Firbush Retreats Firbush retreats are organized and led by Robert T. Walker. Firbush retreats are designed to make the best theology accessible to as many people as possible and especially those not trained in theology and often not familiar with routine technical terms. They combine times of worship and prayer with reflection on a theme related to Torrance theology. For more information see https://tftorrance.org/firbush. ----------- Firbush Retreat Fall 2015 Nov 12, 2015 Robert T. Walker, "Word and Spirit in Torrance" https://tftorrance.org/firbushS2012 The audio recording for this presentation is available on the Firbush Retreat section of the website for the Thomas F. Torrance Theological Fellowship. The following AI transcript is too rough to rely upon, but perhaps useful for word searches and time-stamps. It is unretouched; if anyone wishes to listen to it and clean it up we will be happy to post an improved version (contact the webmasters). We invite speakers to send us slides for their talks, which we will post alongside the audios and transcripts. If any speaker wishes to have their talk removed from the website, just let us know and we'll take down both the audio and the transcript. ------------ 00:00-00:11 It's always a great pleasure to be here at these retreats with you all and with the 00:11-00:18 warm fellowship and exploring theology together. 00:18-00:27 What Bruce said about the debate in England once made me think of the last night in the 00:27-00:39 bar and we were discussing theology solidly until 12 o'clock and then we decided that 00:39-00:42 discretion not to prevail. 00:42-00:48 So the sadness we stopped for the time. 00:48-00:52 The word and the spirit in the life of Jesus, key themes in T.F. 00:52-01:01 There will be a handout at the end but I think it's better to listen and then you'll get 01:01-01:06 it almost all written down. 01:06-01:11 Word and the spirit in the life of Jesus, three of the key themes in T.F. in theology. 01:11-01:17 Note the title is wording, it's not the word, it's just word. 01:17-01:23 Jesus is the word so we can't speak about the eternal word as something in the life 01:23-01:28 of Jesus because he himself is the word. 01:28-01:35 The eternal word has become and is now identical with the man Jesus. 01:35-01:43 The spirit, we have to speak about the spirit and not just spirit because we're talking 01:43-01:51 about the Holy Spirit who is other than Jesus, the third person of the Trinity but who indwells 01:51-01:54 the incarnate word. 01:54-02:02 The life of Jesus, here we speak about the whole active dynamic life of Jesus from birth 02:02-02:06 to death, resurrection and ascension into heaven. 02:06-02:17 The whole incarnate life of the word become flesh, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, lived out 02:17-02:23 in the power of the spirit and continuing in heaven for us. 02:23-02:29 And T.F. laid great stress on all of these intrinsically inseparable elements. 02:29-02:33 We'll look at them one by one. 02:33-02:39 First of all, word in the life of Jesus. 02:39-02:49 The eternal word, from all eternity there has been a word in God and so from all eternity 02:49-02:55 God has been a speaking God in himself. 02:55-03:02 The word is also the eternal son in the bosom of the father and so from all eternity God 03:02-03:07 has been a speaking personal God. 03:07-03:17 From all eternity there has been a speaking personal living, loving, indwelling and communion 03:17-03:21 of three persons in the one God. 03:21-03:27 All those aspects are equally inseparable. 03:27-03:37 Equally for the most part we've recognised the personal loving communing nature of God 03:37-03:46 but we need to recognise the equally constitutive word nature of God far more than we do. 03:46-03:52 Christ God is word, Christ is word not just son. 03:52-04:00 Word as understood in the Old Testament and even more so applied to Christ denotes speaking, 04:00-04:10 message, intelligible mind, personalness, dynamism and action. 04:10-04:17 These are all aspects, key aspects of the meaning of word in the Bible. 04:17-04:23 The word also always does what he says and is truth. 04:23-04:28 The word is word done, the incarnate word. 04:28-04:36 When the word becomes flesh he is not simply doing the truth, fulfilling the covenant from 04:36-04:42 the side of God, fulfilling all God's promises of salvation. 