1. By starting with Jesus.
2. By following the guidance of the Holy Spirit
3. By paying close attention to the exact words of Jesus and the Bible.
4. By hoping for Christian unity beyond Christendom
1. By starting with Jesus.
Most Bible teachers will answer a question by tracing relevant Bible teaching from Genesis to Revelation. Genesis is seen as the beginning, from where first understanding comes. The rest of the Old Testament adds more and, finally, the insights of Jesus and the New Testament writers complete the doctrine. Protestants have used this method for years and come to conclusions and summaries which constitute standard Protestant doctrine. Different Protestant churches have slightly different doctrines.
Most Catholic teachers will answer a question by tracing relevant teaching from revered Church Fathers and Scholars as these authorities have thought and written about the teachings of Jesus and the Bible. Over the centuries, the Church has thought and debated and come to conclusions about every aspect of life. Catholics base their understanding on these Church conclusions and are wary of any bypassing of what has been decided and agreed in the past.
Fresh Bible Answers starts instead with Jesus. First understanding comes from Jesus alone, through a careful examination of what he said and did, as recorded in the New Testament. This constitutes the foundation and cornerstone of any answer, any understanding, any doctrine. People who know their Bibles will recognise that Jesus himself said that hearing his words and doing them are the, best, most secure foundation, rock, to build on, rather than sand. Paul and Peter also wrote of Jesus as the foundation and the cornerstone. (1 Corinthians 3:11, Ephesians 2:20, 1 Peter 2:6,7)
The method used by Fresh Bible Answers in examining the Bible is different from the usual methods of both Protestants and Catholics and, therefore, the conclusions can be fresh. Do not expect all answers to be radically different, rather answers which are a little unusual, together with some which are surprisingly different.
For more explanation see the chapter ‘Building Christian Doctrine’ and ‘Jesus the Foundation in The Final Quest by Rick Joyner‘.
‘All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.’ (2 Timothy 3:16,17) This is the verse from which comes the understanding that the whole of the Bible is equally important.
Paul’s words to Timothy, however, describe all Scripture as useful. It makes sense to see this in the context of Paul’s use of building metaphors for Jesus – foundation and cornerstone. Paul is here continuing a metaphor started by Jesus. Paul writes that all Scripture provides useful building material. This does not change the unique importance of Jesus. Only Jesus gives us the foundation and cornerstone.
In the whole of Scripture we will find wooden floor boards, ceramic tiles, leather coverings. All are useful. None of these are to be used as materials for the foundation. None of these are cornerstones. Indeed, using roof tiles for the foundation and cutting floor boards to make cornerstones is dangerous. In making the distinction between the foundational words of Jesus and the important words of the rest of the Bible, we are following Paul’s teaching. The inspired words of Paul lead us to the inspired understanding that we should treat the words and actions of Jesus as foundation and cornerstone, to be put in place prior to the rest of Scripture. All Scripture finds its proper, useful, place when it adds to, builds on, what Jesus has said and done.
Other indications of the priority of Jesus are:
The divine voice from heaven at the Transfiguration telling Pater, John and James to listen to Jesus alone, not to listen to Jesus alongside Moses and Elijah, great contributors to all Scripture. (Mark 9:7, Matthew 17:5, Luke 9:35)
‘ Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds.’ (Hebrews 1:1,2}
Jesus telling his disciples to teach new disciples all he commanded, not all Scripture commanded. (Matthew 28:20)
Jesus speaking to the Pharisees saying ‘‘You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. Yet you refuse to come to me to have life.’ (John 5:38,39)
Jesus, not Scripture, described by Paul as the Head of the Church. (Ephesians 5:23, Colossians 1:18)
For more explanation see the chapter ‘Building Christian Doctrine’ in the Further section.
2. By following the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said ‘‘I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.’ (John 16:12-14)
Jesus did not say that the Scriptures would guide his followers into all the truth, but that the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit, would guide his followers into all the truth. After Jesus walked out of his own tomb and was then lifted into the heavens, the Holy Spirit now speaks words from Jesus. The Holy Spirit takes what Jesus has said before and explains and expounds it. Jesus did not say that the Holy Spirit would take all Scripture and declare its truth. He did say the Holy Spirit would take his words and declare their truth. This was particularly because Jesus had ‘many things to say’ which the first disciples would not be able to bear, to understand and apply, at that time.
