Is Saint Paul more authoritative than the Gospels?

[Notthedarkweb]

Paul and his contemporaries predated the concept of the trinity and the acceptance of it as church doctrine by more than a lifetime. Though the difficulties of recognising the deity of Jesus, exercised all their minds. The holy spirit was less challenging, for at that time all churches accepted that it emanated from God. A position still recognised by the orthodox church. And the unaltered Creed.

I mentioned the identity of Jesus and God the Father in the shema concept, not the trinity. But again, there's a lot of claims going on here that are completely unsourced, so if you actually have academic resources to bring to the discussion like say, MacGrath's (now outdated) work, I am not interested in discussing this with you.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

I mentioned the identity of Jesus and God the Father in the shema concept, not the trinity. But again, there's a lot of claims going on here that are completely unsourced, so if you actually have academic resources to bring to the discussion like say, MacGrath's (now outdated) work, I am not interested in discussing this with you.

Of recent years, The Didache text, translation,analysis, and commentary by Aaron Milavec, has been of considerable interest to me, and of course predates the establishment of any of the church's dogma, as it concerns it self in how to introduce and train non Jews into the new Judeo-Christiann communities following Jesus death.

As such it shows no concept of the Trinity, the virgin birth or the divinity of Jesus. Nor such things as his resurrection or his atonement for sin. Nor does it demonstrate any knowledge of the writings of Paul or any of the Gospels.
However it does give major importance to the Eucharist and the Lord's prayer, a prayer directed towards God and the coming of the end of times.

As far as I am aware the Schema is the most important daily prayer for Jews recognising the supremacy and unity of God. It has not relavence to Jesus at all.
As a Christian leaning towards Unitarianism I can understand it's importance.
It has nothing to do with the concept of the Trinity.

 

[Notthedarkweb]

Of recent years, The Didache text, translation,analysis, and commentary by Aaron Milavec, has been of considerable interest to me, and of course predates the establishment of any of the church's dogma, as it concerns it self in how to introduce and train non Jews into the new Judeo-Christiann communities following Jesus death.

As such it shows no concept of the Trinity, the virgin birth or the divinity of Jesus. Nor such things as his resurrection or his atonement for sin. Nor does it demonstrate any knowledge of the writings of Paul or any of the Gospels.
However it does give major importance to the Eucharist and the Lord's prayer, a prayer directed towards God and the coming of the end of times.

As far as I am aware the Schema is the most important daily prayer for Jews recognising the supremacy and unity of God. It has not relavence to Jesus at all.
As a Christian leaning towards Unitarianism I can understand it's importance.
It has nothing to do with the concept of the Trinity.

Are we talking about Paul or the non-Pauline Didache now? I already said that the synoptics don't have the identity shema of Paul since they are from the Jesus sayings-tradition. The Didache reference was to show that the form of the trinitarian formula was older than the 4th century, I agree that the contemporary trinitarian formula starts in about the late 1st or early 2nd century.

The shema has relevance to the interpretations of the passages that Blu claimed were where Paul disclaimed Jesus as God, because those are exactly the area where a large section of Pauline scholars believe that Paul affirms the unity of Jesus and God the Father, as you might have noted from the multiple sources I quoted. The fact that you didn't notice this despite my comments suggests you ought to read it over again, since it constitutes the core of Paul's question of monotheism as a devout first-century AD Jew.

 

[Estro Felino]

Are we talking about Paul or the non-Pauline Didache now? I already said that the synoptics don't have the identity shema of Paul since they are from the Jesus sayings-tradition. The Didache reference was to show that the form of the trinitarian formula was older than the 4th century, I agree that the contemporary trinitarian formula starts in about the late 1st or early 2nd century.

The shema has relevance to the interpretations of the passages that Blu claimed were where Paul disclaimed Jesus as God, because those are exactly the area where a large section of Pauline scholars believe that Paul affirms the unity of Jesus and God the Father, as you might have noted from the multiple sources I quoted. The fact that you didn't notice this despite my comments suggests you ought to read it over again, since it constitutes the core of Paul's question of monotheism as a devout first-century AD Jew.

I don't know whether you have read Dante's Divine Comedy, Inferno to be precise.
Even if it's a literature work, and that is filled with allegories and mythology, Catholic priests say that as a whole that depiction of Hell is perfectly coherent with Catholic hamartiology.
So I wonder: what is the vision of Hell, according to Anglicans, Protestants?
What do they think of Dante's inferno?

