These Scriptures… A Reprise

THURS., JAN. 15, 1998, 9:01 PM
FARM, STUDY

Our Ruminations is finally finished and at the printers. You consider it a good one, and so do I. Yet I will say that you have too much concern as to whether others… other readers… will like it and indicate approval or will be critical of it. Hear again that the popularity of this quarterly Letter is of no concern to Me, and should not be to you. Your task – now your major one – is to create this Letter, as a “service” to Me and send it out to this relatively small group of people. Any credit you get for it is a small bonus. It is basically for Me.

The themes have been varied over the years, and they have given you a chance to share some from the Teachings I’ve offered you, mixed in, rather skillfully, with your comments, interpretations, and questions. It was time for another relating to stories as a way of learning and communicating and to this particular Story… and Stories… called Holy Scripture or The Bible. You usually make it clear that you are, in your personal life, a rather “standard” Christian and pretty middle-of-the-road. You are a reasonably comfortable Presbyterian Elder, but one who has had two born-again experiences and who now is in regular, friendly communication with Me, that Holy Spirit Who is acknowledged in most of your worship services. I call you a Presbyterian mystic, in the Reform tradition. You’re becoming a bit more comfortable with this “label”… and you should be glad to be one, of which there are not many.

I’m pleased that you included, and featured, that entire Teaching on three ways of perceiving and valuing these Scriptures of Mine. (I get no credit for writing any of the actual texts, but I had an influence on every writer, translator, and theologian responsible for the words as you read them. It really isn’t presumptuous to say that these are “Scriptures of Mine”.) My only critique (of the Teaching and of your comments on it) is that there can be an infinite number of combinations of these three; I call you to understand and favor the mystical designation, but this doesn’t mean you can’t believe and assert that some Scripture is real Truth, as such, nor that you can’t consider the W.W.J.D. movement and what this represents in the Christian movement, to some extent.

Just know, too (as you would expect) that relatively few Christians, in your culture, have as positive a feeling about the mystical Bible as you do. I also must say that the mystical is never going to be mainstream in your culture, and this will never be a popular way of considering the Bible. But don’t try to wiggle out of what I have given you. You rightly suggested that this is My… Holy Spirit’s… interpretation of the Holy Bible… and I am the “least known” among Us, Who are the Triune.

If I speak as God Almighty or as God, the Father, I have to be fairly… to very… consistent with what I said and did in this Scriptural story. In the same sense, if I speak as Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, the Savior I also have Scriptural descriptions to which I must be true.

But as Holy Spirit I am freer to speak in mystical ways, for My Presence in the Scriptural story is far less defined than God and Jesus. As Jesus I said, “In My Father’s house are many mansions”. As Spirit I can tell you that this means there are many “roads” to spiritual enlightenment, and many spiritual realms, rather than just one heaven and one hell.

One small Book, among the 66 that are The Holy Bible, is Ecclesiastes, the one for which I am the most responsible and that is My favorite… or certainly one of such. It’s too early to consider No. 1 of Volume 19, but it might be another consideration of these Time To’s, in a context different than the one We penned and sent out some years back.