Listening to the Holy Spirit and working out what he is saying, is complex, more complex in some ways than reading and understanding the Scriptures. But Jesus said clearly that it was through listening to the Spirit that his followers would continue to hear from him and that what he said through the Holy Spirit would not be only a repeat of what he has said before.
The priority of listening to the Spirit is a major difference between Christianity and Islam. The Holy Spirit will, said Jesus, say things which a previous generation ‘cannot bear.’ Although Jesus is the supreme authority for Christians, we do not believe that, in his time on earth, he said everything that needed to be said for people for the rest of history. Jesus had things that people needed to hear but the time of his earthly life was not the time for these words to be said.
Jesus remains the supreme authority for Christians – a living authority who continues to teach his people through the Holy Spirit taking what He hears from Jesus and declaring the message to Jesus’ people. Islam, by contrast, does believe that the revelations given to Mohammed contain everything that needed to be said for all people for all time. Nothing can follow the Koran. By contrast, the Holy Spirit can and does and must follow Jesus and we have to engage in the difficult task of listening to the Holy Spirit continuing to bring us the words of Jesus.
The Great Example
The Bible gives us an important, foundational, example of the Holy Spirit guiding the first Christians, the first Christians listening to the Spirit as a priority, even over the Scriptures.
Do God’s people need to keep the commands revealed by God to Moses for his people? The answer seems to be straightforward and obvious. ‘Yes, of course. If God has revealed a command for his people, surely that cannot change.’
The first Christians saw themselves as God’s people in two ways. They were Jewish, part of the people God had chosen and tasked and inspired and guided and disciplined and forgiven and protected for centuries. They were also followers, brothers and sisters, of Jesus, having been given power to become children of God more than servants of God. (John 1:12,13) They were now God’s family. They now had a new authority, Jesus, who they had seen, and a new ability to be guided directly by the voice of the Holy Spirit saying ‘This is the way: walk in it.’ (Isaiah 3):20,21) They were God’s people in a new way experiencing the fulfilment of promises in the Scriptures which were for the future time when God would establish a new relationship with all people and with all the earth.
The instinct and culture and understanding of these first Jewish Christians was that they continue to keep the commands revealed through Moses, and, probably, with even more enthusiasm, now that they had an even closer relationship with God and love for God. They truly delighted in the Law of the LORD.
But people with no Jewish background and culture and understanding were also becoming followers, brothers and sisters of Jesus, God’s children rather than servants, under the new authority of their great older brother and guided directly by the Holy Spirit. God’s people had been expanded beyond only Jewish people, to include Romans and Greeks. Should these people now live as the Jews, God’s people, had done for centuries? Why not? Who was to say that they did not have to keep the commands which God’s people had always kept?
The Holy Spirit was to say and did say precisely that. When Church leaders gathered in Jerusalem to consider the question of all God’s expanded people obeying the commands revealed to Moses, they decided that, with a couple of minor exceptions, Roman and Greek members of God’s people did not have to abstain from eating pork and other unclean food, did not even have to be circumcised.
Circumcision had, from the time of Abraham, been the fundamental mark of a member of God’s people. Even foreigners living in the households of God’s people were circumcised. But now Greeks and Romans and everyone could be part of God’s people without having been circumcised, without obeying all the commands revealed through Moses. An astonishing development, which Jesus had not commanded and which went against the weight of the Scriptures and centuries of teaching based on the Scriptures. How could the Church leaders make such a huge innovation? They explained how they could make this change: ‘It seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us.’ (Acts 15:28)
‘We are being guided by the Holy Spirit, as Jesus told us we would be,’ is another way of saying what is quoted in Acts. Not only is the guidance astonishing but the explanation of the authority behind the guidance is astonishing in its brief simplicity ‘It seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us.’
The idea that a major innovation could seem good to the Holy Spirit, that Church leaders could know what seems good to the Holy Spirit, that this could be said so simply without explanation or justification, is also astonishing. The only way to explain this remarkable way of making decisions is that the Church leaders did not see it as remarkable at all. They thought that being guided by the Holy Spirit, even into a decision against the weight of Scripture, was widely known and accepted by all of God’s expanded people, the Church. They thought that if they only wrote, ‘It seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us…’ this would be enough for everyone else to say ‘Yes. Thanks for telling us.’
