Richard Rohr puts words to ideas that I have had swimming around in my head for a while.
Rough Thoughts on ‘Inner Authority and Paul’.
I think I’d like to do a word study on Paul’s use of the word ‘word’ (at least the word ‘word’ that we get in our English translations). I have a theory that our modern use of the ‘The Word of God’ – aka ‘The Bible’, verses, Paul’s use of the word ‘the word of God’ might actually be different. I think (again I haven’t researched this – so don’t quote me) that Paul uses the word ‘Word’ of God to mean: The word given to prophets of the First Testament, as well as the inner voice of God, expressed in Jeremiah 31:33 “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts”. I’m not entirely sure where the words of Christ come into the mix, given Paul never meet Jesus, and was probably teaching and preaching well before the Gospel accounts where written. I’m particularly thinking in terms of John’s account, where he introduces Christ as the LOGOS. Also remember that the idea of an individual copy of the bible is a new idea, it’s only been around the last few hundred years. If a person lives to be 100 years old, that’s only 3 people ago.
And why do I find this interesting?
Because I think far too many people have used a narrow view of Paul’s writing, and they throw it around too much and don’t necessarily do the ‘hard’ work of slowing down to stop and listen for the voice from Spirit.