THE UNFLATTENED LOGOS — PREFACE

 

 

PREFACE

BEFORE THE WHEEL

I did not begin this journey intending to construct another theological system.

I began with questions.

Questions concerning the Word.

The hand.

The vessel.

The ground.

The blood.

The fire.

And the movements that appeared throughout Scripture.

I had spent much of my life reading the Scriptures through explanations I had received from others.

Many of those explanations had become so familiar that I no longer recognized where the biblical testimony ended and the interpretation began.

Then I began noticing movement.

A word would appear.

An action would follow.

A hand would take.

A voice would speak.

Something would be given.

Something would be received.

And the order would matter.

I began to recognize that the Scriptures were not merely presenting isolated statements.

They were bearing testimony.

Yet I also discovered how easily I could move ahead of that testimony.

I could recognize a correspondence and immediately declare an identity.

I could encounter a question and rush toward an answer.

I could see an image and begin constructing an explanation before the witnesses had finished speaking.

That realization required restraint.

I had to learn to stop.

To observe.

To listen.

And to allow the testimony to remain intact.

THE POTTER’S HOUSE

Jeremiah 18 became an important witness in this examination.

The LORD commanded Jeremiah to arise and go down to the potter’s house.

There he would hear His words.

Jeremiah went.

He saw the potter working upon the wheels.

The vessel was marred.

And the potter made it again another vessel.

The movement was visible.

But something more important stood before me.

The wheel was not the Potter.

The clay was not the Potter.

And the vessel was not the source of its own making.

The hand belonged to the potter.

Yet even that image required restraint.

Jeremiah was not sent to the potter’s house so that I could invent an unlimited explanation of every vessel mentioned throughout Scripture.

The LORD gave the prophetic application.

I had to honor it.

The wheel could illuminate.

But the wheel could not become the authority.

THE DANGER OF FLATTENING

I began recognizing what I came to call the flattening of the Word.

It occurred when I reduced a testimony to a single explanation that could no longer preserve its distinctions.

A correspondence became an identity.

A metaphor became a literal mechanism.

A question became a verdict.

A measurement became a source of authority.

And a passage was made to answer a question it had not addressed.

The problem was not careful interpretation.

The problem was interpretation moving ahead of the witness.

I could arrange the Scriptures.

I could examine their language.

I could compare their movements.

But I could not make the Word submit to my architecture.

The Word was early.

My explanation was late.

THE WAY OF THE WITNESSES

A governing restraint emerged:

LET THE HEART REMAIN GIVEN TO GOD.

LET THE TONGUE WAIT.

LET THE WITNESSES TESTIFY.

LET THE WITNESSES INTERPRET ONE ANOTHER.

LET THE LAMB HAVE THE FINAL WORD.

This method does not require every question to be resolved.

It requires the witness to be preserved.

When two passages correspond, I examine their relationship.

When they differ, I preserve the difference.

When Scripture identifies a person or event, I receive that identification.

When Scripture does not establish an identity, I do not manufacture one.

And when the testimony leaves a question unanswered, I allow the question to remain.

THE PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK

This manuscript follows a journey through twenty-two chapters.

It begins with the Word.

It examines the architecture of measurement, the Potter’s wheel, the clay, the blood, and the vessel.

It follows Judas, the silver, the field, and the language of perdition.

It examines the throne, the accuser, the Beast, the image, the mark, Babylon, and judgment.

Then it follows the witnesses into the new creation.

The river.

The tree.

The healing of the nations.

The fire.

The open gates.

And the final invitation.

I have not written these chapters to claim that every biblical mystery has been solved.

I have written them to preserve the movement of an examination.

Some conclusions are explicit.

Some correspondences remain under consideration.

And some questions remain open.

The distinctions matter.

This book is not an attempt to make the Potter’s wheel the center of Scripture.

It is an examination that begins with the wheel and repeatedly returns to the One whose Word preceded it.

The wheel is a witness.

The vessel is a witness.

The hand is a witness.

But the Lamb remains.

THE WORD WAS EARLY.

THE TOOL WAS LATE.

THE WITNESSES MUST TESTIFY.

THE LAMB HAS THE FINAL WORD.

 

THE UNFLATTENED LOGOS

THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE POTTER’S WHEEL

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