Although the Church leaders did not explain how the Holy Spirit had guided them, Luke did explain in writing Acts. Maybe this was one of his motives in writing. Luke explains in repeated detail the dream which Peter had had in which he saw a sheet descending from heaven carrying a variety of animals, and he heard a voice saying ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ (Acts 10:11-16, Acts 11:4-12) Peter had said to the crowd on the day of Pentecost that the Holy Spirit gives dreams and visions. Peter and others understood this dream to be from the Holy Spirit. This was one important way in which the Holy Spirit guided the Church leaders, through a dream given to the senior leader, someone who had been miraculously delivered from prison, thereby affirmed as being necessary to the Church.
Today too we do well to expect the Holy Spirit to give us dreams and visions for our guidance, not only for our individual lives, but for our Church. In our church culture, paying attention to dreams and visions are not a normal part of making decisions or forming doctrine. For us, Peter’s vision is abnormal. The first Christians were different. For them dreams and visions were normal, and could be authoritative, if clearly from the Holy Spirit. In the further section is part of a vision given to the US Church Leader, Rick Joyner, about the words of Jesus, only, being foundational.
Luke also explains at length how Romans and Greeks becoming followers, brothers and sisters of Jesus, was the work of the Holy Spirit, not only through Peter but also through Paul and Barnabas. (Acts 11:19-26, Acts 13 and 14.) The Church leaders meeting in Jerusalem had much evidence that that Holy Spirit was indeed bringing Romans and Greeks into the people of God, himself dwelling in them and flowing through them, although they were not obeying the commands revealed to Moses. Luke indicates that the vision and the Holy Spirit in the Romans and Greeks were enough for them to say ‘It seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us.’ Today too we need to be prepared to look for the work of the Holy Spirit in people’s lives and to take this seriously as part of our being guided into fresh understanding.
Confirmation through remembering Jesus
The Church leaders in Jerusalem probably also remembered words of Jesus which fitted with, paved the way for, the new understanding of God’s people and the Law revealed through Moses. Jesus had said that what defiles, what makes a person unclean, is not the food they eat but what comes from their heart. (Mark 7:17-23, Matthew 15:17-20,} Mark adds the comment: ‘Thus he declared all foods clean.’ At the time Mark was writing, he explains that God’s expanded people no longer having to obey the food laws revealed through Moses, was based on the teaching of Jesus. It is likely that, some, at least, of these leaders had also made the connection between the words of Jesus and what seemed good to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was indeed taking what was of Jesus and declaring the implication to Jesus’s people, in a way that they could not have borne before witnessing the Spirit at work among Romans and Greeks, and knowing the vision the Holy Spirit gave to Peter, just as Jesus said.
Jesus had also said that ‘Love your neighbour as you love yourself,’ is the foundation on which all other laws, commands, are built. Insisting that neighbours with no Jewish background are circumcised does not appear loving. Maybe this too assured the Church leaders that in recognising what seemed good to the Holy Spirit they were also following the teaching of Jesus.
Controversy
Although the Church leaders seemed to think that all Christians would respect their, unexplained, view that the Holy was guiding the Church into not insisting that Romans and Greeks and anyone else obey all the commands revealed through Moses, much controversy followed. The rest of the book of Acts and the letters of Paul give ample evidence of this controversy. It did not seem good to some Church leaders that the commands given to God’s people suddenly did not apply to God’s expanded people.
Paul writes at length explaining and justifying the new understanding of the commands revealed through Moses, of ‘the Law.’ Paul criticises other leaders who refuse to accept the new understanding.
Paul urges all his readers, in various places, to accept that they are not ‘under the Law’ but under Grace. Jesus has removed the great ‘or else’ which gives the Law its power: ‘Do this, don’t do that, or else you will die.’ Now that Jesus has died for our sins, and we have received and continue to receive free forgiveness, believing in Jesus, we have no prospect of the ‘or else.’ Our future is not of judgement which we might fail, but of forgiving welcome.
