"But who do you say that I am?"
Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the son of the living God."
The revelation to Peter of the unique person and role of Jesus Christ included the knowledge that Jesus belonged to a unique category, and was not merely another in the line of prophets that had been sent to Israel since ancient times. He was the promised, divine Messiah. The masses of the people knew that Jesus was a notable religious personality, but failed to realize that he did not belong to the same category as the historical figures of their scriptures.
Warning: This image reflects doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church and not the opinions of this blog writer! It is a great piece of art, however. I really love the halo.
Category errors can be fundamental and lead thinking down incorrect channels, bringing in a host of falsely connected knowledge and leading to wrong conclusions. When considering some subjects, the first task is to decide exactly how to think about it, before the thinking can be productive. Otherwise, one ends up spinning their wheels at best, or more likely spinning out all sorts of mischief.
This week in the Sunday School class at Clarkson Community Church, we will take up formally the question of the destiny of the Exodus generation (the focus of an extended warning passage in the book of Hebrews) and try to avoid making a category error that would throw our minds into a muddle of confusion. To understand the warning, we must reach some conclusions about its object. If the foundation is bad, the superstructure of logic probably won't be any better.
Fortunately, this house was built on a good foundation.
As always, I will not be afraid to put my neck on the block by taking a strong position on this important subject. There will, however, be metal detectors at the door, so don't bring any knives.
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