425 Sermon Illustrations on Bible

Fred W. Cropp, president of American Bible Society, received a letter asking a question: "What do you recommend for keeping the leather on the back of Bibles from getting stiff, cracking and peeling? The reply was, "There is one oil that is especially good for treatment of leather on Bibles. In fact it will insure your Bible will stay in good condition. It is not sold, but may be found in the palm of the human hand."

The destructive critic in the pulpit is like King Jehoiakim. In one such church, a faithful member, who for two years had taken note of the various passages the pastor had pronounced fictitious or unscientific and cut them from his Bible, was taken seriously sick. The minister called on him. “Shall I read and pray with you?” he asked. The sick man beckoned his wife to bring the Bible. It was in shreds and only fit for the waste basket. “Haven't you a better Bible?” asked the Modernist minister. The dying man replied: “No, this is all I have left after cutting out the parts you said were not inspired. If I should live another year, I'm sure I'd have nothing left but the covers.”

God's Word is imperishable!

Version used July 28, 1991:

Dr. Harry MacArthur shares the following story:

For two years a faithful member of a liberal church had taken note of the various passages the pastor had pronounced fictitious or unscientific. He then cut them from his Bible.

A short time later he became seriously sick. The minister called on him. “Shall I read and pray with you?” he asked. The sick man motioned to his wife to bring his Bible. It was in shreds and only fit for the waste basket. “Don't you have a better Bible?” asked the liberal pastor.

The dying man replied: “No, this is all I have left after cutting out the parts you said were not inspired. If I should live another year, I'm sure I'd have nothing left but the covers.”

A fellow in Alaska has been throwing the Word of God into the ocean for a third of a century. Missionary Everett Bachelder, who, with his wife Mina, operates the Nome Gospel Home in the city, has tossed more than 1,000 mayonnaise jars and ketchup bottles into the Bering Sea - crammed with Scripture messages written in 100 languages. Wind and waves have carried the story of God's love to the far corners of the earth, bring responses from as far as 10,000 miles away. Kids from the various area churches help him fold the messages and put them in the jars and bottles.

It has been a rewarding experience. One bottle was taken from the Atlantic Ocean a decade after Bachelder tossed it into the icy Bering waters. A man in Singapore, distraught over a romance gone sour, was about to commit suicide by jumping into the waters from a cliff when he saw a bottle wash up against the rocks below. Deciding to leap when the bottle broke, he watched it hit the rocks again and again without breaking. Curious, he climbed down the cliff, saw the messages, opened the bottle, discovered it related to the Word of God, sought out a missionary in Singapore, and got saved! As Ecclesiastes 11:1 says, "Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days."

[see sermon for different layout]

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Many pastors approach the Bible like American tourists in Asia - they stay at Western hotels, eat hamburgers, use American Express to buy trinkets. This way there is a minimum of culture shock. The illusion of travel, without its risk - or profit. But it destroys the integrity and independence of that other world. Likewise, just hitting the high spots and well-known passages of Scripture is not enough. The hearers must assimilate to the culture of the Bible, not vice-versa.

Is the Bible in Danger?

The Bible is not in danger because:

1. It has already survived the attacks 1800 [1900] years.

2. It meets and satisfies the deepest needs of man in every generation.

3. There is nothing else to take the place of the Bible.

4. It has a hold that cannot be shaken, on the confidence and affection of

the wisest and best men and women.

5. Any honest and earnest seeker after truth can find out for himself that

the Bible is God's Word.

#407

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Gideons placed 50,000 Testaments on ships in Pacific fleet before the attack on Pearl Harbor. After the attack it was found that many of the dead sailors had been reading their Testaments, and some had signed their name on the blank line for salvation.

A nurse who had not communicated with her sailor son for two years came across him in the morgue. His personal effects contained a water-logged Testament, unreadable, but with his name signed on the line. She asked a chaplain for a Testament of her own (she had been non-religious) and she read it thoroughly. She then signed her name below that of her son's.

The Oxford University Press has a new "inclusive language version" of the New Testament and Psalms. God is no longer "Father," Jesus is no longer "Son," male terms for deity are abolished and terms like "kingdom" have been eliminated because of their "blatantly androcentric and patriarchal character."

Examples of changed texts are given. Woodward comments, "The editors do not claim that Jesus spoke in gender-neutral language. But they obviously think he should have. The changes they have made are not merely cosmetic. They represent a fundamental reinterpretation of what the New Testament says, and how it says it."

Article in March/April Biblical Archaeology Review claims Jericho was destroyed suddenly around 1400 BC, based on pottery evidence. (Kenyon saw no destruction till 1550 BC.) The sudden collapse of the city is supported by abundant supplies of grain, which would have been consumed in a siege. The walls could have fallen due to an earthquake, which could also account for a temporary damming of the Jordan River described in Joshua.

==============

Biblical Archeology Review

"Did the Israelites Conquer Jericho?"

Bryant G. Wood

p. 44

Article examines the archeological evidence of Joshua's conquest of Jericho. Author believes Kenyon was wrong and Garstang was right - the city was fortified and destroyed in 1400 BC, and the walls actually tumbled down.