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

I don't know whether you have read Dante's Divine Comedy, Inferno to be precise.
Even if it's a literature work, and that is filled with allegories and mythology, Catholic priests say that as a whole that depiction of Hell is perfectly coherent with Catholic hamartiology.
So I wonder: what is the vision of Hell, according to Anglicans, Protestants?
What do they think of Dante's inferno?

Dante's inferno has coloured in many people's concepts of hell.
However I would suggest that the reality is that, that vision of hell was already a long held tradition and was what. Dante called upon.
Artistic depictions of hell predate Dante by a country mile.

Modern day Anglicans do not major on hell or the devil at all, But tend to see it as being the absence of God.
We never hear the hell fire sermons of old. It is rare to hear reference to hell or the devil at all.
I would suggest Anglicans are coming to recognise sin as originating within themselves, and have no need to blame it on an evil demigod. Who will torture them in an after life.
The old testament has no hell as the Greeks understood it.

 

[Estro Felino]

Dante's inferno has coloured in many people's concepts of hell.
However I would suggest that the reality is that, that vision of hell was already a long held tradition and was what. Dante called upon.
Artistic depictions of hell predate Dante by a country mile.

Modern day Anglicans do not major on hell or the devil at all, But tend to see it as being the absence of God.
We never hear the hell fire sermons of old. It is rare to hear reference to hell or the devil at all.
I would suggest Anglicans are coming to recognise sin as originating within themselves, and have no need to blame it on an evil demigod. Who will torture them in an after life.
The old testament has no hell as the Greeks understood it.

Thank you. That is very interesting.

 

[Notthedarkweb]

I don't know whether you have read Dante's Divine Comedy, Inferno to be precise.
Even if it's a literature work, and that is filled with allegories and mythology, Catholic priests say that as a whole that depiction of Hell is perfectly coherent with Catholic hamartiology.
So I wonder: what is the vision of Hell, according to Anglicans, Protestants?
What do they think of Dante's inferno?

Anglicans see hell as either the total extinction of the possibility of happiness due to a complete absence of God in sinners or the annihilation of the soul of the sinner due to it lacking any place in God's divine plan. We usually don't see it as spatialized and instead view it as a state of being.

 

[Notthedarkweb]

Dante's inferno has coloured in many people's concepts of hell.
However I would suggest that the reality is that, that vision of hell was already a long held tradition and was what. Dante called upon.
Artistic depictions of hell predate Dante by a country mile.

Modern day Anglicans do not major on hell or the devil at all, But tend to see it as being the absence of God.
We never hear the hell fire sermons of old. It is rare to hear reference to hell or the devil at all.
I would suggest Anglicans are coming to recognise sin as originating within themselves, and have no need to blame it on an evil demigod. Who will torture them in an after life.
The old testament has no hell as the Greeks understood it.

No, the Anglican Communion still accepts original sin and the Augustinian conception of sin being a reformed church and men requiring only the activity of God's saving grace to justify them. But it's true that our conception is coloured by the English Reformation where the grace of God through the Holy Spirit is present in all men and available to response to God's saving activity, which means that our approach is much more amenable to Catholic interpretations of Augustine than traditional hypercalvinist readings. Calvin himself barely talked about double predestination in the Institutes and his lectures, and there's good argument that he saw it in a very different way to how contemporary TULIP calvinists saw it. See the Episcopal Church glossary section on justification:

The word (from the Latin justus, meaning “righteous,” and facere, meaning “to make”) is used in both the OT and NT to mean “being set in a right relation to another person or to God within the covenant. The Psalmist, realizing the weight of sin, acknowledged that God was “justified” in pronouncing judgment (Ps. 51:5). God was faithful to the old covenant, which required the Israelites to be morally righteous. St. Paul expressed the heart of the new covenant by the claim that Christians are “justified” by faith (trust) in the death of Christ, while nevertheless still sinners (Rom 5:1-11). Christians knew that they had been set in right relation to God in a new covenant although they were not morally righteous. They were justified by grace through faith (Eph 2.8). Justification became the Protestant cry against the medieval penitential system in the sixteenth-century Reformation. The penitential system was felt to require that penitents make themselves just by good works. Luther claimed that a believer was “simul justus et peccator(at once in a right covenant relation and also sinner). Article XI of the Articles of Religion stated, “We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by faith and not for our work or deservings” (BCP, p. 870). An Agreed Statement by the second Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC-II), Salvation and the Church (1987), noted that “the act of God in bringing salvation to the human race and summoning individuals into a community to serve him is due solely to the mercy and grace of God, mediated and manifested through Jesus Christ in his ministry, atoning death and rising again.”​

Totally agree about your comment regarding hell, though.

