Thursday, March 20, 2008

Excellent Excerpt

Here's one of my favorite paragraphs from the new book, "Why We're Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be)." In this section, co-author Kevin DeYoung plays off the well-known illustration of a number of blind men feeling their way around an elephant, and naturally describing it differently....

"We may all be, by nature, like blind men touching the elephant without knowing whether what we are feeling is a trunk, tail, or ear. But what if the elephant spoke and said, 'Quit calling me crocodile, peacock, or paradox. I'm an elephant, for crying out loud! That long thing is my trunk. That little frayed thing is my tail. That big floppy thing is my ear.'

"And what if the elephant gave us ears to hear his voice and a mind to understand his message (cf. 1 Cor. 2:14-15)? Would our professed ignorance about the elephant and our unwillingness to make any confident assertions about his nature mean we were especially humble, or just deaf?" (p.37).

I think that's very well put, and directly relates to the apparent unwillingness on the part of so many among the emergent to affirm what the faithful Church has always affirmed, namely, 'what Scripture says, God says.'

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

ironically, our pastor mentioned "the elephant" today in his message. you may be interested in hearing it when it becomes live tomorrow. www.marshill.org

Douglas Phillips said...

Hi again Darci,

I really recommend this book...it's written by a pastor friend of mine, and I think he has some important stuff to say.

Peace,
Doug