Women's Witness (14)
Lectionary, Year C, Easter Sunday
Christopher B. Harbin
Luke 24:1-12
Whom do I trust to speak the truth? How far should I trust them? Do I always get it right? What prejudices do I bring to the table when I assess what I am told? If I spend too long asking these sorts of questions, I might start to wonder if I can trust anyone, if any source of information is worthy of respect, if there is any way to distinguish truth from fancy. What I determine trustworthy may be built more than anything on the basis of prejudices with no solid foundation. How do I determine what is of God and what is not?
Over the years, I've heard a lot of people claim to speak for God. Maybe the claim is prefaced with something like ''The Bible clearly teaches...'' or ''God spoke to me in a dream.'' Many appear to expect that an appeal to hearing from God can't be questioned. After all, I can't very well look inside the head of another person to judge what actually happened and too many folks have never read the Bible, so how would they know what the Bible says, anyway? I have plenty of received tradition about the Bible, but far too few people know whether a claim has any basis in reality. Often as not, we look at the person who is making the claim to determine its validity. Do we count them as reliable? That can lead us quickly down the wrong path, for like as not, our prejudices may get in the way of making that determination.
Many people in religious circles around me would have readily stated that a woman had no business speaking in church. I encountered enough women who fit that profile that I might have adopted it, except that I encountered just as many men who fit the very same profile. They had no understanding of the Scriptures. They had no concept of God's character. They had no background for reading the Bible from a perspective other than imposing their own culture upon the text. They were susceptible to all sorts of fanciful ideas that had nothi ...
Lectionary, Year C, Easter Sunday
Christopher B. Harbin
Luke 24:1-12
Whom do I trust to speak the truth? How far should I trust them? Do I always get it right? What prejudices do I bring to the table when I assess what I am told? If I spend too long asking these sorts of questions, I might start to wonder if I can trust anyone, if any source of information is worthy of respect, if there is any way to distinguish truth from fancy. What I determine trustworthy may be built more than anything on the basis of prejudices with no solid foundation. How do I determine what is of God and what is not?
Over the years, I've heard a lot of people claim to speak for God. Maybe the claim is prefaced with something like ''The Bible clearly teaches...'' or ''God spoke to me in a dream.'' Many appear to expect that an appeal to hearing from God can't be questioned. After all, I can't very well look inside the head of another person to judge what actually happened and too many folks have never read the Bible, so how would they know what the Bible says, anyway? I have plenty of received tradition about the Bible, but far too few people know whether a claim has any basis in reality. Often as not, we look at the person who is making the claim to determine its validity. Do we count them as reliable? That can lead us quickly down the wrong path, for like as not, our prejudices may get in the way of making that determination.
Many people in religious circles around me would have readily stated that a woman had no business speaking in church. I encountered enough women who fit that profile that I might have adopted it, except that I encountered just as many men who fit the very same profile. They had no understanding of the Scriptures. They had no concept of God's character. They had no background for reading the Bible from a perspective other than imposing their own culture upon the text. They were susceptible to all sorts of fanciful ideas that had nothi ...
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