A Lover’s Quarrel: More Responsibly Biblical

Garrett’s seventh wish for the Churches of Christ is —

Let us become more responsibly biblical.

We have supposed that the New Testament produced the church, when in fact it was the church that produced the New Testament. …

The New Testament is more descriptive of what the church should be (or not be), than prescriptive, as if a code of law. … 

I suggest one basic rule of interpretation, a negative one, that I call “the spirit of Christ rule.” I think it will prove to be liberating, especially for us in the Churches of Christ: No interpretation is to be accepted that runs counter to the spirit of Christ.

(emphasis in original).

Garrett is certainly right that it’s been a colossal mistake to read the New Testament as though it were a code of law. I’m a lawyer. I’ve written quite a few state statutes. I know how codes of law are written and how to interpret them. The Churches of Christ are more “legalistic” than lawyers! I mean, we lawyers would be embarrassed to take some of the positions our preachers take routinely.

In law school, we’re taught to interpret statutes consistently with something called “public policy,” that is, the legislative purpose behind the rule. And this is much of what Garrett is arguing for. We shouldn’t let a hypertechnical reading contradict the reason for the rule in the first place. And we certainly shouldn’t turn non-law into law.

For example, Acts 20:6 mentions the fact that the disciples in Troas met to “break bread” on a Sunday. Some of my brothers take the position that this command (command?) bars taking the Lord’s Supper on any other day of the week, even though Jesus instituted communion on a Thursday night! 

Common sense tells us that Acts 20:6 was not written as a command, much less as an exclusive command. And the “public policy,” that is, the divine purpose behind communion is to remember and declare Jesus’ death. Why wouldn’t Jesus want that to happen as often as possible? 

Now, Garrett suggests that we can deal with these issues by asking whether Jesus would have agreed with such an interpretation. He’s right, but he’s wrong. You see, a large part of our problem is that we’ve distorted our understanding of who Jesus is in order to justify our pet doctrines. We’re glad to discuss grace, love, and Jesus’ sacrifice, except when the context is weekly communion, instrumental music, or such like. Then we are only interested in the wrath of God against disobedience.

I wish that we had such a Christology that we could ask “what would Jesus interpret?” and get a sensible answer, but my observation is that it just won’t work until we’ve let go of our obsession with being saved by obeying rules of doubtful existence.

About Jay F Guin

My name is Jay Guin, and I’m a retired elder. I wrote The Holy Spirit and Revolutionary Grace about 18 years ago. I’ve spoken at the Pepperdine, Lipscomb, ACU, Harding, and Tulsa lectureships and at ElderLink. My wife’s name is Denise, and I have four sons, Chris, Jonathan, Tyler, and Philip. I have two grandchildren. And I practice law.
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6 Responses to A Lover’s Quarrel: More Responsibly Biblical

  1. wjcsydney says:

    and it's imperative that we don't even consider grace, love and Jesus' sacrifice when baptism is discussed… baptism HAS to be according to the NT pattern or it's not valid…

    The irony.. that some Churches of Christ showed the movie "Amazing Grace" or organised congregational outings to see it but don't consider newton or Wilberforce "scriptually baptised". Sigh.

  2. Joe Baggett says:

    I love Leroy’s idea of becoming more responsible interpreters of scripture. To continue in inconsistent, mis-guided, presupposed ideas concluded from studying the Bible is not only wrong but once we have realized that something is wrong and do nothing about it we become hypocrites. This where many churches are they realize that something was wrong but we are too afraid to change it, too afraid to admit there might be a more consistent way to approach scripture. So many churches choose to just stay in the quagmire of continuing things they really no longer believe just to keep the peace. The more courage we have to actually do something about the things we have re-studied the more credit we will have with the lost and unchurched and the more the younger generation in the church will be willing to dialogue.

  3. The only time Jesus described his words as a command (at least the only one I've found) occurs twice in John (chapters 13 & 15). In both cases, the "command" is to love one another as he loved us.

    Personally, I've concluded that to be the foundational principle with which all others must agree and from which they must derive.

  4. Jay Guin says:

    And we urge our members to read Mere Christianity or Evidences that Demand a Verdict or have our children watch videos and we stuff our libraries with commentaries and other resources from supposed non-Christians. Amazing how much we can learn about God from the damned …

  5. Hal Jackson says:

    Jay,
    What a great post! As Paul said in Galatians…"The thing that counts…"

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