04:42-04:49 He is doing so as man, as man as a bold. 04:49-04:58 As man he's not simply bringing the word of God which he himself is to man but born as 04:58-05:05 a baby, growing in wisdom and stature he is man, learning to hear that word, understand 05:05-05:10 it, love it and do it. 05:10-05:18 In his human mind, speech and action he's not simply bringing the very word of God which 05:18-05:32 he is to man but now man himself, he is man taking that word, internalising it and living 05:32-05:36 it out in love and joyful obedience. 05:36-05:43 So Jesus, this is the key part of the gospel, he is God and he is man. 05:43-05:51 He brings the word from God to man and as man he hears that word and lives it out. 05:51-05:58 He the eternal word in the bosom of the father, the beloved son and the heart and mind of 05:58-06:09 God is now that word in man, making it, hearing it, making it his own and doing that word 06:09-06:12 as man. 06:12-06:20 In his human speech and life he is thus not simply the word of God to man, proclaiming 06:20-06:30 it in his words and deeds to all humankind but now he has in human flesh that intimate 06:30-06:36 knowledge of the very heart and mind of the father which he knew from all eternity and 06:36-06:39 imaged in himself. 06:39-06:48 So now as man in his human mind he now has the intimate knowledge of God that he had 06:48-06:53 eternally as God, he now has that as man. 06:53-06:59 The implications of all this for the life and understanding of the church are far reaching 06:59-07:04 and staggering in their significance, absolutely staggering. 07:04-07:15 They mean that, next major heading, Jesus Christ in his humanity is the living, breathing 07:15-07:19 knowledge of God. 07:19-07:26 Not only is Jesus the one man for all who in his individual humanity has taken on himself 07:26-07:36 the sin of every single human person, judged it, undone and forgiven it but positively 07:36-07:49 in his one person he is the living, loving, breathing, praying, praising, singing, worshipping 07:49-07:55 knower of God and he is all that now. 07:55-08:02 He was that throughout his life and he is all that in heaven now, both in himself and 08:02-08:05 as a leader of our worship. 08:05-08:16 And so all our worship of God is through Christ and in Christ but also with him because although 08:16-08:24 we worship God, Father, Son and Spirit through Christ and in him, he also stands by our side 08:24-08:33 worshipping with us or more accurately perhaps lifting us up to heaven through the Spirit 08:33-08:36 to worship alongside him there. 08:36-08:42 That's something we should take much more seriously and remember in all our worship. 08:42-08:52 In his risen mind, he is the living, loving, worshipping, communing knower of God and all 08:52-09:02 our worship is our participation in his whole risen, one word, mind and being. 09:02-09:08 I'll make a heading, God's creation and then recreation of man. 09:08-09:15 In the beginning, God made man out of nothing in his image. 09:15-09:21 In Christ, he recreates man into new man in his image. 09:21-09:28 He does so not out of nothing this time but out of fallen man. 09:28-09:37 By in his becoming man, taking fallen human nature from Mary and in himself through the 09:37-09:44 whole course of his life from birth to death and resurrection, restoring human nature in 09:44-09:50 his own person into the true image of God. 09:50-10:08 In Jesus Christ, the word made flesh and lived out on earth, our humanity has been restored 10:08-10:14 to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. 10:14-10:25 Ephesians 4.24, this restoration of our humanity in its totality into true humanity has taken 10:25-10:34 place in the person of Jesus Christ, the one new man. 10:34-10:42 That very phrase occurs in Ephesians 2.15 and through union with him in the spirit, 10:42-10:53 we again quote, put on Christ, Galatians 3.27 and begin to participate in again quote, all 10:53-11:01 the treasures of wisdom and knowledge which are hidden in him, Colossians 2.3. 11:01-11:08 And so Paul argues that the Christian life is one of again quote, putting off the old 11:08-11:09 man. 11:09-11:16 I have a note here, C note and the note is at the end of the paragraph and the note says, 11:16-11:22 when he says put off the old man, the Greek is anthropos and anthropos like the German 11:22-11:30 mench, means both male and female. 