I’ve recently read two books dealing with the nature of inspiration and how to interpret the Bible. One is better than the other.
The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture
Is it a self-help book on self-esteem? A political handbook for revolution? A political handbook for Republican values? A rulebook for moral living? A guide to finding heaven? Indeed, it appears that there are as many interpretations as there are interpreters. Surely something is desperately wrong!
But while he does an excellent job of pointing out our problems, and can be very insightful about the roots of the problem, his solutions are ultimately unsatisfactory.
He urges that we learn to accept the Biblical idea of mystery, that is, that not everything is revealed and so not everything has to be agreed. Indeed, he urges that we minimize “what is essential to Christian faith and life.” He sounds like Campbell here, but he fails to specify just what this minimum should be.
He correctly points out that much of today’s argumentation about inerrancy and such like is really Modernism in disguise. He argues against both Modernism and Postmodernism, in favor of “critical realism.” He may be right, but he gets no farther than a very sketchy definition of the term. If this is the solution, Smith should share it in enough detail for the reader to consider and perhaps agree. He doesn’t.
He then urges that the church pay closer attention to how the text has been read over the centuries and in non-Western cultures. I agree. But is that the solution?
In short, Smith powerfully critiques the contemporary church and its misuse and abuse of the Scriptures, but his prescriptions fall short of a cure.
Smith tends toward the philosophical and abstruse. If you don’t have a taste for epistemology and modern theories of language, he’ll leave you high and dry. However, he’ll powerfully and insightfully expose the flaws in most of our theories of inspiration. It’s a challenging read.
N. T. Wright’s Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today
Wright traces different views of the Scriptures as they evolved from New Testament times, showing how the original Jewish approach was slowly replaced by a Greek or Western approach.
He concludes,
The whole of my argument so far leads to the following major conclusion: that the shorthand phrase “the authority of the scripture,” when unpacked, offers a picture of God’s sovereign and saving plan for the entire cosmos, dramatically inaugurated by Jesus himself, and now to implemented through the Spirit-led life of the church precisely as the scripture-reading community. …
[W]e discover what the church’s mission is only when we look first at God’s purpose for the entire world, as indicated in, for instance, Genesis 1 -2, Genesis 12, Isaiah 40-55, Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 15, Ephesians 1 and Revelation 21-22. We read scripture in order to be refreshed in our memory and understanding of the story within which we ourselves are actors, to reminded where it has come from and where it is going to, and hence what our own part within it ought to be.
This means that “the authority of scripture” is most truly put into operation as the church goes to work in the world on behalf of the gospel, the good news that in Jesus Christ the living God has defeated the powers of evil and begun the work of new creation. It is with the Bible in its hand, its head, and its heart — not merely with the newspaper and latest political fashion or scheme — that the church can go to work in the world, confident that Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not.
Ahh … now that’s some “authority”! You see, Wright attacks the problem pastorally, as a church leader (he was a bishop at the time he wrote the book) rather than philosophically or linguistically.
Does the Bible have authority? Try living it and you’ll find authority. You’ll understand it, because the Spirit will fill you as you emulate Jesus to live as he lived. And it’s only as your mind and heart are reshaped into the mold of the Messiah that the text truly comes alive.
That’s true both because of the power of God’s Spirit within you but also because the Bible is a story that we’re a part of. Until we see our place in the story — well enough to take our place in the story — we will be blind to much of what the story says.
And, also, if we read the text outside the grand narrative that God has given us, we’ll certainly misunderstand it. The story matters. The story is the context. Without the story, it’s just words to argue over.
More from Wright —
In other words, if we are to be true, at the deepest level, to what scriptural authority really means, we must understand it like this: God is at work, through scripture (in other words, through the Spirit who is at work as people read, study, teach, and preach scripture) to energize, enable, and direct the outgoing mission of the church, genuinely anticipating thereby the time when all things will be made new in Christ. At the same time, God is at work by the same means to order the life of the church, and of individual Christians, to model and embody his project of new creation in their unity and holiness.
It’s God, through the Spirit, who is working through and alongside the scriptures (and not only through the Scriptures). Only God and Jesus have authority. The scriptures is simply one means by which they exercise it.
Not all authority is propositional. Sometimes it’s a heart being transformed into submission. Sometimes it’s human hands being moved to do work for God. And a broader understanding of “authority” would do wonders for our understanding of the Scriptures.
The Bible is not merely story. And its purpose is not merely to get us to “go to work in the world” renewing creation. First and foremost, it is about changing our hearts and our characters. Count the verses, and you’ll see those topics dominate the NT. That’s really the hard part — much harder than feeding the hungry or giving to the poor. And without doing that first part, the second is hollow and empty. But we don’t like to talk a lot about that part, because we fail in those areas so often. The irony is that if we’ll address those character and heart issues, the external things follow naturally.
” It’s God, through the Spirit, who is working through and alongside the scriptures (and not only through the Scriptures). Only God and Jesus have authority. The scriptures is simply one means by which they exercise it.”
Rom 13:1 Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
NIV
Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.
People can never begin to understand the bible as long as they insist that the premise of the book in wrong.
The bible is written by Christian men, (not God) believers in God almighty, and later by believers of Jesus Christ , the Son, and anointed one of God. The bible is the story Of an all powerful God and his actions and man’s reaction to such authority. “The authorities that exist have been established by God.” and all authority will return to God who gave it.
And that includes the authority “The Father” gave his Son, Jesus.
When people insist that Jesus is “God” one of three persons who together become “one God” The bible is difficult, if not impossible to understand.
KJV
1Cr 15:21 For since by man [came] death, by man [came] also the resurrection of the dead.
