvement within the Body. Please join me in this research, if you have any time, so that we might have an informed and edifying discussion on how the Holy Spirit is involved in the Interrelational Church.

1 comment:

Dawson said...

Holy Spirit batman
“Bless be the tie that binds” all this talk of interrelational issue has that song firmly entrenched in my head. “bless be – dad-gum-it.”

OK, I have thought on this idea and find myself driven back to the garden and the construction of humanity. Our constitution is as a being in a body. We are embodied humanity. But is we are each in a body and a body mean being separated from other bodies. Then to be in a body means one is in ones own being alone. So alienation is central to our understanding of what is human – better what it is to be human. As I write this I know I have read this some where but it is not coming to me (do not think of this as original thought – I have not had one of those senses 83 and that one was about the Smirfs.)

The media of interrelation
Alienation as an “attribute” of human “being”. We form perspectives though interaction of ideas and form culture though the use of language. Language and its uses is descriptive of culture and a transformer of human culture. Words form ideas, ideas form ideologies, and ideologies form culture. So collectively we created worldviews that operated on a personal level as a sense of ideality (being in the world) and on a social level as a bond of unity. (being to being) “YOU see what I mean,” – see I just did it. Understanding becomes more than knowing but a means of transcendences to bridge alienation.

The Big But (with one T)
But ultimately all this is an illusion for we are still individual bodies with single perspectives. The problem of other minds – is still well a problem. We are alone within ourselves. If you mentally cry out – with out physically sounding it out but mentally cry out as loud as you can think. It would not be heard! You are alone. You can not be known. No matter your penetration of self-knowledge nor ability to convey you self-understanding... It all falls short.

Remember this is our created make up not fallen make up. So God – playing himself in the forthcoming movie – enters the equation. At this point we will just multiply by three to see the effect. One – God gives revelation: A vocabulary of existence through which life can take on its proper form. In short Christian Doctrine about God is the worldview frame and form for culture. Second – In Christ, we become a ontological new humanity. We are not alienated but truly united with Christ. Union without a mystic dissolving of the self but a new creation of selfhood: from this Faith in Christ work ae. Our new being flow all virtue and spiritual work. Three – The Spirit trans-personal work between believers. True transcendence through fellowship in the Spirit where one is understood and empathy is not a cliché. Is first a movement up to God – where all are made one in Christ and then out in true being to being communication. Ontologically grounding our relationships in the work of Christ and the power of the Spirit. The witness of this community of faith in this context is 1. Intellectual - we teach a worldview. 2. Redemptive - we tell others of the union with Christ 3. trans-personal - as the “new creation” thought the Spirit of God we can minister being to being. The Lost and the flock -WE touch deeper, understand better and communicate clearer in the Spirit’s existancal reality. This is a ministry of reconciliation – restoration – and spiritual resurrection. (not denying physical resection just Eph 2 talk). All that good stuff. That just what I have been thinking about needs work I know.

The church in acts as a Body in organic movement and a Light as revelatory display.