{"id":906,"date":"2007-12-26T15:13:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-26T23:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/?p=906"},"modified":"2007-12-26T15:13:00","modified_gmt":"2007-12-26T23:13:00","slug":"the-christmas-story-reading-it-with-new-eyes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/?p=906","title":{"rendered":"The Christmas Story:  Reading it with New Eyes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In my <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/2007\/12\/25\/happy-celebration-of-the-incarnation.aspx\"> Christmas reflection\/greeting yesterday<\/a> I chose a slightly different but, to my understanding of the Greek text, reasonable reading of the passage.&nbsp; Specifically, in John 1:14 where we usually say that the Word &#8220;dwelt&#8221; among us, an alternate translation is that it &#8220;tabernacled&#8221; or literally &#8220;pitched its tent&#8221; among us.<\/p>\n<p>If you want an even more counter-cultural example, I recommend an article from the Christianity Today web site titled &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/ct\/2007\/decemberweb-only\/151-33.0.html\" target=\"_blank\"> No room at the what?<\/a>&#8221;&nbsp; This is a great, and challenging, discussion of how we view the &#8220;no room at the inn&#8221; phrase and what the Greek text and the cultural setting may actually be.<\/p>\n<p>Is this applicable to how we view Presbyterian polity?&nbsp; Absolutely.&nbsp; If you have every worked with a congregation of a different cultural background, you know they will read, interpret and apply polity with certain cultural understandings and expectations which could differ and conflict with your established understandings.&nbsp; Presbyteries have sometimes needed extensive discussions to come to a mutual understanding about the views of polity and each others cultural understandings.&nbsp; The need for flexibility to accommodate different cultural approaches, for better or for worse, is one element in the rewrite of the PC(USA) Form of Government.<\/p>\n<p>The question in any of our polity becomes &#8220;What is fundamental to our theology and what can be flexible to accommodate cultural traditions and backgrounds?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A good Feast of Saint Stephen to you and a happy Boxing Day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In my Christmas reflection\/greeting yesterday I chose a slightly different but, to my understanding of the Greek text, reasonable reading of the passage.&nbsp; Specifically, in John 1:14 where we usually [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-reflection"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Christmas Story: Reading it with New Eyes - The GA Junkie<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/?p=906\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Christmas Story: Reading it with New Eyes - The GA Junkie\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In my Christmas reflection\/greeting yesterday I chose a slightly different but, to my understanding of the Greek text, reasonable reading of the passage.&nbsp; 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