Med Student meets Theologian

The Word of God is a living and active sword, not a cadaver awaiting dissection.
-Steve Schlissel

I find myself doing this all the time. In order to understand something, I take it apart, mentally or otherwise. Pulsator isn’t working right. Take it apart. Brakes wore out on the family jalopy; take it apart and fix it. Fellow Christian doesn’t believe rightly on the Decree of Providence; dismantle him… Right?
There are some things you just can’t take apart. One thing we’ve dissected ad nauseum is the Bible. For instance, who came up with the idea of Testaments? (ie, the page break between Malachi and Matthew) Chapters? Verses? References? Notes? Are they necessarily helpful? Quite simply, yes. Quite honestly, I’m not so sure.
Let’s revert back to our erring brother. We go to our handy concordance and look up all the verses with key words in it. Volia! He’s put right. So he walks down to see his Dispy friend and they start talking about the Church vs Israel. Get out the same handy concordance and, Volia! Instant Dispy. Why? Because there was no organic connection between God’s people thousands of years ago with God’s people today. All saved by Christ, all benefits of his salvation.
Another subtle overtone is the phrase ‘take it apart’. I may be stretching things here but I want to write it down whether it fits or not. If you take something apart, you do just that. You ‘take’ it.

“What if we start with the radical idea that God has given us [as his people] grace, or even the more radical idea that He’s given it to our children!”

Steve Schlissel spoke that at a Conference clarifying the Federal Vision. God has revealed and given everything He wants us to know. To us and our children.

I think many leaders in the Reformed church have the wrong (in practice) metaphor of the church. We are Christ’s bride growing and maturing, waiting for the supper of the Lamb. Not a cadaver to take apart and examine. It starts to get a little hairy when you want to put everything back together; the rigor mortis part makes it troublesome.