I deserve to be thrown out of our little ecclesial protest movement for a paragraph like this:
[Also, it is neither the Law or the prophets, so it is wisdom by the process of elimination using the Jewish categories. Goerling says of Psalm 1, “Psalm 1 is a didactic Psalm, a guide to life.” He adds, “In form and content it belongs to the wisdom Psalms.” Tuell adds, “Just as Jesus' beatitudes (Matt 5:3-12) are descriptive rather than prescriptive, so the beatitude pronounced upon the righteous in Ps 1 describes rather than defines them.” What this may mean is that Collins’ concern about legalism arising from certain readings and views of merit may be premature. It seems quite possible that the blessed man can both “deserve his blessedness” and be in a totally dependent covenant relationship. We’ll return to this later.] [Sheesh, hurry up and become a Catholic already, and stop leading us on.--ed.] Well, you shouldn't be that surprised; as I told the great Tim Butler, "The Catholic Church is like a girl I'd lead on, but never marry." [But you will, and you know it.--ed.] I fully expect this to happen, but I'm not forcing anything. Frankly, I want some coherent push-back from the Reformed. If you want to keep me, you'll have to fight. The big problem for the Reformed (and maybe Protestantism in general) is that the law of prayer is not the law of faith with respect to systematic theology. When it is consistent, frankly, it's Catholic at best; when consistently bad it's just antinomian gnostic crap. It'd be OK to simply agree with the Catholic Church, except...we left because we didn't, or so we thought.
[Also, it is neither the Law or the prophets, so it is wisdom by the process of elimination using the Jewish categories. Goerling says of Psalm 1, “Psalm 1 is a didactic Psalm, a guide to life.” He adds, “In form and content it belongs to the wisdom Psalms.” Tuell adds, “Just as Jesus' beatitudes (Matt 5:3-12) are descriptive rather than prescriptive, so the beatitude pronounced upon the righteous in Ps 1 describes rather than defines them.” What this may mean is that Collins’ concern about legalism arising from certain readings and views of merit may be premature. It seems quite possible that the blessed man can both “deserve his blessedness” and be in a totally dependent covenant relationship. We’ll return to this later.] [Sheesh, hurry up and become a Catholic already, and stop leading us on.--ed.] Well, you shouldn't be that surprised; as I told the great Tim Butler, "The Catholic Church is like a girl I'd lead on, but never marry." [But you will, and you know it.--ed.] I fully expect this to happen, but I'm not forcing anything. Frankly, I want some coherent push-back from the Reformed. If you want to keep me, you'll have to fight. The big problem for the Reformed (and maybe Protestantism in general) is that the law of prayer is not the law of faith with respect to systematic theology. When it is consistent, frankly, it's Catholic at best; when consistently bad it's just antinomian gnostic crap. It'd be OK to simply agree with the Catholic Church, except...we left because we didn't, or so we thought.
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