2:12 PM
@curiousdannii As much as I like the NIV for its more contemporary word scholarship, readability, and paragraphing, it does tend to lean toward a Protestant interpretation of the text in its translation. The NLT translation even moreso.
Having said that, δικαιόω does mean "made righteous." I don't know where the "considered" comes from. And the Greek text does not have "with God" as in the NLT. Much of the confusion, I think, comes from the common use of the more abstract translation "justified" rather than the more concrete "made righteous."
For the most part, passages using this word are not talking about a judicial action at all, but about a person becoming a righteous person. If this more concrete reading of the word were used in the standard translation, the meaning of the text would be clearer.
@curiousdannii Not showing righteousnss, but becoming righteous. It's not a matter of appearance. It's a matter of substance. And Paul is talking about the same thing when he talks about δικαιόω.
@curiousdannii Yes, of course we must use our brain in reading the Bible, just as we must use our brain in listening to a friend's story. Our brain stores and continually augments meanings of words and phrases in various contexts so that we can understand better and better what we hear and read.
And when I say that we just need no read the Bible, not interpret it, I don't mean that we just read verses in isolation. We read them in the context of their paragraphs, chapters, the book they are in, and the whole Bible. And the more we read the whole Bible, the more we can understand individual chapters and verses, because each is informed and given meaning by the rest, and by the whole.
So we must not only read James and Paul in the context of each other, but read both of them in the context of the whole NT, and of the whole Bible. The meaning becomes clear as we see what is said elsewhere on these subjects in the Bible, building up a coherent picture into which Paul and James fit like puzzle pieces.
But that's not what Protestant doctrine does. Instead, it has latched onto a few verses in Paul, given them a particular, and unwarranted, meaning--sola fide and penal substitution--and then interpreted the entire rest of the Bible based on that re-interpretation of those few verses in Paul. That's simply not a good way to read or understand the Bible.
If the meanings that Protestant doctrine assigns to those verses in Paul were actually expressed clearly and plainly in the Bible's own words somewhere, and preferably repeatedly, elsewhere in the Bible, they might be defensible. But they're not.
So instead of paying attention to the Bible's own clearest statements and explanations, Protestant doctrine takes two principles that aren't expressed in the Bible's own words at all, and uses them as an interpretive lens to assign meaning to everything in the Bible.
Swedenborg proceeded completely differently. As he was leaving Lutheran doctrine behind--a process that took several years--he read the Bible intensively in the original languages, continually paying attention to exactly what it said, in its own words. As he read the text over and over from beginning to end, a coherent picture emerged. That picture was based on the Bible's own words and expressions, not on external doctrines imposed on the Bible even though they are not actually stated there.
I do my best to read the Bible in the same way. Before applying any interpretation at all (and yes, I do interpret the Bible very often), I work hard to understand what the text itself says in its plain, literal meaning, within the context of its own times and cultures. Without that, no interpretation can rest on a sound basis, because it's not based on what the text itself says, in its own words and meanings.
Swedenborg's principle was that the doctrine of the church must be drawn from the literal sense of the Bible, and confirmed by it. He did not use spiritual correspondences and interpretations as a basis for doctrine. In fact, he was very firm and specific in rejecting such a method of deriving doctrine.
That is why I, too, insist that if we are going to claim that something is fundamental church doctrine, we'd better be able to show where the Bible says it in its own plain words. And the Protestant doctrine of salvation abysmally fails this test.
@curiousdannii Whenever you're ready to reject the word "alone" in conjunction with "faith," "grace," and so on, then I might accept your claim that my doctrine is close to the Protestant doctrine. But I have found that you, like other Protestants, cling doggedly to the word "alone," and are not willing to renounce it. And as long as you do stick doggedly to that "alone," it will be very clear to me that your doctrine is light years away from mine.
@curiousdannii I really don't see any conflict between Ephesians 2 and James 2. If we understand what Paul was talking about--not needing to be an observant Jew--then the whole discrepancy simply disappears. It is true that Paul emphasized faith, while James emphasized works. But both insisted on the necessity of both faith and works, in the sense of "good deeds." So their differences are a matter of emphasis, not a matter of fundamental disagreement as some have said.
Paul never rejected the necessity of good works for salvation. What he rejected was "the works of the law," meaning the Jewish ritual and sacrificial law. And he's saying the same thing in Ephesians 2, as is clear from the verses immediately following the two that Protestants commonly quote.
Once again, Protestant doctrine is based on a few isolated verses in Paul, which are misinterpreted precisely because they are read in isolation from the rest of Paul, and from the rest of the Bible. Put those verses in their wider context, and their meaning becomes clear.