How to Read My Blog and Not Get Upset.

Do you know how hard it is to explain five weeks of learning? SO HARD!

So I'll start with a short explanation to hopefully get everyone on the same page.  So our DTS is run in an ecumenical manner with both Protestants and Catholics.  There are three Protestant students and one Catholic.  So in the first week we needed to put effort into learning about each other's beliefs.  I think that most Protestants have a skewed idea of Catholicism and most Catholics have misunderstandings of Protestantism too.  So that was a hurdle that we had to overcome.  And I think one of the most biblical ways to describe the differences is to talk about the men walking to Emmaus. (For those of you who want to follow along in your Bibles it is Luke 24).

So these men actually knew Jesus.  They were walking and Jesus shows up. But they don't recognize him. And they don't recognize him the whole time they are talking and walking although it says later that their hearts were burning as he revealed things from the Scriptures.  But they don't recognize him until he breaks bread with them.  So if they knew what Jesus looked like before he died, Jesus obviously looked differently to them after he had risen. But Jesus could have chosen to look exactly like he did before so that they would easily recognize him, but he didn't.  So we can say he disguised himself.   And the same thing can happen today.  Jesus can give revelation in a way we don't recognize because we aren't used to it. And because it isn't "normal" we are in danger of dismissing it.  But if we listen with our spirit, our hearts will burn like the men and we will know that it is God, even if it isn't what we expect.

So from this we can say that Catholics and Protestants (and even different denominations of protestants) have different revelations of God and how he works and wants to commune with us, but we can't reject each other's understandings simply because they are not our own.  God can reveal himself differently to different people, and we probably have more to learn from each other than we are willing to admit.  Just listen with your spirit, not with your mind which wants to make everything fit into the system you have created.

It has been a process to learn to listen with my spirit or heart.  Coming from a very academic outlook of research and being able to prove who is right makes me very careful and critical.  I want to see three academic papers on anything before I believe it is true (okay, that might be an overstatement, but you all get the point).  So I think the first big thing I've had to learn is to listen with my heart first and then with my brain.  To let God confirm to me in my spirit if a teaching is true to his nature, his intentions for me, his love, before my brain has a chance to automatically reject.  And some things I do have to put on a shelf and leave it for me to kinda mull over for a while.  And thankfully, God realizes that I do really like evidence and he does give me supports for everything we are learning.  In lecture we might hear two verses to support a concept and an example, but then God will know when that isn't quite enough for me and give me some other kind of confirmation.  And I'm so thankful for that.

So my goal is to share some of the things that I'm learning. However, I am fairly certain that some of these things will bother some people. They might not sit quite right with you.  But I hope that you can at the very least keep an attitude that is inspired by the men on the way to Emmaus.  That God might reveal himself in different ways that you are used to.  Maybe some of the things I'm learning will speak to you.  But maybe others you will just have to put on the shelf and God can give you more revelation on the topic in the future.  But I'm very excited to share some of these teachings with you all.

Note: I love hearing your feedback, but I would rather not get into theological debates on my blog. Please do comment, even with questions so I can clarify.  But please refrain from attacking other people's opinions.  I think I might actually make my next post an explanation on why I think that it is important.