Yes, it's a vexed question. I don't know if I would rely on logic, personally, or even suggest that logic comes into divine things. I'm not saying that you're wrong - I would just view the matter in different terms.
The truth is one whole - it's not bits and pieces. If you pick up one part of the truth, you pick up the whole truth - there's no dividing one aspect of God's truth from the rest and having it in isolation. As well as being one whole, the truth is completely consistent, with no internal contradictions. The truth is in Jesus (Ephesians 4:21). Is there any Man we can look to who is wholly, completely, unfailingly consistent? None but Jesus, who is the same as the truth which is in Him, the embodiment of Truth. That's how we can be sure that the doctrine we receive is the truth, because it's consistent with the whole of the truth. It doesn't require to be taken up in isolation to be understood. It's easy for evil persons to pick out a verse of scripture and make it say whatever they want it to say. But the fact that their doctrine is corrupt is revealed by the fact that their interpretation isn't consistent at all with the broad scope of the word of God.
What I mean by that is that if we try to apply the parables literally, we'd get nowhere. Was the Lord literally a merchant in His search for a literal pearl of great price? Is there literally treasure hidden in a field? I'm not trying to be flippant, but it does show how confused we could get if we apply parables, or elements of them, in a literal way. I know that most brethren are in no danger whatsoever of trying to apply the parables literally in their entirety, but there is a tendency to pick out what we like from them to support unscriptural ideas about practical matters. These things are spiritual in their application and meaning, and if we take the elements of them literally, we both lose the spiritual meaning, and we get into a bit of a fix. Think of how the Roman Catholic system has got so wildly astray by applying the Lord's words literally, even when not in parable form: transubstantiation.@Grant Melville
Greetings and Peace my Brother,
Hey could you explain to me what you meant by the following ((If we were to take all of these parables literally, we'd be in awful confusion, wouldn'twe?)))
I have yet to be able to wrap my mind around how you meant this.
God Bless Brother
Jim
Not at all. The parables are very precious, and a great many fundamental truths are revealed in them - the parable of the younger son is a particularly foundational one.
Yes, the Lord presents the truth to the disciples in the form of parables, so that through figures (or, you might say, types) they might understand the great truths of Christianity. Each element of a parable represents something or someone else other than what's literally spoken of. Why, out of all the things spoken of in parable form, should music and dancing be any different? This parable doesn't give us the idea of literal music instruments and literally dancing used in worship. What we see in the parable in any case isn't worship, but divine joy, the joy of divine Persons.
I think the discussion has a tendency to wander off-topic. What I hold and would state as truth is that musical instruments (or any other art or craft of man) have no place in Christian worship, in the assembly. The fact that God was praised with musical instruments in Jewish worship is undeniable. The fact that there's nothing wrong musical instruments, in themselves, is also incontestable. It's only the first point that I'm putting forward. The fact is that in the word of God where there's teaching concerning worship in the assembly, nowhere do find mentioned musical instruments, dancing, art, industry, eloquence, or oratory. Not many of us seem to think that's in any way significant, which is strange. If God looked for these things in Christian worship, it would be an oversight, to say the least, for these things not to included in His word regarding Christian worship. If even one of the aforementioned practices was mentioned in the scriptures, then perhaps we'd have a basis for including them all. But the fact is that none of them are mentioned, they're totally excluded from the page of scripture, the substance and spirit of the Word. The fact is that these things do not have the sanction of the word, but they do have the sanction of human tradition. The latter seems to have a powerful hold on Christendom, but we as real believers and spiritual persons, should not be so easily swayed by arguments of antiquity.