Jesus removing the ‘or else’ has brought a new understanding of the Law. The Law was useful in showing people their need to be forgiven, but now that we live in guaranteed forgiveness, we have a different guide in life. ‘You are not under Law but under Grace.’ (Romans 6:14) ‘There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.’ (Romans 8:1,2) ‘If you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the Law.’ (Galatians 5:16) Paul explains in detail what the Church leaders meeting in Jerusalem did not explain – how and why God’s expanded people do not need to obey the commands given through Moses.
Paul also writes at length that the new life of guaranteed forgiveness does not mean that Christians do anything they like. The new life is lived not according to the Law, the commands, but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:3-17) Christians do not constantly bear in mind what the Law tells them to do. Christians constantly live according to what the Spirit guides them to do: ‘This is the way, walk in it.’ Each Christian and the whole Church together, make decisions based not on ‘What has the Law told us to do?’ but on ‘What is the Spirit telling us to do?’ Paul also explains in detail why the Church leaders in Jerusalem explained their decision as ‘It seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us…’
Up to today
Much of the New Testament, Acts and the letters of Paul, urge us to be guided by the Holy Spirit, including in ways which are fresh, seemingly contrary to how people have previously understood the Scriptures, and are even controversial. The decision of the Church leaders in Jerusalem is not conveyed to us only so that we respect it, but also so that we see how Church decisions are to be made. After that decision, the Holy Spirit did not stop guiding Jesus’ people. Jesus said the Holy Spirit would continue to guide his people, his family, including in fresh ways which His people could not have borne previously.
The Holy Spirit has indeed guided the Church through history. The need to abolish slavery was a big fresh Christian understanding from the Holy Spirit. The Bible, as a whole, teaches that slavery is part of life and that slave owners should not mistreat slaves. The Holy Spirit first showed Quakers, particularly open to the Holy Spirit, that no-one can own a slave who they love as a neighbour as they love themselves. If the owner loves their own freedom they must give the same freedom to their slaves. Through much debate, controversy and campaigning, the Church has come to agree that slavery needs to be abolished. Complete abolition has not yet been achieved.
A similar process ended Christian support for Apartheid in South Africa. Influential Church leaders argued that the Bible teaches that God made separate peoples to live in separate lands and that this justifies white South Africans holding the best land in South Africa, treating other peoples as semi-slaves. The Holy Spirit has led the Church to withdraw support for Apartheid on the simple basis that it is incompatible with loving our neighbour as we love ourselves. Complete love of neighbour has not yet been achieved. Desmond Tutu, Archbishop of Cape Town, spoke just after the elections which cemented the end of political Apartheid: ‘Before the election white people owned 87% of the land of South Africa. After the election white people still owned 87% of the land of South Africa.’
The words of Jesus were proclaimed afresh by the Holy Spirit generations after Jesus. Jesus remains the same and the Holy Spirit remains the same.
A key document of my Church, the Church of England, states: ‘The Church of England is part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, worshipping the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It professes the faith uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds, which faith the Church is called upon to proclaim afresh in each generation.’ Every Church of England Minister has to Assent that the Holy Spirit has led the Church of England in fresh understanding and proclamation and continues to lead us in each generation.
Fresh understanding, fresh answers, today, are widely known as a gift of the Holy Spirit.
Are you saying that anyone who disagrees with Fresh Bible Answers is disagreeing with the Holy Spirit?
We are not that certain, nor arrogant. We are saying that fresh answers from Jesus and the Bible are possible today through the Holy Spirit. We put forward certain answers recognising only the whole Church can truly affirm that they are from the Holy Spirit as Church leaders did when gathering in Jerusalem at the beginning of the Church’s history.
3. By paying close attention to the exact words of Jesus and the Bible.
One way in which the Holy Spirit is known to guide Jesus’ people is to ‘illumine’ certain words in the Bible. Any Christian now can read the Bible, asking the Holy Spirit to show them what he wants them to see and understand. Many Christians report that they have read certain parts of the Bible many times, but, on occasion, a word or verse stands out in a fresh way.