New Testament prophecy is based on spontaneous promptings from the Spirit. “Teaching” is never said to be based on a revelation in the N.T. Teaching is an explanation or application of Scripture, or apostolic teaching. Prophets do not interpret Scripture. Teaching is more authoritative. Teachers were the leaders of the early church, not prophets.

Teaching is “the result of conscious reflection on the text of Scripture, containing interpretation and application to life.”

Series of articles from a liberal slant on the authorship of the Bible (Gospels, Paul, Catholic Epistles, Revelation) and the role of canon. The view is promoted that one person, a woman, may have written most of the Hebrew Bible. [1427]

Used in sermon on July 28, 1991:

I. The traditional Christian view of the Bible is under attack.

A. U.S. News & World Report, special 8 page article on the Bible.

1) "While some of the writings [of the New Testament] bear the

names of those who walked with Jesus on the dusty roads

of Judea, centuries of scholarship have turned up little

convincing evidence that his 12 closest disciples did much

writing, either.

2) Are [these writings] close to their original form?

Or were they revised by early church leaders

to reflect changing views of who Jesus was,

to address the problems of a growing church

or even to advance political agendas?"

3) "Liberal scholars have concluded:

that the Bible is the product of a purely human endeavor,

that the identity of the authors is forever lost

and that their work has been largely obliterated by

centuries of translation and editing." [1427]

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Defense of the Bible against higher liberal criticism.

1. Tactics of liberal scholars.

a. Deny traditional authorship.

b. Fragment material.

c. Deny historical origin.

d. Deny supernatural.

2. Effects of destructive scholarship.

a. Bible becomes human document.

b. Churches, denominations die.

3. Answers of conservative scholarship.

a. Verification from archeology (Jericho).

4. Personal experience with Bible.

a. Many Christians cut and choose, like Jehoiakim.

b. Reading Bible leads to faith.

c. Scripture points to Jesus. [1553]

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Abraham Lincoln to a group of African-Americans who had given him a special presentation Bible in 1864:

“In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Saviour gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it we could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man’s welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it.”

A missionary in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, reports that recently an African pastor passed through on his way home to Chad, where civil war was raging.

"What would you like to take to complete your forty-four pounds of baggage allowance?" asked the missionary. "Sugar? Powdered milk? Medicine?"

"If I could have some Bibles or a few good books..."

"How's that?" the missionary asked.

"Back home we lost everything in the war, and we learned to place less importance on that which passes away and more importance on that which lasts."

The missionary mused: "Was I dreaming? We have heard so often 'The hungry stomach has no ears' that we misread the Epistle to the Romans to say, "Faith comes from what one eats,' instead of 'Faith comes by hearing by the Word of God.'

"We must not fail to share our bread with those who are hungry, but neither dare we forget that 'man shall not live by bread alone.'"

A television program preceding the 1988 Winter Olympics featured blind skiers being trained for slalom skiing, impossible as that sounds. Paired with sighted skiers, the blind skiers were taught on the flats how to make right and left turns. When that was mastered, they were taken to the slalom slope, where their sighted partners skied beside them shouting, "Left!" and "Right!" As they obeyed the commands, they were able to negotiate the course and cross the finish line, depending solely on the sighted skiers' word. It was either complete trust or catastrophe.

What a vivid picture of the Christian life! In this world, we are in reality blind about what course to take. We must rely solely on the Word of the only One who is truly sighted - God himself. His Word gives us the direction we need to finish the course.

#2109

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Admission made by liberal professor at Harvard University, Kirsopp Lake:

“It is a mistake often made by educated persons who happen to have but a little knowledge of historical theology, to suppose that fundamentalism is a new and strange form of thought. It is nothing of the kind; it is the partial and uneducated survival of a theology which was once universally held by all Christians. How many were there, for instance, in Christian churches in the 1700’s who doubted the infallible inspiration of all Scripture? A few, perhaps, but very few. No, the fundamentalist may be wrong, I think that he is. But it is we [liberals] who have departed from the tradition, not he; and I am sorry for the fate of anyone who tries to argue with a fundamentalist on the basis of authority. The Bible and the “corpus theologicum” of the church are on the fundamentalist side.”

Pastor Buu Tu Chung is ministering as church planter among the Vietnamese population of Los Angeles. He was born and raised in Vietnam, near the Mekong Delta. He became a helicopter pilot in the Vietnam War for the U.S. Army before he was shot down on February 22, 1971. He was captured and became a prisoner of war for almost 14 years. To count the days exactly, it was 5,000 days. He was not released until the end of 1984.

He knew about God and Jesus since he was a child, but he was not a real Christian. When he was in prison, he thought about his future and his life ... he had no hope. Then he remembered a verse in Matthew where Jesus said that all you need is faith the size of a mustard seed. He knew he needed the Holy Bible, but he lived in a Communist prison ... so how could he possibly get one? So he thought if he had faith like a mustard see he could have it.

He began to pray to ask Jesus to give him His Holy bible. During his interrogation - which lasted for five months - the enemy asked him if they could give him something. He said yes. They asked, "What do you need?" "I need a Holy Bible." They said, "It's impossible, we cannot give you that thing because it is forbidden." He said, "OK, but you asked me and I gave you my answer."

