The Pattern and Structure of Sound Words in the Scripture
PREFACE
Communication is the very essence of community. It is well said that bad communication can result in conflict and disunity. Society has many forms of communication, most of them one-sided, such as News Papers, Television, Radio and Magazines etc. The communication in Government, Military and Business Organisations is based on a form of Line Management with varying degrees of applied discipline. The chart on below is a biased view of such organisations. One or two are a little outdated but they make their point:
Two-sided and intimate communication is found in a well run family or a specialist society of individuals who have come together to progress a common interest. Debating societies also provide an ordered and intelligent basis of two-sided communication within which ideas can be examined and developed.
Many Christians seek to understand God's Communication, His Word, within a Church community. Above the foundational belief in their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, each such community has its own structure formed from the understanding of the organising hierarchy, whether it be priest, vicar, bishop, elder, pastor or pope etc.
Each hierarchy imposes its belief structure as a means of control such that dissenters, good or bad, cannot propagate their developing understanding for fear of causing a rift or encouraging a 'sectarian' belief. This stultifies the flow of progressive understanding and eliminates a dialectic, which then encourages and establishes error, resulting in the hierarchy having to face the condemnation that they hold down The Truth in unrighteousness, hiding behind the belief that the majority cannot be wrong.
The God breathed Scriptures alone hold The Truth, not the hierarchy. The individual Christian is free to approach God in prayer for understanding, through The One Mediator, Jesus Christ. For those Christians deeply interested in Truth, where else can .it be found ? Who better teaches than God Himself ? Here we have three Church systems, two of which impose controls between the believer and God.
A - In the first example, the Church organisation with its worldly and 'heavenly' mediators controls the middle ground between the believer and his/her God. The Lord Jesus Christ is pictured as a babe or a dead man upon a cross and plays little part in this system. The believer's communication is sterile being limited by its mediators.
B - In the second example, a direct relationship is formed between the believer and God, but it is monitored and controlled by mediators such as ministers, pastors or elders. By Jesus Christ, God is recognised, but His Word is limited and controlled to the elementary doctrine held in the belief structure of those mediators. At its best it is 'The sincere milk of The Word'.C - In the third example, there are no human mediators, the communication between the believer and God is direct. through Jesus Christ. God speaks to the believer through His Word and the believer speaks to God by prayer. This intimate communication is founded in Jesus Christ Himself because He is The One and only Mediator. To those who understand, it is the singular condition which generates understanding and is recognised to-day in God's present Administration of His Grace.
Here then is the true basis of Spiritual understanding, direct communication between the individual Christian and God Himself through The One Mediator, The Lord Jesus Christ. It is truly said that in this present Administration of God, He being silent, we are locked into His Word alone. The following pages illustrate by examples the many aids available for this purpose. Those designed by diligent and painstaking fellow Christians and those provided by The God Breathed Word Himself.
These examples are illustrated in other BY GRACE leaflets:
By Grace No. 31 / By Grace No. 32 / By Grace No.33
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