​

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

Are we talking about Paul or the non-Pauline Didache now? I already said that the synoptics don't have the identity shema of Paul since they are from the Jesus sayings-tradition. The Didache reference was to show that the form of the trinitarian formula was older than the 4th century, I agree that the contemporary trinitarian formula starts in about the late 1st or early 2nd century.

The shema has relevance to the interpretations of the passages that Blu claimed were where Paul disclaimed Jesus as God, because those are exactly the area where a large section of Pauline scholars believe that Paul affirms the unity of Jesus and God the Father, as you might have noted from the multiple sources I quoted. The fact that you didn't notice this despite my comments suggests you ought to read it over again, since it constitutes the core of Paul's question of monotheism as a devout first-century AD Jew.

All the Apostles were devout Jews, as was Jesus himself, Paul was no exception.
I would suggest both he and they were conflicted on the Question of the Deity of Jesus.

In the Didache God Jesus and the Holy spirit were invoked in prayer and in reference to the Eucharist. However they are not seen as a unified trinity. That concept was a long way in the future, The communities of the Didache were very solid monotheists. And did not yet deify Jesus.

This would also have been the situation in which Paul found himself, sand about which he was clearly conflicted.

Today a majority of all Christians follow a faith very clearly coloured by Pauline doctrine. In fact his vision out shines that of all the other Apostles combined. To the extent that we have very little indication left of their personal views on anything. Except that there was some disagreement between the relative merits of faith and works, and the need for Christians of non Jewish birth to be compliant with the Law.

By the beginning of the third century Christianity had reached the limits of the entire known world and was totally differentiated from Judaism. It had started to replace all existing religions. It's dogma was a long way toward being unified, but with a number of conflicting concepts, some of which are not resolved even today. Hence threads like this.

 

[Notthedarkweb]

All the Apostles were devout Jews, as was Jesus himself, Paul was no exception.
I would suggest both he and they were conflicted on the Question of the Deity of Jesus.

In the Didache God Jesus and the Holy spirit were invoked in prayer and in reference to the Eucharist. However they are not seen as a unified trinity. That concept was a long way in the future, The communities of the Didache were very solid monotheists. And did not yet deify Jesus.

This would also have been the situation in which Paul found himself, sand about which he was clearly conflicted.

Today a majority of all Christians follow a faith very clearly coloured by Pauline doctrine. In fact his vision out shines that of all the other Apostles combined. To the extent that we have very little indication left of their personal views on anything. Except that there was some disagreement between the relative merits of faith and works, and the need for Christians of non Jewish birth to be compliment with the Law.

By the beginning of the third century Christianity had reached the limits of the entire known world and was totally differentiated from Judaism. It had started to replace all existing religions. It's dogma was a long way toward being unified, but with a number of conflicting concepts, some of which are not resolved even today. Hence threads like this.

I disagree with none of this! Paula Frederiksen has shown pretty clearly Paul was a devout Jew. I was just pushing back against the claims in the original post I was responding to that Paul's kyrios formulae explicitly militated against binitarianism or that Paul was pushing a Gnostic metaphysics! My point was that the seeds of God the Father = God the Son identity can very realistically be pressaged in the collation of the kyrios and the shema formula in the same sentence by Paul and that this is something that is seen by many of the Pauline scholars who do work on this. I even said that the Jesus-tradition Christians of the synoptics affiliated with the "Petrine" (for lack of better word) church didn't see Christ as divine yet.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

I disagree with none of this! Paula Frederiksen has shown pretty clearly Paul was a devout Jew. I was just pushing back against the claims in the original post I was responding to that Paul's kyrios formulae explicitly militated against binitarianism or that Paul was pushing a Gnostic metaphysics! My point was that the seeds of God the Father = God the Son identity can very realistically be pressaged in the collation of the kyrios and the shema formula in the same sentence by Paul and that this is something that is seen by many of the Pauline scholars who do work on this. I even said that the Jesus-tradition Christians of the synoptics affiliated with the "Petrine" (for lack of better word) church didn't see Christ as divine yet.

