Covenant path searching

Path searching is always to be adjusted according to the given frame of its application. Here is a rudimentary, a kind of neutral explanation of the concept which, however, cannot be implemented as such:

Path searching denotes an activity. Taking a cue from the term, the activity could be described as searching for answers to the many questions where one’s belief in the covenant could be actualized, searching for the right path to living in covenant with God. In a key position lies the endeavor to loyalty. Belief in the covenant, however conceived in particular, entails the response of obedience on the part of people. To all who suppose themselves to belong to a covenant with God it is clear that their duty is to live faithfully according to the covenant.

Importantly, the way to seek to realize covenant loyalty is not to be construed as a discussion pursued in abstract terms. The aim is not to elaborate the idea of the covenant, its conceptual workings. Instead, the endeavor to live according to the covenant is seized by paying attention to individual practices and beliefs that go in a covenant. From the one overarching question of how to be loyal to the covenant thus comes numerous concrete questions concerning being loyal to these individual issues. Discussing, contemplating and inquiring how to keep faithful to them reflects the covenant path searching.

The concept of path searching enables a more comprehensive and holistic analysis of the material. Ascertaining path searching is not dependent on some specific issue(s). On the contrary, the (non)engagement will be discernible everywhere where various covenantal practices and beliefs are addressed. For this reason, every single analysis will, in principle, function as suggesting an answer. It hereby becomes possible to perform a series of alternative inquiries, a number of individual analyses that will each work as probing the same matter. So the conclusions can be made to rely on wider and more variable material.