11:30-11:41 So anthropos means man, not as he-man but a generic man, the common nature of both he-man 11:41-11:51 and she-man or man and woman and man means both. 11:51-11:57 And the Greek is put off the old man, it's often translated as put off the old nature, 11:57-12:02 which isn't nearly so good and even worse as put off the old self, because that can 12:02-12:07 give the impression that we have an old self and a new self, which we don't. 12:07-12:13 And it's best translated the new man, because that's not just the new humanity but refers 12:13-12:16 to the one new man who is Christ. 12:16-12:25 So it's a much better translation, but bearing in mind that man there means it's a generic 12:25-12:27 man. 12:27-12:32 So the Christian life is one of putting off the old man, the one being corrupted by deceitful 12:32-12:39 desires and being renewed in the spirit of your minds. 12:39-12:49 So I'll read it again because I've put it into putting, not put, Paul says put and I've 12:49-12:53 changed it a bit, but you'll see it all in the notes, you'll understand it. 12:53-12:58 So Paul argues that the Christian life is one of putting off the old man, the one being 12:58-13:06 corrupted by deceitful desires and being renewed in the spirit of your minds, putting on the 13:06-13:15 new man, created after the likeness of God in the righteousness and holiness of truth. 13:15-13:24 Or as Paul puts it in Colossians 3, where he speaks of our having put off the old man 13:24-13:32 with its practices and have put on the new man, the one being renewed into knowledge 13:32-13:36 after the image of its creator. 13:36-13:43 In the Christian life we put off the old Adam and put on the new Jesus Christ through the 13:43-13:51 spirit in union with Christ and through his living in us, Galatians 2.20, we begin to 13:51-14:01 share in his risen mind and therefore be continually transformed in our thinking, reflecting his 14:01-14:04 own humanity in the image of God. 14:04-14:14 So it's his humanity which is now in the image of God and as we are united to him we too 14:14-14:19 begin to reflect that new humanity. 14:19-14:26 Next major heading, the incarnate risen humanity of Christ only possible through the spirit. 14:26-14:33 Jesus was born through the spirit at baptism, anointed with the spirit for his work as Messiah 14:33-14:40 did all he did in preaching in miracles through the power of the spirit, through the eternal 14:40-14:47 spirit offered himself without blemish to God and the cross, Hebrews 9, was raised by 14:47-14:56 the spirit, Romans 8, and then having completed atonement and the renewal of our humanity 14:56-15:04 in his ascension received the spirit in heaven for us that he might pour him out on us, Acts 15:04-15:12 2.33, to open our eyes and hearts and unite us to himself. 15:12-15:18 Next major heading, the one whole Jesus Christ in the spirit. 15:18-15:27 The one whole Christ in the unity of his person as God and man, in the indissoluble union 15:27-15:36 of his person and work, the one whole Jesus Christ from birth to resurrection and ascension 15:36-15:41 is only what he is in the power of the spirit. 15:41-15:50 He eternal living creative word of God by whom all things were made became man and by 15:50-15:59 the power of his word and spirit accomplished our whole renewal in his own divine human 15:59-16:02 person. 16:02-16:11 In that inseparable unity of word and spirit, of God and man, of preaching an unheard of 16:11-16:20 love in action, he became and is our living salvation. 16:20-16:28 His person, his word, his whole life of compassion and healing is power in the spirit. 16:28-16:38 So how do we preach that one whole Christ, that one whole word, God and man, one person 16:38-16:45 in the unity of his whole person and act from creation to incarnation and ascension? 16:45-16:49 How do we preach that one whole Christ? 16:49-16:56 How may we preach the living Jesus without intellectualising and emptying the gospel 16:56-17:03 of power or dumbing it down and emasculating it? 17:03-17:11 The answer of course is that only Christ himself can preach himself and does so through his 17:11-17:14 continuing ministry. 17:14-17:20 So the next major heading, the one royal priesthood of Christ. 17:20-17:27 While remaining himself the one king, priest and prophet in the church, Jesus exercises 17:27-17:34 his ministry through his church, incorporating them into his ministry and making them a royal 17:34-17:38 priesthood, 1 Peter. 