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I'm not the unnamed preacher, but I'll reply for my use of his remarks. I did not mean it in the way you may have taken it, but I accept your remarks as putting a necessary limit on how far to take what he said (and I implied).

I think you have already put your finger on it, although if I'm not careful I'll make a mess of it, and you two will have to bail me out. The Word was there from the beginning. Scripture wasn't there from the beginning, but the Word was.

Over time the Word revealed himself, and people wrote it down. That is what is unique about the Hebrews, not simply that God worked with them, as I think God has worked with people in general. The Hebrews are unique in that they understood themselves in that way, they understood their history as an encounter between man and God. And most importantly they wrote it down.

God, the Holy Spirit, did not go to sleep after the final books of the Bible were mailed off to the publisher. God still is very much in the fray, and people are still writing these things down. The difference is that what we write is not canonical, meaning that we don't all agree to what degree the things we experience and write are driven by the Holy Spirit. We all agree on a certain collection of documents, we don't agree on anything past that.

But that does not close the door on God, I believe, he still moves among us. The Holy Spirit is still at work. And the unnamed preacher's challenge was to look up and out and see what God is doing. It was as much a challenge to look at his fingerprints in creation, as to understand that he lives, he moves, he is. We need to be out in the fray as well. I think he was trying to tell people not to be so other-worldly as to miss what is going on right now, and miss your work that is right in front of you, right now.

God is no less in motion now than he was during the days that the scriptures were being written. Scripture gives us a framework to understand what we see and experience. But we should be prepared to recognize that what we see and do now is part of the story that will be written at the end.

And finally, I know what you are referring to, when you note the way in which the Holy Spirit can speak in the immediate through scriptures as you read them... that is a whole different subject, but it is true. Don't think I was disparaging such a thing, I wouldn't do it. If what I wrote seems to imply that, I need to rein in my metaphors. They get me in trouble all the time.

The Holy Spirit is still at work. And the unnamed preacher's challenge was to look up and out and see what God is doing. It was as much a challenge to look at his fingerprints in creation, as to understand that he lives, he moves, he is. We need to be out in the fray as well. I think he was trying to tell people not to be so other-worldly as to miss what is going on right now, and miss your work that is right in front of you, right now.

RE: My reply at 112: On the other hand, all of the above is true also, marron. At bottom, the Unknown Preacher seems have taken quite for granted the Christian acculturation of his flock, which would enable them to imagine ways in which God is acting in the world. I think that Christian belief is not supposed to be "otherworldly." Its two great laws place an enormous emphasis on the actuality of the here and now, with the "what's going on right under our noses," so to speak. FWIW

Thanks for your good words.

Especially after being involved in a fellowship that I'd call overly prophetic in emphasis (among other things) I've been really blessed and reassured recently, to read what Jesus had to say about the Holy Spirit that He went to the Father for permission to send. Things like "testify about me," "the sent one not is above the one who sends him," and so on.

I hear teachers teaching over and over again that the Trinity is all God and no personage above the other. Excuse me, teachers, but the Trinity teaches that there is an order of authority as it pertains to us and that order is 1. Father, 2. Son (Logos), and 3. Holy Spirit (Rhema).