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Unwrapped Reads

It's morning, it's early and it's Christmas. Vanilla and ginger still adorns the air after a week of Mom's baking. You step onto the floor that shivers with winter and snuggle into your cozy slippers before hurrying out of your room, down the hallway and into the living room where your family's Christmas tree stands. Beneath it in brilliant bursts of gold and red and green with dashes of blue and flashes of white are wrapped presents—some of them for you, some for your siblings.

Each one of those presents contain a specific item, something special, purchased for you and for them. And the testimony of all those presents tells you something about the person that gave them. The presents convey a deeper level of information but no matter what that information, you have to unwrap the presents to grasp it.

If you unwrap the presents and find vipers and bombs you know the ill intent of the gift-giver. If you unwrap your presents and find chocolates and toys and game systems you know the good intent of the gift-giver. If you unwrap your presents and find something you desperately needed, didn't know you wanted until you saw the present and realized it was perfect for you it tells you not only the intent of the gift-giver but how well they know you.

Similarly, if you ignored the contents of the gifts and focused on only the wrapping you ignore the point of the giving and perhaps even the giver. If you accept the gift but cast it to the side you reject the giver. If you pick and choose which presents are yours (stealing your siblings' or tossing your own to the side) you're denying the giver the full breadth of his or her giving. If you unwrap all of your presents, sigh and go back to bed you disparage the reason they were wrapped andultimately reject the giver.

The Holiday tells the story, the wrapped presents convey information but that information isn't fully received until it's unwrapped to reveal the special gifts inside. All of those presents are there for a reason, wrapped with a purpose and given to be received unwrapped and examined.

Each book of the Bible contains a gift of special words, bundled together, within a context and an intended purpose. Each book carefully organized to convey meaning within that specific package. It might be for you…it might not be. The only way you'll really find out is by reading the tag and seeing what it's all about. The fact that it is contained in books automatically means that they're to be received, unwrapped and understood.

Tags: dispensationalism, hermeneutics, logic, reading, understanding

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Comment by Char on January 14, 2009 at 5:24pm: Where did you say that? How was this an "attack"?

I just read this- "It might be for you…it might not be." in reference to scripture. How can it not be since Christ the Word is ours and we are his?

Comment by Rey Reynoso on January 14, 2009 at 12:49pm: Thought Models are funny things. When Scientists make one of an atom they expect it to help them think of how an atom works under a specific environment: they don't expect it to tell them everything about the atom. For that they examine an atom. The nature of THIS thought model was finally discovered in the summation.

If you read in all of this that the Scriptures are not ours (whatever that means within this context) then you've misread (since that was not what was communicated). I haven't even touched the purpose of the Big Author yet. I've cited very few verses (in previous posts). The only thing I offered was the possibility that needs to be examined and that's found in the closing paragraph.

I do doubt the attack would have been raised if I had not already mentioned that this whole thing eventually culminates in dispensationalism.

You can have the last word.

Comment by Char on January 14, 2009 at 12:25pm: By law if a gift is given to a man only it is still his wife's property also.

The point is that the thought model does not work if it's used to say that there are scriptures that are not ours. Scripture belongs to Christ and he has given it to us. To say it is "someone else's" may be true only if the someone else is him.

Comment by Rey Reynoso on January 14, 2009 at 12:13pm: Okay, you can say it's the same example if you want to. You're third example is still a gift for a couple. Not one of the couple can say the gift is one over the other. It's never YOUR gift. It's both YOU and THEIRS. His wife can never say "This is mine!" when it belongs to both and the wife must acknowledge that. My son and daughter both received a science kit: why did I give it to them and why not just to one of them?

But forget all this junk for a second: this is all metaphorical language and we can strain the metaphor every which way. What if the gift was an edible cookie...here today, gone tomorrow? What if the gift was the gift of life on a respirator but none of your other bodily functions operate save your lung? What then?

The Point is that the stuff here functions as a thought model: the words are the gift, the reason for the specific words are the item bought, the wrapping is the sentence and paragraph, the holiday is the context of the giving and the reception is the final form of the handing over of the information from Giver to Receiver. You can turn it every way you like but its all merely a thought model telling you, ultimately, that the words are given to be unraveled within their context and intended reception of conveying specific information. If you want, you can call it a thought model to help convey historical and grammatical hermeneutics without yet achieving the point of the final hermeneutic model that should be consistently employed.

Comment by Char on January 14, 2009 at 11:59am: No actually it wouldn't. If the gift was for one person and he made you part of the gift by making you part of himself, he has made the gift yours also. Then it is your gift. If a man owns something, even if it is given as a gift, it automatically becomes his wife's as well.

Comment by Rey Reynoso on January 14, 2009 at 11:51am: Well that would be a different example now wouldn't it? Your example was someone sharing it with you. If someone gave you and someone else a gift then that would be a totally different example. The question would then be "what do they also derive from the gift...why make it an AND For You?"

Comment by Char on January 14, 2009 at 11:49am: Of course not. But if you are part of the one to whom it has been given, then it is yours also. You are no longer looking over his shoulder for he has made it yours as well.

Comment by Rey Reynoso on January 14, 2009 at 10:23am: Totally off topic but It really makes me start clapping and reveling and totally enjoying the fact of how Christ has gifted the Church. He gives these individuals themselves as gifts and these individuals are gifted but their gifting is not for themselves. They then wind up giving to the Church and the Church grows. It's like a perpetual Christmas that finds its source in God's provision.

Comment by ScottL on January 14, 2009 at 10:18am: It's almost like the one receiving a gift also become a gift-giver.

Comment by Rey Reynoso on January 14, 2009 at 10:14am: If it's not for you, you leave it unwrapped. If it's unwrapped by the person it was given to you can look over their shoulder, see what they got, why they got it and how it speaks about them and the one who gave it. The Giver's giving to others tells you something about how he gives to you as well.

If the One to whom it belonged shared it with you you of course can enjoy it and love it but you never reject the person to whom it was given. You never deny that the gifting was theirs and they shared with you.

In both cases you're grateful and you always strive to understand.