17:38-17:47 Here the whole church takes part together in the ministry of Christ, laity and clergy, 17:47-17:51 male and female, young and old. 17:51-18:00 He remains the one true minister in the church but in his one ministry we all share alike, 18:00-18:04 the apostles foundational ministry. 18:04-18:12 In his earthly ministry Jesus chose and gathered round himself a college of twelve disciples 18:12-18:19 to train them in the secret of the kingdom and school them in understanding him as far 18:19-18:24 as they were able to at that time. 18:24-18:32 Then after the completion of atonement and renewal he gave them his spirit to open their 18:32-18:37 minds and hearts to full understanding. 18:37-18:45 They then became his personal representatives such that their word was his word and their 18:45-18:53 understanding of him was the understanding he wished us to have of him. 18:53-19:01 They had now become apostles specially authorized to preach his gospel and he promised to be 19:01-19:10 with them that when they spoke he would be speaking and acting through them. 19:10-19:20 In the church's corporate participation in the one ministry and royal priesthood of Christ, 19:20-19:26 while Jesus remains the one true minister and shepherd of his church, through the spirit 19:26-19:33 the whole body is given participation in his ministry called to subordinate ministry and 19:33-19:41 empowered with special gifts of teaching, preaching, pastoring, evangelizing and diagonal 19:41-19:44 service. 19:44-19:47 Next major heading. 19:47-19:53 Key elements of the church's participative ministry. 19:53-20:00 Several key aspects of the church's ministry all mutually supportive of each other may 20:00-20:05 be singled out. 20:05-20:12 Just as Jesus himself did what he did only through prayer so it goes without saying that 20:12-20:17 the church cannot minister without prayer. 20:17-20:22 The pressure of modern life can create the illusion that making time for prayer is something 20:22-20:33 of a luxury but all ministry can only be effective and fruitful through adequate time for prayer. 20:33-20:41 Luther once famously remarked that he was so busy that the only way he could get through 20:41-20:50 his day was by spending three hours of prayer a day. 20:50-21:02 In the word and sacrament the whole word aspect of Jesus' person, being and incarnate ministry 21:02-21:10 is so constitutive that any neglect or underplaying of it makes the church's message and impact 21:10-21:15 drastically weaker and shallower. 21:15-21:22 And equally so if we neglect the fact that it is in-fleshed incarnational word reaching 21:22-21:30 down and standing alongside us in all our human frailty and desperate need of renewal. 21:30-21:36 So no space to say more about the importance of the sacrament here but it's crucial that 21:36-21:42 we make much more of the sacraments alongside the word. 21:42-21:47 Diagonal service. 21:47-21:54 It is here that the whole diagonal side of Christ's ministry on which the whole of church 21:54-22:00 ministry must be patterned is so important that as T.F. has argued so forcibly it cannot 22:00-22:07 be separated from his preaching ministry without as he puts it the grave impoverishment of 22:07-22:09 each. 22:09-22:15 So two sides of Christ's ministry, his teaching and preaching ministry and then his loving 22:15-22:20 healing compassionate ministry and they go absolutely hand in hand and if you separate 22:20-22:25 them then both are drastically affected and weakened. 22:25-22:33 The church cannot preach the gospel of love and reconciliation in Christ unless we truly 22:33-22:40 live it out in our daily lives for the work of the spirit. 22:40-22:48 Just as Jesus did all he did through the power of the spirit so the church can only preach 22:48-22:56 the word through understanding of, reliance on and prayer to the spirit. 22:56-23:04 To separate the word from the spirit is to fail to see the word as the living word and 23:04-23:13 to fall prey to academic intellectualising, robbing it of its genuine intelligible depth. 23:13-23:20 While to separate the spirit from the word is to fall prey to human subjectivism, robbing 23:20-23:26 it of its objective grounding in God himself. 23:26-23:34 Fifthly the final element in this key element of the church's participative ministry, the 23:34-23:39 "arcane discipline" of the Christian. 23:39-23:45 Behind all of the above lies what T.F. called the arcane discipline, arcane is hidden or 23:45-23:53 secret, the arcane discipline of all Christian ministry, the essential making of time for 23:53-24:00 the hidden discipline of daily devotion, study of the bible, worship, prayer and theological 24:00-24:02 enquiry. 