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The God Who Speaks

By Rev. Dr.  Burnett Hillman Streeter
Dr BH Steeter click here
biographical info not organized or footnoted
Dr BH Steeter pdf file "The Nature of Eternal life"
 from his book Immorality 1922 McMillian 1922 page 146-151
Reality by Burnett Hillman Streeter

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Some quotes from God Who Speaks By DR BH Streeter
Streeter became famous in the early 1900's for his four-source hypothesis
about the writers of the New Testament and his two source hypothesis.
He was a Keswick with Buchman and a leader of the Oxford Group in England.

 
Alice Bailey From Bethlehem to Calvary :The entire question of immortality is closely linked with the problem of divinity and of the unseen, subjective world, which seems to underlie the tangible and visible, frequently making its presence felt. Working therefore on the premise of the unseen and invisible, it is probable that we shall eventually penetrate to it and discover that it has always been with us, but that we have been blinded and unable to recognize its presence. Always some have done so, and their note sounds forth, strengthening our belief, endorsing our hope, and guaranteeing to us the eventual experience.

How then shall we recognize truth or reality when we meet it? How shall we know that a doctrine is of God, or not? It is so easy to make mistakes, to believe what we want to believe, and to deceive ourselves in the desire to have our own ideas endorsed by other minds. The words of Dr. [240] Streeter have here a definite note of encouragement because they indicate requirements that are possible for us to follow:

Even self-deception, the last stronghold of the enemy, will lose its power in proportion as the individual conforms to certain conditions which (in the view of the biblical writers) must be fulfiled to qualify him for the reception of an authentic message from the Divine - whether at the level of the epoch-creating prophet or of the simple person rightly guided on the path of everyday duty.

These are mainly four:

(1) 'I would fain be to the Eternal Goodness what his own right hand is to a man.' Absolute devotion or surrender of the self to the Divine. 'Here am I, send me,' says Isaiah; and when Christ addressed to his earliest followers the words 'Follow Me,' we are told they left all and followed Him.

(2) Self-knowledge, and the consequent admission of failure. The promise 'I will guide thee with mine eye,' in the Psalm quoted above, is given to the man who has confessed his iniquity and thereby established a right relationship with God. The first response of Isaiah to the divine call was that flash of self-knowledge which brings home to a man a conviction of unworthiness and sin: 'I am a man of unclean lips.' ...

(3) 'Tarry ye ...until ye be clothed with power from on high.' (St. Luke XXIV, 49.) But this life of power, a power instinct with love and joy and peace, can only with difficulty be lived continuously except in a fellowship, within which mutual challenge, mutual encouragement and mutual confession of failure are easy...

(4) Entrance into such a life and such a fellowship involves some measure of suffering, sacrifice, or humiliation. 'Whosoever doth not bear his own cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.' (Luke XIV, 27.) It is perhaps not an accident that already in the Old Testament the promise 'Thine eyes shall hear a word behind thee, saying This is the way, walk ye in it,' is preceded by the words 'and though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction.'

- The God Who Speaks, by B. H. Streeter, pp. 175, 176


Streeter, Burnett Hillman

b. Nov. 17, 1874, Croydon, Surrey, Eng.
d. Sept. 10, 1937, near Basel, Switz.
English theologian and biblical scholar, noted for his original contributions to knowledge of Gospel origins.

Educated at Queen's College, University of Oxford, Streeter spent most of his life there, becoming chaplain in 1928 and provost in 1933. He was ordained in 1899 and for 15 years (from 1922 to 1937) was a member of the Archbishop's Commission on Doctrine in the Church of England. He wrote or contributed to a dozen volumes in the fields of philosophy of religion, comparative religion, and New Testament studies.

Streeter became widely known as a student of the New Testament. His most important work was The Four Gospels: A Study of Origins (1924), in which he originated a "four document hypothesis" (including a Proto-Luke) as a solution to the synoptic problem and developed the theory of "local texts" in the manuscript transmission of the New Testament. This work was followed by The Primitive Church (1929), in which he argued that there were three systems (not one) of church government in the earliest Christian churches.

Streeter's other works included Foundations: A Statement of Christian Belief in Terms of Modern Thought, by Seven Oxford Men (1912), The Chained Library (1931), Reality: A New Correlation of Science and Religion (1926), and The Buddha and the Christ (Bampton Lectures, 1932

 

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