Amazing what theologians  can do to mess up our understanding of things... we love to have experts   who tell us how to live... to have  Kings to rule over us and tell us what to do... theologians to explain to us the Holy  Word of God... because us... "the Idios " (the uneducated ones - the laity) must always have someone who is educated.... the Clerics.... the Clergy... explain to us how things really are... so we start to capitalize everything....  Church instead of church (even turn it into a building or a place to go to instead of people)... create positions  out of gifts  and of course capitalize those as well..(like  Pastor  instead of pastor).....  create hierarchies after the world's model with more capital letters (Apostle, Prophet, Pastor, Evangelist, Teacher) and make them our titles  in our individual pecking orders....

...and... as I mentioned yesterday.... out of that marvelous self-claimed authority  (I would substitute the word "illusion"  for the word "authority" ) ...   we then take written  down words from guys who have been inspired... and we pronounce those words to be...  The Word of God  (note again a little capitalization) ... totally missing  it... creating yet another idol from our intellects...

The only Word of God there is.... or ever will be.... is a person... a person named Jesus.

We have also missed  the fact that the apostles  and those following them were very ordinary men... people just like you and me.... sorry...they were not special.... our friendly theologians have practically deified  them... all of those capital letters again... Saint Peter instead of... Peter... one of the saints in Jerusalem... Apostle Paul... instead of Paul... who was one of the apostles... theologians  are good at that.... making some superstars  who did everything right... an then there are the rest of us poor failures... the peons  of the Kingdom of God.

I've got some news  for you... all those guys screwed up  just as much as you and I did.... they had to go through stuff ... all kinds of stuff.... make all kinds of mistakes... in order to grow up... just like you and I do... some of them went through stuff   that you and I may yet  have to go through ... in order to get to where they ended up... in Him....  Bonhoeffer  went to prison and was executed...just like Paul  was... just like Peter  was... Watchman Nee spent his final years (20 years of them) in a Chinese prison much the way John  spent  his years on the Isle of Patmos... ever heard anybody explain to you how the devil won  those battles and shortened what otherwise would have been marvelous ministries?

Sorry again.... it was all part of God's predetermined plan...   just like Peter proclaimed at Pentecost about the Word of God....   Peter finally understood  after the world as he had known it ....came to end  ... when Jesus died on that cross... he went through his own death that day at Calvary... and came out the other side of the cross... into resurrection Life....

That experience enabled  him to say:      "....this Man, delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. "

I think there just might be more to say about all this.

:)