24:02-24:10 Just as with prayer we allow the pressures of modern life to squeeze out the making of 24:10-24:18 real time for this only at our peril with the ever present danger of burn out and the 24:18-24:26 inevitable decrease in depth, fruitfulness and joy in ministry. 24:26-24:32 Next major heading, more on the nature of word and spirit. 24:32-24:39 Here we focus on fundamental but too often neglected and underplayed aspects of both 24:39-24:41 word and spirit. 24:41-24:49 A. The constitutive nature of the word in God and in our knowing of him. 24:49-24:57 The fact that Jesus is word in God and that God is a speaking God in his very being and 24:57-25:05 the fact that when God makes himself known to us he always makes himself known, not just 25:05-25:15 Jews about him, means that when he does so he unveils himself and unveils the minds of 25:15-25:24 our hearts, opening us up to know and understand something of his very self in his word in 25:24-25:29 Christ in and through the gospel. 25:29-25:39 Because Jesus Christ opens us up to know himself in his word, person and act there is a profound 25:39-25:49 engagement not just of our person's hearts and act but of our minds, the minds of our 25:49-25:53 hearts with the reality of God. 25:53-26:02 Intelligence of God is inherently cognitive, that means it involves thinking, the brain, 26:02-26:09 understanding, it's inherently cognitive as well as personal and dynamic. 26:09-26:15 To know God is to begin to be lifted up by Christ through the spirit to encounter the 26:15-26:22 profound intelligibility of God in his word. 26:22-26:28 Although the intelligibility of God passes all human understanding we are nevertheless 26:28-26:38 given to understand something of God in Christ through sharing in his risen mind. 26:38-26:44 Though Christ's gifts in the spirit for the building of the church, sorry through Christ's 26:44-26:50 gifts in the spirit for the building of the church, the whole church is called to be nurtured 26:50-26:59 in faith and understanding "until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of 26:59-27:07 the son of God and become mature attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ". 27:07-27:12 I mention this in the opening devotions. 27:12-27:20 The vision, so our goal is for us all to become mature in Christ, mature in our thinking, 27:20-27:25 everybody, every single person in the church. 27:25-27:32 The vision of such a goal for the church may seem like an impossible ideal but for Paul 27:32-27:36 it was a goal to which the whole church is called. 27:36-27:42 In the spirit and through sharing in the risen mind of Christ, in the fellowship of the church 27:42-27:51 we can all find ourselves growing into understanding far beyond our natural capacities. 27:51-27:59 In union with Christ and as he works in us we find the basic patterns of our minds being 27:59-28:04 rewired and transformed. 28:04-28:10 In worship and prayer, in the arcane discipline of daily devotion and study of scripture and 28:10-28:18 theology our minds become stretched and reshaped to grow up into him who is the head of the 28:18-28:20 body. 28:20-28:30 If the church or even a part of it took Paul seriously and committed itself to his vision 28:30-28:38 of growing up into Christ through the spirit in a fellowship of worship, prayer and rigorous 28:38-28:47 study of his one whole word there would be no need to worry over the decline of the church, 28:47-28:54 the shortage of ministers, the neglect and unschooling of the laity, the state of the 28:54-29:03 finances or the loss of impact on society. 29:03-29:12 And then B, the nature and role of the spirit in the life of Christ in ours. 29:12-29:24 Several brief points, well two major brief points and then a subsection of several parts 29:24-29:25 of that. 29:25-29:34 The inseparability of word and spirit, it is a fundamental axiom of theology, certainly 29:34-29:39 one view to the reformed church that word and spirit can never be separated. 29:39-29:47 Just as father, son and spirit are inseparable in God himself so they are inseparable in 29:47-29:56 all their works in creation, incarnation, atonement, resurrection and pentecost. 29:56-30:05 Father son of word and spirit are all involved in the great acts of creation and salvation. 