Ideas Are Art
That’s why some of my closest friends and mentors have become somewhat concerned with my approach to the Bible. Because I don’t see the Jesus of black and white words . . . detached, scientific, analytical syllables. I see Jesus and his ideas.
Perhaps they’re right. Maybe this is too loose of a starting point. Too porous.
But for me, Jesus wasn’t a man of words. But a man of ideas.
While you might not see the difference . . . or you may think that words and ideas are the same thing . . . or ideas are made of words . . . or something along those lines . . . I see a considerable divergence between the two. While it is true that ideas are made of words. Words are not made of ideas.
Words are somewhat final. They almost beg to be dissected. To be studied. You can talk about words. You can pinpoint their origins. Explain their meaning. Argue over their pronunciation. And if you’re feeling really brassy, you can fight over them.
Ideas are much different.
Ideas show you a bigger picture, an overarching theme. They’re somewhat open-ended. They inspire. They are like seeds. When heard or read or seen, they plant down within us. Take root. And germinate. And if successful they flower into a movement . . . a revolution . . .
Ideas are like art. Words are science.
Ideas can’t germinate and flourish in a closed and rigid environment. They only take root where the soil has been stirred and turned over enough. When the soil is stirred and loose enough for a seed to fall from a hand and settle into the dark, loose dirt. Embedding within it. Dormant at first, but explosive in time.
that’s a great way of looking at things… however, i would caution don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. i think there are some words that Jesus said that are important and can help fill in all those “holes”… but i don’t think our job or role is to fill in all those holes either.
great thoughts josh.
hey man - i appreciate what you’re getting at here and would say that i’m mostly right on with what you’re saying. but where i struggle is that the words are the portal we have into the idea, and for me that’s tough understanding that i’m reading something that’s been translated.
i’m definitely not someone who studies greek and harps on dissecting grammar and all that, but i definitely believe it has at least a place in the discussion of scripture. from the little i’ve studied, it seems to me certain passages carry such stronger emotional context understanding the connotations of words that he chose. i’m not saying jump off the deep end into scientifically analyzing the scriptures, but isn’t there a balance to this, understanding that originally these words (all we’ve got) were written in a language (with subtext, emotion, and insinuations) that we can’t comprehend?
does that make sense? maybe the key is to try to see past the words when we read, and then come behind with some simple aids to see what connotations we might have missed? i don’t know the answer, but it’s important for anyone who reads the bible and wants to base their life off it.
but yeah, my heart is to embrace the ideas behind those words too.
looking forward to having lunch today man.
I’m with the above two comments…your thinking continues to push me to do the same, because I think it’s immensely healthy to blow the Bible out of the modernistic, mechanistic prison we’ve put it in; with Jesus being the most central part we should free.
It seems healthy in recovering original meaning and Scripture as “idea” with overarching dominant themes, etc to use both/and thinking (instead of either/or) when we’re reacting against something. Several of your posts down, I commented on what I think is the common human response when reacting to something unhealthy; we slide to the opposite extreme…often just as unhealthy.
So I think the D10 and monts critiques are well-said. Some things Jesus said WERE meant to be concrete expectations he carried for his follower, and we should recognize them as such. The reality, however, that you’re uncovering here, seems to be that the vast majority of Jesus’ teaching was NOT the concrete stuff, but philosophical and ideas-driven underpinnings to form what our lives should be all about.
I like it. It’s challening me.
*challenging* not challening!
sounds a lot like Barth. the verbum dei/verbo dei (check the latin on that) but the idea is that the bible isn’t the words of god, but the word of god - or better it points to the word of god - the idea of god - jesus the word/idea/revelation of god.
good stuff old Barth.
Yeah this is pretty good, since we don’t have any way to know what Jesus actually said.
This also reminds me of a quote from Dogma. Remember what Chris Rock said?
Well, the best glimpse we have into what Jesus actually said is the gospels; so we concede authority in that matter to the Bible…precisely because they were either written by or contributed to by eyewitnesses of his ministry.
In other words, I don’t think we should throw up our hands and say “We don’t know” and go on with our merry selves…then we have a hopelessly fragmented system without any agree-upon goal other than flaky ideas about “love” or “peace,” etc.
you and your jesus seminar nick. i’m just saying it’s nothing more than modern rational skepticism which isn’t any better than modern rational absolutism.
but here’s your rufus/rock quote. which i think leans more to the mysterious/spiritual side than the rational skepticism side.
Rufus: He still digs humanity, but it bothers Him to see the shit that gets carried out in His name - wars, bigotry, but especially the factioning of all the religions. He said humanity took a good idea and, like always, built a belief structure on it.
Bethany: Having beliefs isn’t good?
Rufus: I think it’s better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier. Life should malleable and progressive; working from idea to idea permits that. Beliefs anchor you to certain points and limit growth; new ideas can’t generate. Life becomes stagnant.
nice reference nick.