Peter Timothy and James, if seen as representing the Jerusalem branch of the new Christianity. Had less need to accommodate the Gentile arguments faced by Paul in his mission to them. This more than likely added to their differing viewpoints. (We are all influenced by the environments in which we find ourselves) in this way it is understandable that Paul was more influenced by Greek thought than they were. The trinity would have been impossible to formulate with out both the Greek language and Greek religious concepts.

This is much the same way that Jesus the Servant and shepherd of mankind, was transformed into Jesus the King in power and magisty by the Roman need to see him that way.

 

[Estro Felino]

Anglicans see hell as either the total extinction of the possibility of happiness due to a complete absence of God in sinners or the annihilation of the soul of the sinner due to it lacking any place in God's divine plan. We usually don't see it as spatialized and instead view it as a state of being.

Very insightful.
The RCC considers Dante's work as an allegory of the afterlife. What Dante called contrapasso practically sums up that the afterlife is a quid pro quo of what one's worldly life was like.
And the Catholic Church is very unbiased, because Dante harshly criticized the temporal power of the Vatican (he practically says that Rome is Babylon the Great from Revelation) and puts several popes and cardinals in Hell, whereas some pagans and atheists are in Heaven. Because many clergymen are called simoniacs because they had turned sacraments into a profitable business.
It is all based upon merits. That's Dante's soteriology.

 

[Kenny]

Tell me: how do you interpret Matthew 13:49?
I mean: who are the wicked, and who are the just?

"49 So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just,"

As it speaks of the end, it would be easy to apply the fact that the "wicked" are those who never accepted Jesus as Lord IMV.

John said,

John 3:16-18
Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. 18 He who believes in him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

As you notice again, the sin is in not receiving.

 

[Estro Felino]

"49 So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just,"

As it speaks of the end, it would be easy to apply the fact that the "wicked" are those who never accepted Jesus as Lord IMV.

John said,

John 3:16-18
Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. 18 He who believes in him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

As you notice again, the sin is in not receiving.

The Greek word used is poniròs: πονηρός - Wiktionary
It means "evil, tricky, cunning".
I think the word wicked is the right translation.

I think atheism doesn't imply wickedness.
But that's just my personal opinion.
Maybe I am wrong...maybe Matthew did mean what you said.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

No, the Anglican Communion still accepts original sin and the Augustinian conception of sin being a reformed church and men requiring only the activity of God's saving grace to justify them. But it's true that our conception is coloured by the English Reformation where the grace of God through the Holy Spirit is present in all men and available to response to God's saving activity, which means that our approach is much more amenable to Catholic interpretations of Augustine than traditional hypercalvinist readings. Calvin himself barely talked about double predestination in the Institutes and his lectures, and there's good argument that he saw it in a very different way to how contemporary TULIP calvinists saw it. See the Episcopal Church glossary section on justification:

The word (from the Latin justus, meaning “righteous,” and facere, meaning “to make”) is used in both the OT and NT to mean “being set in a right relation to another person or to God within the covenant. The Psalmist, realizing the weight of sin, acknowledged that God was “justified” in pronouncing judgment (Ps. 51:5). God was faithful to the old covenant, which required the Israelites to be morally righteous. St. Paul expressed the heart of the new covenant by the claim that Christians are “justified” by faith (trust) in the death of Christ, while nevertheless still sinners (Rom 5:1-11). Christians knew that they had been set in right relation to God in a new covenant although they were not morally righteous. They were justified by grace through faith (Eph 2.8). Justification became the Protestant cry against the medieval penitential system in the sixteenth-century Reformation. The penitential system was felt to require that penitents make themselves just by good works. Luther claimed that a believer was “simul justus et peccator(at once in a right covenant relation and also sinner). Article XI of the Articles of Religion stated, “We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by faith and not for our work or deservings” (BCP, p. 870). An Agreed Statement by the second Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC-II), Salvation and the Church (1987), noted that “the act of God in bringing salvation to the human race and summoning individuals into a community to serve him is due solely to the mercy and grace of God, mediated and manifested through Jesus Christ in his ministry, atoning death and rising again.”​

Totally agree about your comment regarding hell, though.

​

I do not dispute any of that as still being the anglican official position. However it seems to be moving more strongly in line with the Orthodox church, especially in regard to the filioque. However it has rather stronger links with the Lutheran churches in terms of shared communion and Episcopal links.