30:05-30:12 For example all are involved in creation and all give life. 30:12-30:21 John 5 21 26 Romans 8 11, but of course they are all involved in different ways. 30:21-30:30 For example only Christ became incarnate but God was in Christ reconciling the world to 30:30-30:38 himself and he was only born of Mary through the Holy Spirit. 30:38-30:45 Secondly the distinctiveness of word and spirit and of their different roles. 30:45-30:54 Just as eternally father, son and spirit indwell each other and are inseparable but remain 30:54-30:59 distinct with no confusion between them. 30:59-31:09 So when Christ becomes man he is given the spirit without measure, John 4 Luke 4, but 31:09-31:19 he remains fully human and there is no confusion between Christ and his humanity and the spirit. 31:19-31:24 What's true of Christ is obviously true of us, there is no confusion or should be no 31:24-31:30 confusion between our humanity and the spirit. 31:30-31:36 And then several points under that about the distinctiveness between word and spirit. 31:36-31:46 One the son or word is the only image of God, the only cognitive handle we have of God as 31:46-31:49 it were. 31:49-31:55 We cannot know the father or the spirit in themselves apart from Christ but only through 31:55-32:05 him but when we know Christ then we know the father for he is the image of the father and 32:05-32:12 when we know Christ we know that we know him only through the spirit for we cannot know 32:12-32:14 him by ourselves. 32:14-32:21 So Christ is the only way in which we can get a handle on God. 32:21-32:28 T.F. used to use the analogy of climbing a cliff and you can only climb the cliff if 32:28-32:36 there are little indentations and bits of rock that you can get your fingers into and 32:36-32:40 hold onto or your feet and climb up. 32:40-32:49 Christ is the only one of the fathers and the spirit with any handholds. 32:49-32:59 The spirit is like a glass wall, a mirror wall, there are no handholds in the spirit. 32:59-33:05 So that all our knowledge of God is through the son. 33:05-33:09 God gives himself to be grasped and known in the son but because he is the image of 33:09-33:14 God when we know Christ then we know the father. 33:14-33:18 Come back to the role of the spirit but when we know Christ then we know it is through 33:18-33:21 the power of the spirit. 33:21-33:24 So the son is the only image of God. 33:24-33:30 Secondly the role of the spirit is to illuminate our Christ and open our eyes to see him. 33:30-33:35 In Jesus' great teaching about the spirit in John it is the spirit who teaches us all 33:35-33:42 things, who witnesses to Christ, who guides us into all truth and speaks not of himself 33:42-33:47 but of Christ and declares unto us. 33:47-33:51 John 14, 15, 16. 33:51-33:55 The spirit is inseparable from Christ. 33:55-34:02 He is the spirit of Christ and when he comes to us he comes clothed with Christ, bringing 34:02-34:09 Christ to us and making him known to us and giving us understanding. 34:09-34:19 Third, the spirit is inherently invisible and unknowable in himself. 34:19-34:26 As the role of the spirit is to throw his light in Christ so he speaks not of himself 34:26-34:31 but directs all his light to Christ. 34:31-34:40 Just as in a real sense we cannot see light itself but only what light lights up and yet 34:40-34:48 we know that we can only see because there is light so with the spirit we know the spirit 34:48-34:59 as the one giving us eyes to know Christ for the word nature of the spirit's work. 34:59-35:09 As the interpreter and communicator of Christ the spirit speaks Christ to us. 35:09-35:15 Christ himself speaks to us but he does so in and through the spirit as the spirit takes 35:15-35:24 the whole word of Christ and speaks it to us while at the same time opening our hearts 35:24-35:28 to love and understanding. 35:28-35:35 So just as Christ is the word that brings the word of God to us and yet is man receiving 35:35-35:46 it, understanding it, living it out and passing it on to us, so the spirit brings the word 35:46-35:50 to us and yet helps us to understand it. 35:50-35:57 The spirit is therefore our speaking spirit uttering the gospel to us in all its power 35:57-36:06 and continually leading us into more and more understanding of its depths. 