Ideas without beliefs create a foundationless existence…the integration of the two allows for a dynamic response to life that remains rooted in what is “real.”
belief v. idea. i think the point is that we need to be flexible and humble about our beliefs/ideas because we are fallen and fallible and therefore we could be wrong. if we are certain about something it isn’t faith, it is certainty and certainty almost always leads to pride. so i don’t think it is about the semantics of belief v. idea, but rather the question is - do you/i/we hold what we believe to be true, or our ideas with humility or are we prideful jack asses? the one road leads to enlightenment, joy, peace, hope, love, the other leads to radicalism, hate, the creation of the “other.”
that is just my opinion. i am not a scholar just a carpenter. but it seems to me the more i think i know the more i realize i don’t know much and what i thought i knew seems less certain.
i guess what i was originally trying to convey had more to do with our approach to the text. not to point out what texts had certainty and what texts lacked it. but rather with what the purpose of scripture is to begin with (our beliefs about inspiration withstanding). i think the general idea of the holy spirit sparking and stirring in most of the biblical writers (and even when the writers just wanted to give their own point of view) had more to do with them telling the story of how they had engaged with God. and how God was engaging with them. so it was primarily a recording of relationships and big ideas and themes.
it’d be like me telling you a story of this experience that had shaped me and altered my life in a unique way. the focus wouldn’t be on the words (although they could certainly be extrapolated out from the original conversation and discussed for original meaning, definitions, and pronunciations). but the meaning for the words would be found in the narrative/relational arc that was above them.
so jesus comes in and is simply doing life the way that he did it. telling stories. healing people (which i believe in where modern rational skepticism does not). throwing parties. and giving gifts. knowing that one day his friends would creatively and imaginatively retell their story of their friend from galilee. talking about how he related to them and how they related back to him.
this is a retelling that is concerned with relationships and ideas first. realizing that words just happen to make up the ideas. he wasn’t giving analytical words to be turned into law and code. if he wanted that he could have just dropped the bible down from the sky the way he wanted it.
or something like that.
You know, I haven’t read these comments yet, but I’m pretty sure that Josh is wrong and everyone else is right.
I am a Greek Geek. I love reading and learning from it . . . but I never think that such things are an end in themselves. In fact, the longer I study, the more I concepualize these things as tools that help me understand Jesus. Not his words or teachings, but his essence. This, I believe, is what Christian theology is: understanding the principles behind the words; understanding the essence of Jesus’ identity.
O.k. So maybe im just this really simple minded guy but i just skimmed over all of those comments barely reading anything that was written because i cant see the sense in all of this talk.
When i was in school for photography we had this one rule that guruanteed a good shot, K.I.S. (Keep It Simple). i have always tried to apply that to my spiritual journey.
Jesus was an amazing man (who i would like to believe was the Son of God) who brought an irresistible message of hope and reconcilation to a bunch of really screwed up people (aka all of humanity). I think thats it, plain and simple.
Guess i’m just playing devils advocate for anyone else who reads posts on theology and just doesnt really see the point of it.
nice tank, ha.
Corey,
Keeping it simple is one thing. Being simplistic is another. There’s something to be said about grasping the big picture while not neglecting the details, because both mean the world. I completely agree with you that Jesus was an amazing man who made an audacious claim to be the Son of Go, who brought an irresistable message of hope and reconciliation to a bunch of really screwed up people. But if that’s all you and I ever work with, we aren’t really plunging into what the meaning of his life, death, and resurrection does to affect our practical, everyday existence…
I say this because there’s a few details in this whole mess that radically affect things:
1) Jesus was murdered for bringing this message of hope and reconciliation…so something about this hope rubbed people the wrong way: which means it wasn’t just a message about hope, but something that fundamentally confronted and turned upside-down what the life of a “faithful” person looked like. And this was so confrontational they killed him.
What does that mean for us? We can’t just say Jesus’ life was all about hope and reconciliation. It was about that and so much more…and if we get simplistic about that, we run the major risk of reading our definitions of what hope and reconciliation is into this life rather than letting God reshape everything for us.
And this conversation is really what emergent is all about, as I see it. Simplifying what was far too complex before (your point), demanding that those who are so obsessed about quoting little batches of verses in favor of God looking like them should “shut up” and deal with the bigger picture.
But it’s also about having conversations about practical reality. Yeah, I can read about what happened in Jesus, but what the heck does that have to do with me life? How do I define and embody the pursuit of righteousness, love, justice, peacemaking, serving others? Because my definition is bound to be inadequate in those matters and my heart is crying out (even though some of Jesus’ definitions are TOUGH) for God’s definitions for those things…because I’ve been created to live into those.
I’m all for KIS. I’m completely against being simplistic, because we run the risk of future generations of Christfollowers being just as shallow as the present…just in a different way.
And by the way, just to head things off at the pass, I’m of the mind that Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, not the Son of Go, as I seem to be implying above.
I love the Son of Go.
yeah, much more edgy than the son of god…more fun too.
Nate,
Thanks for the explanation. Very well said.