NIV
For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.
The bible is not a living entity on it’s own, the bible is a recorded document, of God’s actions and man’s response. Yes the New Testament is included here, it is a record of God acting through his begotten son, Jesus, and man’s reaction to God’s word.
God tells us through his word, spoken by his son Jesus, how to please him, therefore gain the Grace/ favor of the almighty who holds us all in his hand to do with us as he wishes.
Jesus said “take up thy cross, and follow me” now what did Jesus do here on earth, well, he completed the work given him by his Father. we are to do the same if we are to follow Jesus. I know salvation by works is a very big No, No here, but following Jesus is impossible without good works. I guess I had better stop here, I am sure this is all heresy to most of you anyway, and you wonder why the CoC is shrinking .
I think the point about modernism needs to be clearly heard. I hear people “freaking out” about the effects of postmodernism on the church; those same people seem oblivious to the effects modernism had on the church. Unless Jesus actually lived in 19th-century Europe, we have to grapple with how a modernistic view of the world shapes our understanding of him.
Jay, your last two paragraphs are marvelous statements, and I know it took great courage to write them. You have my great respect for laying yourself out there with such beautiful truths that many within the CoC, and within other conservative denominations, do not yet appreciate.
The fact that N.T. Wright is an Anglican Bishop should be a wonderful example that we do not have to agree on everything in order for the Scripture to have authority in our lives and in the life of the church. Looking at scripture from different backgrounds is a legitimate challenge in the Christian church, just as much as any other challenge that we must face in order to grow. To use the words of Abraham J. Heshel, “Its not supposed to be easy”.
When I was a child the champion debater and preacher for most of my family and friends had been educated in Law as a younger man . You may know of whom I speak. Many were deeply impressed that this, supposedly, gave this gentleman special insight in understanding in how we should read and understand the Bible as the “law” of the church. Of course, I was one of them.
But as I entered my twenties and a new way of looking at spiritual things I often asked myself, “Am I wrong? Can I trust these new ways of looking and listening?” Then a verse from the Psalms captured my attention. It says, in the KJV, my favorite for the Psalms, “Thy statutes have been my song..”, Psm 119:54. “MY SONG”..what a difference those two words made in connecting my mind and heart.
Jay wrote: “Not all authority is propositional.”
Indeed. In fact, all authority is ultimately relational, regardless of the field, organization, or endeavor. It’s been that way since the Garden.
Authority of the Scriptures is much more than answering the Pharisees’ question, “By what authority do you do this?”
When I was at Harding many years ago, Gordon Teel in a sermon at the College Church, observed that our problem does not lie in understanding the Scripture; our problem lies in doing what we know to do.
In all of our arguments about hermeneutics, we often forget the principle Jesus gave: “If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own….” (John 7:17, NIV).
N.T. Wright is absolutely right about needing to read the Bible with God’s over-all plan in view. His plan for His creation is much more than the 5-step “plan of salvation” I grew up hearing. It involves transformation of His children into worthy representatives of the New Creation, begun in Jesus and to be consummated in the Escaton when the entire creation will be redeemed and renewed in the new heavens and the new earth. Until then, we have work to do, those works that God has prepared for us from the foundation of the world (Ephesians 2:10).
We need to be about our Father’s business!
Alan, I think the reverse is also true because we learn by doing; we learn what it means to have humble and generous hearts by being humble and generous. We learn how to have a Christ-like character by imitating Him and doing His work in the world.
Spiritual formation — growing more and more like Christ — was always been meant to be a combination study of reading and practicum; library and lab; eyes-on/ears-on and hands-on. To neglect one for the other is to have only half the learning experience.
Keith, I wholeheartedly agree. I’m just observing that we spend a lot more time debating on the externals. The scriptures, OTOH, focus more on our hearts and character.
laymond offered: “When people insist that Jesus is “God” one of three persons who together become “one God” The bible is difficult, if not impossible to understand.”
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SO… now it’s only non-Trinitarians who can understand the Bible. Okay, that’s another group for my list, each of whom are the ONLY ones who can really understand the Bible. The list is getting longer…
Jerry noted: “When I was at Harding many years ago, Gordon Teel in a sermon at the College Church, observed that our problem does not lie in understanding the Scripture; our problem lies in doing what we know to do.”
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It is undeniable that we often know what we ought to do and then don’t do it. But I don’t think that universal human flaw is a very good basis for approaching knowing God or for understanding the scripture. I wonder if this is not just a reprise of the view that even if we don’t clearly know the way, we can make up for our vague bearings with increased velocity.
IMO, many of our problems DO stem from poor understandings of scripture, and I mean less the esoteric than certain fundamentals. To quote the prophet Will Rogers: “It ain’t so much what they don’t know; it’s what they DO know that ain’t so…”
The authority of scripture is ruined if we approach the Bible as a text book, even as a “text” of theology. There is too much human tension and contradiction in it. We see this in Paul’s claim in Romans 6 that all who obey sin are its slave; then, before one can blink and eye in Romans 7 he says he does what he should not do and does not do what he should do. We find him in Second Corinthians sometimes going off in angry rants, his emotions here, then there. Then of course, there are the Psalms, those beautiful Psalms, where the the different writers sometimes call for the destruction of their enemies, and go off into complaint after complaint. O, how beautifully human.
Yes, the Bible is the church’s book. Yet, while likeminded believers come together to encourage one another from the scriptures, we still have to approach the Bible as “one human, alone and honest before God”, accepting its writers as “one human alone and honest before God”. I believe it is then we find its life.
John wrote,
Thanks. The encouragement matters more than you could know.