In terms of what congregations and priests actually believe, there is evidence of a growing gulf between that, and the Anglican declaration of faith, the Westminster confession, the Creeds, and the Lutheran like beliefs.
Few people today believe in original sin or its ramifications, Nor do they believe in salvation being by faith alone or anything in regard to predestination. Many are also uncomfortable with the concept of justification with salvation as taught by the church. This is conveyed in the usual Anglican way of simply ignoring what they do not care for.

In terms of Lutheran or Orthodox beliefs, a large majority of Anglican congregants know nothing at all about them....


The Anglican church is so broad that it easily accommodates such differences.

My Family in Ireland, were early local leading members of the the non Subscribing Presbyterians. (Unitarians) originally Scottish Presbyterians
And provided the land and much of the wherewithall to build their church in Comber county down. (Still thriving)
Though I was baptised as an Anglican

You might find it interesting to visit this link as the church is unusual in having no dogma.
I would describe it as Christian Unitarian. (As compared to UU, with whom it is now affiliated.)

Non-subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland - Wikipedia

It is perhaps hard for some people to follow, as it depends largely on personal faith and commitment, rather than dogma.

 

[Kenny]

The Greek word used is poniròs: πονηρός - Wiktionary
It means "evil, tricky, cunning".
I think the word wicked is the right translation.

I think atheism doesn't imply wickedness.
But that's just my personal opinion.
Maybe I am wrong...maybe Matthew did mean what you said.

LOL... yes, we never know. I always say, "When we get to Heaven, Jesus will have Christianity 101 with the title "This is actually what I meant".

The word "wicked" is where we get the word "wicker" like a wicker basket. A twisting of truth (applied).

In reference to atheism, I am glad it is God and not I who determines the heart and judges the heart. Obviously, as with God, I desire that none should perish.

But going back to that scripture, I am not sure there will be atheists at that time. Note the tenor and timing:

"49 So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just,"

At the end of the world, the two witnesses will had lived, died and resurrected and the tribulation will be over. At that point, I don't think there will be any more debate as to whether or not there is a God. After all of that, one would really have to be at a place of determined and willful wickedness and anti-God. (at least in my viewpoint - God will have freedom to instruct me in Christianity 101 )

Regardless, the current gift is eternal life to all and the door is wide open.

and.... ... I still don't think there is double jeopardy... Either Jesus paid the whole price or he didn't and the gift of union with God is available to all otherwise:

1) King David, murderer and adulterer was called by God as "friend"
2) Rehab the harlot... in the line of the Messiah
3) Saul/Paul - loved, accept and connected.

I really don't see a purgatory moment and I don't see purgatory as the Gospel (Good news)

 

[Notthedarkweb]

I do not dispute any of that as still being the anglican official position. However it seems to be moving more strongly in line with the Orthodox church, especially in regard to the filioque. However it has rather stronger links with the Lutheran churches in terms of shared communion and Episcopal links.

In terms of what congregations and priests actually believe, there is evidence of a growing gulf between that, and the Anglican declaration of faith, the Westminster confession, the Creeds, and the Lutheran like beliefs.
Few people today believe in original sin or its ramifications, Nor do they believe in salvation being by faith alone or anything in regard to predestination. Many are also uncomfortable with the concept of justification with salvation as taught by the church. This is conveyed in the usual Anglican way of simply ignoring what they do not care for.

In terms of Lutheran or Orthodox beliefs, a large majority of Anglican congregants know nothing at all about them....


The Anglican church is so broad that it easily accommodates such differences.

My Family in Ireland, were early local leading members of the the non Subscribing Presbyterians. (Unitarians) originally Scottish Presbyterians
And provided the land and much of the wherewithall to build their church in Comber county down. (Still thriving)
Though I was baptised as an Anglican

You might find it interesting to visit this link as the church is unusual in having no dogma.
I would describe it as Christian Unitarian. (As compared to UU, with whom it is now affiliated.)

Non-subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland - Wikipedia

It is perhaps hard for some people to follow, as it depends largely on personal faith and commitment, rather than dogma.

Idk, the Anglican Church, at least the ACC and the ECUSA, are both creedal churches that require the trinitarian formula of the Nicene creed as dogma, but you do you.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

Idk, the Anglican Church, at least the ACC and the ECUSA, are both creedal churches that require the trinitarian formula of the Nicene creed as dogma, but you do you.

Indeed they do.
I take my cue from the Didache. Whose people I am certain were Christian. As were the Apostles none of which were Trinitarian. But who did believe that Jesus had a relationship with God.