36:06-36:13 Final point here, five, the dynamic life giving nature of the spirit's work. 36:13-36:19 The spirit is the Lord and giver of life who can never be mastered, who blows where he 36:19-36:29 wills, whose word of the gospel is always one of life and power which seizes the mind 36:29-36:37 and converts it, turning it inside out and radically reshaping it to become the mind 36:37-36:45 of the heart in a profound integration of life and word, body, mind and spirit such 36:45-36:53 that we can begin to discover the truth of Romans 12, 1-2. 36:53-37:02 Here word and theology come together and in grasping with the truth of God and his word, 37:02-37:08 theology can only be done on one's knees as T.F. used to say. 37:08-37:21 I've got a section on understanding theology and on Torrance as a whole. 37:21-37:33 How do we follow, keep pace with, understand the whole living profound dynamic of the word? 37:33-37:41 It's not just understanding T.F., it's understanding the Bible also as a whole in its depth. 37:41-37:51 I've got several analogies which give different aspects and hopefully different insight on 37:51-37:58 some of what it means to try to think in a living, active, dynamic, deep way about understanding 37:58-38:01 the word. 38:01-38:06 First of all, think about how a baby and child grow in understanding. 38:06-38:14 I've never yet come across a baby that was worried about not understanding the word, 38:14-38:15 the world. 38:15-38:24 They're born into the world, they haven't got a clue but they just look and absorb. 38:24-38:26 They're not worried about not understanding. 38:26-38:35 They've taken the whole world, every single sensation, word, sight, touch, the law, at 38:35-38:41 once but slowly. 38:41-38:48 The problem is that once we begin to get a conscious mind and language and understanding, 38:48-38:52 then we want to understand things piece by piece. 38:52-38:57 We don't want to move to something next until we've understood something and we slow the 38:57-39:02 whole process of knowledge down, we break it up and we get worried by the fact that 39:02-39:05 we don't understand. 39:05-39:12 A key part of understanding, I'll come back to this, is just to absorb it without understanding. 39:12-39:19 You can pick up a lot, lot more and a lot deeper in a much more holistic way. 39:19-39:24 The growth of a baby and then learning to walk. 39:24-39:33 Every child has to learn to walk, it takes time and you fall. 39:33-39:41 And then you have to learn to run and you have to do the Olympic walk, you walk really 39:41-39:42 fast. 39:42-39:49 At college I was roped into doing the Olympic walk for the team, I've never done this kind 39:49-39:50 of walk before. 39:50-39:55 But there's one, I needed two people to do it, and one was an expert. 39:55-40:08 He explained that it's a technique, until you get the technique you can't walk at speed. 40:08-40:14 But how do you get the technique except by walking at speed? 40:14-40:22 And so it's like they've taken an egg and obviously it's done, people learn it. 40:22-40:36 But as with walking, walking is not just, you put it together and you cannot stop. 40:36-40:41 Because we're adults we can, but you have to be able to just put it together for it 40:41-40:42 to work. 40:42-40:52 And there are all sorts of complex physical and mental skills which are like that, we 40:52-40:58 have to learn them as a whole, we can learn them pieces bit by bit. 40:58-41:06 But we cannot put them all together consciously, like learning to ski or drive a car. 41:06-41:11 You practice different things and you can make yourself do different elements, but logically 41:11-41:17 it's impossible to think consciously of everything you should be doing and make yourself do it. 41:17-41:22 Logically impossible, you have to get to the stage where it simply becomes part of you, 41:22-41:24 you do it without thinking. 41:24-41:30 And it's impossible to know how you do that, logically impossible. 41:30-41:40 There's a gap, you somehow just, it's next stage, it's a discovery. 41:40-41:48 And the whole aspect of tacit knowledge is really important. 41:48-41:54 Another point is that today we put all the emphasis on what we consciously know and can 41:54-41:57 definitely prove. 41:57-42:05 We have to try to alter the balance of our minds more to what we only dimly know or don't 42:05-42:12 get know, because we all know far more than we think we know. 42:12-42:16 And when we know something there's always more that we're aware of, but we're not aware 42:16-42:19 of it, we're aware of it. 42:19-42:21 And that's the key to scientific discovery. 42:21-42:30 And we need to make much more of our ability to just think, be aware of what we know and 42:30-42:31 reach for understanding. 