When the Homily is about Immunology

You cannot bear it

John 16
12"I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. 14He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. 15All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.

This is an intriguing verse, which I was reminded of by a book which I have just begun reading entitled Scripture in Tradtion
by Fr. John Breck.

The Orthodox understanding of the dynamics between Scripture and Tradition are really the inspiration of the works title: Scripture IN Tradition, as opposed to Scripture and Tradition. Community is the key, and I think this verse from St. John's gospel flushes that mindset out some. Revelation is something delivered to the community, the scriptures are a record of that revelation - NOT the revelation itself.

I quickly browsed a few protestant commentaries in regards to this passage and it seems that they all made much ado about the latter part implying that the Holy Spirit would not teach anything new, which I suppose they mean to say that Jesus had taught them all they needed and that the Holy Spirit's job was to simply call these things into remembrance for the purpose of writing the New Testament. At least that is the impression I get from the commentaries.

It seems to be a stretch to me, but I guess it would depend on how they mean "new." When St. Peter was granted the vision of the "unclean" food, was that a NEW doctrine? I dunno...it may have meshed with the spirit of what Jesus taught but obviously St. Peter didn't recognize it and needed to be "lead into all truth." Thinking back to how I might have interpretted this verse say 10 years ago I probably would have viewed as pointing toward the eventual writing of Scripture.

Now though, I'm not convinced....there is something bigger, something grander, something more wonderful going on. Place this verse into the context of Orthodox ecclesiology (her self-understanding) and her upholding of Scripture IN Tradition and it makes all the sense in the world.