Drew+

Thank you for the reference.  Great web page.

However the link brought me to the Home Page and not
to the article. I put "stool" in their search engine
and found the article.

This link may bring one directly to the article in
case some of us received a truncated version due to
their web-browser's capacity.

http://www.adventbirmingham.org/articles.asp?ID=45


Cheers!

Charles+




--- "The Rev. Charles A. Collins, Jr., S.B.R."
<evanglican@...> wrote:
> Brethren,
> 
> I found this article interesting.  Click on the link
> for an interesting 
> illustration accompaning Mrs. Newton's column. My
> own prefered analogy is of 
> a tricycle with Scripture being the large front
> wheel -- without it you 
> don't get anywhere and fall flat on your face!
> 
> Soli Deo Gloria!
> 
> Drew Collins
> DSE, REC
> 
>
http://www.adventbirmingham.com/advent/articles.asp?ID=1486
> 
> Sitting on the Wrong Stool
> by Janice Newton
> 
> 
> I have often been troubled by the three-legged stool
> concept of Bible, 
> tradition and reason as the stable grounding for the
> Christian faith and for 
> the Christian’s faith.
> 
> 
> 
> I have a three-legged stool at home and when my
> young grandchildren climb on 
> to it, it is so unstable that it tips over. It is
> not a good place to try 
> and sit. Three-legged stools were designed in olden
> times to enable the 
> stool not to wobble when placed on uneven floors. If
> the basis for our faith 
> is already unstable, maybe we want to compensate by
> giving our explanation 
> of it as three-legged, so it won’t wobble so much
> when tested. However, as 
> Christians we have a much more secure base upon
> which to build our faith. We 
> build on the rock that is Christ, upon his words
> that supply the firm ground 
> for our belief. [1]
> 
> I remember in my teenage years how we would leave
> the young peoples Bible 
> Study on a Saturday evening and congregate in our
> favourite place - the 
> coffee bar at the end of the High Street. There the
> high stools with yellow, 
> red, green and blue seats were bright and
> attractive. Their support was a 
> strong steel pole that brought a stylish, shiny
> appeal to the whole place.  
> Raised above ground level we would sit and discuss
> everything, from the 
> passage of the Bible we had been studying to the
> latest in fashions and 
> music, whilst solving the world’s problems, which
> our parents had failed to 
> address!
> 
> 
> 
> It is bar stools like these that seem to me to
> represent a truer picture of 
> the basis for discerning our true Christian
> inheritance. As God’s people we 
> are set in the world, in the hustle and bustle of
> ordinary life. We need a 
> secure basis for our faith so that we are not blown
> about by the latest fads 
> and theories. [2]
> 
> God has given us the book of books as our
> inheritance. Through it the God of 
> Truth has communicated with his people down the
> ages. This is not a God who 
> lies. He has not misled those Christians who taught
> us the truth and gave us 
> examples to follow. He does not change his mind on a
> whim or a fashion or a 
> desire to show how intellectually clever he is.  In
> the Bible God speaks to 
> his people, whether they like what they hear or not.
> 
> 
> 
> Thus the Bible is like the solid, single supporting
> leg of the stool upon 
> which we sit. Just as the steel bar stools were set
> in immovable concrete, 
> so, our God has given us a stable support in his
> word, both in The Word, - 
> our Saviour Christ [3]- the scriptures given for our
> learning[4]. These are 
> our main and solidly founded support. Nothing equals
> them. From the 
> beginning they speak of Christ and Christ used them
> as his yardstick. [5] 
> How much more should we, his disciples.
> 
> 
> 
> However, God has also given us means for making that
> scriptural word 
> understandable. Tradition is one of those means.
> Different people in my 
> youth group chose a different coloured stool to sit
> on. We each had our 
> favourite colour. Thus, with tradition. This adds
> colour to the church. In 
> our denominations, in our reading of the early
> church fathers, in our choice 
> of creeds, we all find the ones we like most. The
> ones who provide the most 
> comforting or challenging way of helping us unravel
> some of the truths about 
> God.  The padded seats of the bar stools in their
> vibrant differences 
> provide a comfortable place to sit upon a Bible
> which often challenges us to 
> be uncomfortable about our prejudices, judgments and
> ideas. We could sit on 
> the Bible pillar alone, but the padding of tradition
> makes it easier. We 
> have the rich inheritance of former learning to
> prevent us making the same 
> mistakes of heresy and apostasy. Tradition helps the
> sometimes painful truth 
> of God to become absorbable. Tradition helps us to
> observe the truths of God 
> within the conduct of worship and fellowship in a
> way that leads us to 
> acknowledge how the old truths have meaning for our
> lives today.
> 
> 
> 
> God’s Bible truths should lift us above our earthly
> selves towards our 
> Maker. The coffee bar stools were too high to slide
> on easily. In order to 
> perch on them, we needed help to lift ourselves off
> the ground. There was 
> always a ring around the steel pillar to aid us, to
> lift us up and to keep 
> our feet firmly based on the metal, so that we
> neither swung needlessly 
> around nor fell off. [6] The steel ring of reason
> helps to keep our thought 
> and intellect firmly concentrated on the truth as we
> look at the Bible.
> 
> 
> 
> Reason is a God-given, creative part of how God made
> us like himself in the 
> very beginning. He intends us to be a thoughtful
> people. However, that 
> thoughtful reasoning is a support. It is not equal
> to the mind of God and 
> Christ as revealed in His word. How arrogant of
> humankind that we think we 
> can re-interpret the truths of God to fit our sinful
> circumstances, in order 
> to justify our actions and thoughts. How meager is
> our judgment of what is 
> best, when all along God has a better, fuller life
> to offer us. How 
> egotistically self-centered is our failure to listen
> to his loving desire to 
> transform us through the forgiving, cleansing
> actions of Christ, who died to 
> save us.
> 
> 
> 
> The three-legged stool only serves to instruct our
> arrogance. It sets two 
> man-centered concepts, tradition and reason, against
> the God-centered Bible. 
> It provides a false analogy whereby the created
> being raises itself to claim 
> equality with the Creator. The ring near the base of
> single legged bar stool 
> reminds us that our reason is only a support to
> interpret the word of God. 
> The padded seat provides some traditional comfort as
> we tackle the hard 
> issues of that word challenging us. The steel beauty
> of the single pillar of 
> the Bible is the major support and strength of the
> Christian Faith. This is 
> where God speaks to his people. Let us be humble
> enough to learn from him. 
> How magnificently, wondrously awe-filling it is,
> that our God communicates 
> 
=== message truncated ===


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