I believe the Trinity as a concept, is a construct to avoid the the charge of worshiping more than one God.
But which does not explain anything. I am happy for the relationship to remain a mystery.

 

[wellwisher]

Paul's ideas and drive were connected to a manifestation of the Holy Spirit; the Living Spirit that Jesus promises after he leaves.

Currently we have the Old Testament and New Testament. The Living spirit, promised 2000 years ago, would be similar to the spirit in Paul, but manifest in others, creating changes in the last 2000 years of history. The Catholic Church has about 10,000 examples; Saints. These inspirational stories could be compiled within a Future Testament; Book Three of the Bible. The Holy Spirit; is the third path to God; faith in an inner voice. The testament to the Spirit would make the bible a testament Trinity; Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

As history shows most people did not follow what Paul wrote; faith apart from the Law. They remained in the Old and New Testament modes and law; knowledge of good and evil. The Living spirit was sprinkled all over the world, creating exemplary examples of people pulling us forward.

I see the Third Testament being a wide range of inspirational examples from many times and places over the last 2000 years. It would teach the ways and paths of the inner spirit, as manifest to the world. Jesus seem to indicate that the spirit would be for all, so the FutureTestament should be stories from all around the world, which collectively show the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. Maybe the World Testament would be a good name.

I would guess it should be about same size as the Old and New Testaments; 500-700 pages, so not everything all over the world over 2000 years can be included. Documentation would be preferred since the Atheist like observational data.

We had 2000 years to see the Spirit in action with 20/20 hindsight of recorded history. A spirit of truth would have been in touch with reality, not as we wish it to be, but how it was. The Spirit of truth would often have had a hard time being heard, when the collective wished reality to be something other than the truth. But when the Spirit spoke, things changed in big and small ways.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

Paul's ideas and drive were connected to a manifestation of the Holy Spirit; the Living Spirit that Jesus promises after he leaves.

Currently we have the Old Testament and New Testament. The Living spirit, promised 2000 years ago, would be similar to the spirit in Paul, but manifest in others, creating changes in the last 2000 years of history. The Catholic Church has about 10,000 examples; Saints. These inspirational stories could be compiled within a Future Testament; Book Three of the Bible. The Holy Spirit; is the third path to God; faith in an inner voice. The testament to the Spirit would make the bible a testament Trinity; Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

As history shows most people did not follow what Paul wrote; faith apart from the Law. They remained in the Old and New Testament modes and law; knowledge of good and evil. The Living spirit was sprinkled all over the world, creating exemplary examples of people pulling us forward.

I see the Third Testament being a wide range of inspirational examples from many times and places over the last 2000 years. It would teach the ways and paths of the inner spirit, as manifest to the world. Jesus seem to indicate that the spirit would be for all, so the FutureTestament should be stories from all around the world, which collectively show the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. Maybe the World Testament would be a good name.

I would guess it should be about same size as the Old and New Testaments; 500-700 pages, so not everything all over the world over 2000 years can be included. Documentation would be preferred since the Atheist like observational data.

We had 2000 years to see the Spirit in action with 20/20 hindsight of recorded history. A spirit of truth would have been in touch with reality, not as we wish it to be, but how it was. The Spirit of truth would often have had a hard time being heard, when the collective wished reality to be something other than the truth. But when the Spirit spoke, things changed in big and small ways.

.

Of course the Holy spirit has always been in everyone. It is the way God communicates with us , comforts, guides and strengthens us. This is no different for us to day than it was for Paul and the Apostles.

This is not something that just happened at the Epiphany, it was always so, what changed was that we recognised it for what it was. We do not necessarily hear his voice, but he is always there, we have to accept the invitation.

I would agree that God through the Holy Spirit is as much in action today as always. However recognising this. In the actions of man is difficult. As we are all influenced by each other and our own desires in equal measure, and our choices and actions do not always follow the inner voice of God.
.
Truth and new knowledge from God did not end with with the prophets, Apostles and the early church fathers. It has been alive in us through all the ages. Though largely unrecognised by the Church who seem to deny continuous revelation.

Change and renewal are necessary and inevitable,. Their denial is a denial of God's continuing presence and our need to grow in knowledged understanding in a continously changing world.
What was needful and sufficient in the past is not necessarily apt or applicable today.
God and change are inextricably linked, and it is only through the continual guidance of the Holy Spirit that we able to follow.