The ancient practice of Lectio Divina (Godly Reading) is based on this common gift of the Holy Spirit. In Lectio Divina a Christian reads a small part of the Bible, with an open mind and heart, wondering if anything will resonate particularly that day. A word or a phrase could seem odd, or delightful, or challenging, or resonate in some other fresh way. The simple sense of inner resonation with a small part of the Bible is taken as the voice of the Holy Spirit. The resonating words are cherished, repeated, mulled over, through a day or more.
Even today, after people have studied the words of Jesus and of the Bible for centuries, some words resonate afresh in this generation when we look at them closely and openly. When we are able to connect with the Greek or Hebrew in which the Bible was written, this fresh view can bypass a traditional understanding expressed by translators.
For example, in John 7:37 Jesus says ‘Out of the believer’s koilia shall flow rivers of living water.’ Koilia is the straightforward Greek word for belly. Yet the English translators today mostly give us ‘Out of the believer’s heart…’ (The King James Version translates koilia as belly.) They explain this by saying that in Jesus’ day and language the belly was seen as the seat of emotion, but in our day and language the heart is seen as the seat of emotion. So, the common answer to the question ‘From where does the Holy Spirit flow from within us?’ is ‘From our heart.’
But kardia is the Greek word for heart, which gives us cardiac care as medical care for our heart. Jesus said ‘For it is from within, from the human heart, kardia, that evil intentions come…’ including envy and pride. (Mark 7:21) Jesus spoke of the heart as the seat of emotion and used a different word for the place from which the Holy Spirit flows. Jesus’ culture and language was not so different from our own. We, too, talk of ‘gut feelings.’
The Holy Spirit flows from our guts, not from our heart. We should not expect the flow of the Holy Spirit to be necessarily an emotional experience, although the Holy Spirit can and does flow from our belly into our heart, and our mind. This is a fresh answer to ‘From where does the Holy Spirit flow within us?’ based on close attention to the particular word used by Jesus. Further explanation of what it means to have the Holy Spirit flowing from our belly, is in the Holy Spirit section.
More Fresh Bible Answers come from close attention to particular words of Jesus and of the Bible.
Too many standard Christian answers are given to refute other Christians. Protestant, Evangelical, answers make sure they are different from, often opposed to, Catholic answers, and vice versa. Fresh Bible Answers aims to refute no-one and to make everyone think afresh. We are not actively looking for answers with which all Christians might agree, though we hope that the answers we come to, following the approach described so far, will be welcomed by more than one Christian camp. We hope for Christian unity as an important consequence of basing thinking on Jesus, seeking to be guided by the Holy Spirit and paying close attention to exact words in the Bible.
A simplistic summary of the Christian camps and their development:
Roman Catholic: Historically, the Catholic Church has thought and taught about The Lord God, The Lord Jesus, and The Holy Church.
Protestant / Evangelical. Historically, the Protestant, Evangelical, Churches have thought and taught about The Lord God, The Lord Jesus and The Holy Bible.
Liberal: With a shorter history, the Liberal Churches have thought and taught about The Good God, The Good Jesus, and Holy Reason.
Orthodox: Less intimate knowledge of the Churches of Eastern Europe and the Middle East gives the impression that they have thought and taught about The Lord God, The Lord Jesus, The Holy Church and the Holy Empire.
All these Church camps developed in Christendom: the official alliance, or compromise, between the Church and the Empire or State. The Roman Empire adopted Christianity as its official religion. Alongside military force and threat, Christianity became a glue to bind together the disparate peoples and nations of the Empire. The existence, standing, and continuing role of the Empire and the Emperor were upheld by the Church giving the Empire divine approval and support. The existence, standing and continuing role of the Church, were upheld by the Empire giving the Church military and legal approval and support.
In Christendom, it was natural to think in terms of Empire, of God as The Supreme Lord, a greater version of the Supreme Emperor. It was natural to think of Jesus alongside The Lord God as also The Lord. Many church buildings in Christendom have great paintings of Jesus enthroned in heaven, as the Emperor was enthroned on earth. The Lord Jesus and the Christian life were seen, understood, through an imperial lens. This was only strengthened with the rise of the challenging Islamic Empire which needed to be resisted and combatted with a robust Christian Empire.
