Rule of "Audience" (Was re: The Rich Man)

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ACHILLES
It's worse than that, actually, if this "Rule of Audience" was applied
consistently then we can simply throw out the entirety of Romans, 1 and 2
Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Collossians, 1 and 2
Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon - and that's just for
starters.

Most of the other Epistles are believed to have been written for a specific
audience as well, but in the case of the books I mentioned above there can
be
no doubt - just read the introductory verses.

Furthermore, every time Jesus speaks in the Gospels, he is speaking to an
audience of some sort, right? So I guess we can throw all that out the door
too?

EDWARDS
Exactly so, a point I made in an earlier exchange with Matt.  I should think
that the consequences of applying this rule are quite undesirable to
Christians.  To Matt's credit, he did mention other considerations, to which
I alluded in the previous post.  Specifically, he stated on 1/26/99 that (in
reference to some passages to which I had asked him to assess the degree to
which they were related to doctrine and the degree to which they can be
considered applicable today): "Each would need to be examined in its
immediate context, the context of the book and indeed the Bible before such
conclusions could be made, and even then there would be other considerations
which would make exceptions to the rule."  However, the nuts and bolts of
this process have not yet been described.  Furthermore, (and I intend no
disrespect to Matt - his answer is at least as good as many others) the
escape clause at the end destroys the usefulness of the preceding contextual
considerations.

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