I like functions, so after some thinking during Bible study a couple weeks ago, I came up with the above plot in Mathematica.
The Pharisees (a case study for humanity?) have years of Jewish history and culture framing their interpretation of what God, through the Law, called them to.
Jesus came and said, your initial conditions are right, but the human function caused a deviation from what God says the law means. He said that he was fulfilling the Law--pointing us again to closer communion with God.
We've had 2000 years from another set of conditions.
Maybe the church set a nice linear function for how we think about God, from the Law to Jesus, but we only ever had two points (arguably the Torah and Jesus' life--special revelation--though I don't mean to minimize general revelation, which I tend to celebrate as a scientist).
Sometime it feels like we're/(I'm) the Pharisees approximating God's higher order polynomial (or periodic, transcendental functions) with linear thinking and living. I usually find it's best to give up control over where we think God's Will is headed (because invariably I'm wrong or pigheaded), and recognize that Jesus told us to surrender our will.
No comments:
Post a Comment