As the Empire needed faithful administrators, lawyers and occasional inspiring heroes, so the Church celebrated faithful administrators, lawyers and occasional hero saints. Under the Lord Jesus in the churches were painted Bishops and Saints, true conveyors of the authority of Jesus to those at ground level. Hence the development of The Lord God, The Lord Jesus and The Holy Church.
Orthodox Churches were part of the Eastern Roman Empire, based in Constantinople, which lasted far longer than the Western Empire based in Rome. Their church buildings have similar paintings, of The Lord God, The Lord Jesus, The Holy Church, and, particularly in Greece, symbols of the old Byzantine Empire. After Constantinople was defeated and taken over by Moslem Armies, Orthodox Christians held to their allegiance to the former Empire, or, in Russia, gave allegiance and holy approval to the newer Russian Empire.
Protestants protested against the prominence given to the Church, its understandings and needs. With the invention of printing and the sudden wide availability of Bibles, it was not difficult to see that some Church teaching and practice had not only built on the teaching and practice of the Bible, but produced concepts and procedures which seemed in contradiction to the Bible. Protestants replaced The Holy Church with The Holy Bible.
At the same time, the authority of the Empire and the Holy Roman Emperor in Europe had been eclipsed by the authority of the Church. This allowed the distinct nations and language groups of the Empire to increase local authority in matters not the prime concern of the Church. Nations were developing.
The Protestant Christians transferred their allegiance and divine approval to the local, rather than imperial, authority. Martin Luther in Germany, the spearhead of the Protestant Reformation, relied on the practical, military, support of his local authority. It was still natural to think and talk also of Jesus as The Lord, a greater Authority. Protestants promoted and created a fragmented Christendom, in competition with the Catholic uniform Christendom. Jesus, and the Christian life, were still seen, understood through an imperial lens.
Protestants majored on interpreting the Bible, not according to traditional Church doctrine, but according to their own reading and reasoning. Very quickly, different Protestant leaders developed different readings and reasonings, leading to different churches or denominations. All were confident that they were true servants of the Lord God, The Lord Jesus and The Holy Bible.
The process of reading and reasoning without adhering to traditional teaching, understanding, was soon applied wider than to the Bible. Nature, life, could and should be read and considered by reason. Science began to develop strongly. Truth was not to be found in the deliberations of Church teachers deriving authority either from the Church or from the Bible. Truth could be found through observation and deduction, a dual process which became its own authority.
The influence of Jesus and the Bible remained strong. Many ‘scientists’, such as Isaac Newton, understood themselves to be learning from the Creator’s work in nature as previous generations had learnt from the divine inspiration of the Church or the Bible. These men retained a basic faith that the Creator was good and faithful, not demanding and capricious, and had set laws for the good of nature and of humankind. With this faith, they looked for and found laws of nature, confirming the understanding that the Creator was good, wanting the best for his creation, especially for humankind.
Christians who embrace this, newer, tradition of thinking are now known as Liberals, holding to The Good God, The Good Jesus and Holy Reason. At best, they define goodness according to the goodness seen in Jesus. At worst, they define goodness in terms of what is good in their own eyes and in the eyes of their society. Reason, as they understand it, becomes the ultimate authority. The Liberal understanding is not based so much on Christendom, but has grown out of and carries some of the antagonistic hallmarks of Christendom.
In the West, particularly in Europe, since the 1960s, Christendom has now ended. Christianity is no longer the official religion of the State. The State no longer allies nor compromises with the Church and the Church no longer needs ally nor compromise with the State. The fundamental religious environment, which had been part of life for over 1600 years, has changed. We are in a new age indeed.
Christians are now free to think of and relate to God in terms other than The Lord God and to think of and relate to Jesus in terms other than The Lord Jesus. Christians no longer have to choose between prioritising The Holy Church, maybe with The Holy Empire, or the Holy Bible. Christians are free to prioritise The Holy Spirit who inspires and brings holiness through the Church, through the Bible, through godly leaders and through godly reason.
As the old divisions of Christendom fade, Christians will no longer need to define themselves against other Christians. We look forward to fresh insights, fresh answers, fresh appreciation of and relationship with The Father, The Son Jesus, and The Holy Spirit.
‘Behold, see! I am doing a new thing,’ says the God and Father of Jesus.