42:31-42:33 Find the right words. 42:33-42:36 If you have a thought, follow it up. 42:36-42:41 This is something we should all do. 42:41-42:49 We have to kind of leap beyond ourselves, reach out beyond ourselves for more understanding. 42:49-42:53 Is this walking on water? 42:53-43:03 And then mark four, twenty-four to twenty-five, to ears that really hear, to ears that hear, 43:03-43:10 i.e. really hear, more will be given, i.e. more understanding, and yet more. 43:10-43:14 So read mark four, twenty-four to twenty-five. 43:14-43:21 And then the next analogy is moving from photographic stills to moving pictures. 43:21-43:27 In the early days of photography you took a picture and that just was an instant, it 43:27-43:30 framed something that was static. 43:30-43:35 And then you could get another picture, and then you could get little books where you 43:35-43:40 flip through the pages and each picture was slightly different and you began to get the 43:40-43:41 sense of movement. 43:41-43:49 And of course with modern films it seems to continuous movement, but actually it's just 43:49-44:00 static, it's tiny little, you know, there's so many pictures that it seems like movement. 44:00-44:05 But that's an analogy for how we should try to think about God. 44:05-44:15 Too often we try to, we want to freeze truths about God, and then we kind of put them together. 44:15-44:21 But to think about God is to have a kind of thought that's moving and developing and a 44:21-44:27 logic of verbs, we're thinking the living God. 44:27-44:34 So God doesn't give us truths about himself, he is the living God. 44:34-44:41 And you got something of that with David in Ephesians, that long section of Paul, he's 44:41-44:43 got it all in his mind, he's thinking dynamic. 44:43-44:47 Everything to another, connected to this, that, etc. 44:47-44:54 So we have to learn to try to think more dynamically, more as a whole. 44:54-45:00 So the next thing is understanding the truth of the Gospel theology more and more as a 45:00-45:02 living whole. 45:02-45:10 And T.F. in his lectures used to say that his procedures kind of spiral, that we go 45:10-45:16 around in circles in one sense, but that's simply because we're trying to see the whole 45:16-45:21 truth of God from one angle, and then from another angle, and then from another angle, 45:21-45:24 and it's all slightly different connections. 45:24-45:28 But you're not going, and then you seem to come around to the same point, but you haven't. 45:28-45:34 Because through making all the connections you're seeing in a deeper way, and so when 45:34-45:38 you come around to the same point the next time, it's not just in a flat circle, it's 45:38-45:41 kind of spiral. 45:41-45:45 So you're seeing more and more deeply into the truth. 45:45-45:52 We have to learn to see the whole, to feel for, feeling for developing and being guided 45:52-45:55 by a wider sense of the whole. 45:55-45:59 That sense of the whole is really important. 45:59-46:06 The more we get that broad picture, the more that guides us in our thinking. 46:06-46:12 Here we have the interconnectedness of all doctrine, that all Christian doctrines are 46:12-46:13 interconnected. 46:13-46:17 If you change one doctrine or miss it out, or don't give attention to it, that affects 46:17-46:19 all the rest. 46:19-46:27 But the more you see the connections, the more your thought broadens out and deepens 46:27-46:31 and guides you in thinking of anything you're thinking. 46:31-46:33 And that's one of the key points about T.F. 46:33-46:40 This whole thinking was so holistic and so focused on Christ, that that was a kind of 46:40-46:47 like a compass guiding all the time. 46:47-46:56 Faith seeks understanding, and in knowing, understanding more seeks to forget more to 46:56-46:57 be given. 46:57-47:00 So the whole nature of faith involves understanding. 47:00-47:08 But the more we understand, that leads on to deeper understanding. 47:08-47:14 Because we never exhaust God, we never exhaust knowing other people, we never exhaust knowing 47:14-47:15 the universe. 47:15-47:21 But the more we understand, that leads on to more understanding. 47:21-47:31 So finally let us be content with continually walking out on new water of an as yet unborn 47:31-47:35 understanding. 47:35-47:42 Being content to listen, read and worship without conscious understanding, in faith 47:42-47:44 that it will come. 47:44-47:45 And that's enough.