After two years of praying, the chief of the camp called him in to be interrogated. Chung came into his office and he saw a brand new Holy Bible on the table. After a while the officer said, "This Holy Bible is yours - a gift from the Political Warfare Department of the North Vietnam Army." (Unfortunately, the Bible was stolen four years later.) Chung knew that God is real and Jesus is God. He read the Bible and became a new Christian. He was born again.

He had gone through fifteen prison camps. The first camp was right in Hanoi. That is where he saw the first American pilot who was detained there and interrogated. In Hanoi, he stayed in several places including one main prison the Americans called the Hanoi Hilton.

When he came to the United States in 1990, God reminded him that he had promised that he would serve Him. He went to Calvary Baptist of Gardena and attended the worship service and was so pleased. This was exciting because in 1989, before he came to the United States, he became the leader of a home church in Vietnam called the Underground Church, which was a charismatic church. So when he came to Calvary Baptist of Gardena, he saw that people practiced the same thing and said, "Well, this is my place!"

He and another pastor began to plant a new Vietnamese church on February 16, 1992. The first year, 25 souls were won for Christ. In May 1993 he was recognized as a pastor by the American Baptists. Their church began to grow slowly and now attendance is around 30. They began another new Vietnamese church on April 29, 1994. He has a vision that many Vietnamese will convert to be a Christian in America, and knows that one day he will see it.

#2971

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A real-life example of the cultural battle over the Bible and its teachings.

Back in April, Tim Neugent of Mena, Arkansas, was watching the TV program

"THE PRACTICE." In this particular episode the mother of one of the lawyers

decided she was gay. She wanted her son to go to court to help her get a

marriage license to marry her 'partner.'

Tim was irritated enough to write an email to ABC. He wrote:

ABC is obsessed (or should I say abscessed) with the subject of

homosexuality. I will no longer watch any of your attempts to

convince the world that homosexuality is OK. THE PRACTICE can

be a fairly good show but last night's program was so typical of

your agenda. You picked the 'dufus' of the office to be the one

who was against the idea of his mother being gay and made him

look like a whiner because he had convictions. This type of

mentality calls people like me "gay basher." Read the first

chapter of Romans (that's in the Bible) and see what the apostle

Paul had to say about it...

Jim did not expect to get a reply - but he did. The ABC online Webmaster

wrote:

How about getting your nose out of the Bible (which is ONLY a

book of stories compiled by MANY different writers hundreds of

years ago) and read the Declaration of Independence (what our

nation is built on) where it says "All Men are Created Equal" --

and try treating them that way for a change!? Or better yet,

try thinking for yourself and stop using an archaic book of

stories as your crutch for your existence.

I replied to them...

Thanks for your reply. Evidently, I hit a nerve from your harsh reply. I will share it with all with whom I come in contact. Hopefully, the Arkansas Democrat Newspaper will include it in one of their columns. And ... I will be praying for you.

___________________

TruthorFiction.com investigated and found this illustration is true; see http://truthorfiction.com/rumors/abc-practice.htm -

This exchange did occur, but ABC quickly apologized and said the comments were those of a particular person and did not reflect the views of the network. The Arkansas man who initiated the email exchange is Jim Neugent from the city of Mena. The example of the story below is pretty accurate as to what he says he wrote and the response he received. Additionally, however, he received an official letter from ABC stating that the offending email response had come from one of their "exfreelancers" who worked for the website. Mr. Neugent had directed his complaint to the webmaster and the reply came from the webmaster staff. In their letter, ABC said the insulting email was the act of an individual employee and "...not in any way reflect the views of ABC Television."

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Many people get lost today, especially as the world gets smaller and increasingly congested. I'm told the San Mateo County (California) Convention & Visitors Bureau ordered 50,000 maps of the greater San Mateo area for visiting tourists. The driver of the delivery truck evidently got lost on the way to the bureau; he had to phone in for directions.

The world has had people like this for at least six thousand years. The map is right on their coffee table but they're still lost and need someone to give them directions.

Source/Attribution: John Gillmartin

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Hiding God's Word in your heart is a matter of relationship, not rote.

1. Why memorize Scripture.

2. Make knowing God your goal.

3. Develop a simple system that works on a daily basis

4. Organize your memorized verses.

5. Review regularly.

#4099

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Journal entry: March 27, 1989.

Luke 5:36: Can’t sew patch from new garment on an old one, new will not

match the old -- Can’t pour new wine into old wineskins, will ruin

container and lose wine.

“We must enjoy God’s good gifts while he gives them.” Allan E.

Step out with gratitude and accept the new.

God has given us a new garment -- new wine! Our life in Samarkand! We

step out tomorrow to wear the new garment...to taste and drink and be

satisfied with the new wine he will give.

Let us be careful not to try to patch up the old in any way -- or to

pour the new into the old --

What will this involve?

Each time I reread this page in my mother’s journal I discover new and surprising meanings. It occurred to me that the process I have gone through in meditating on and interpreting my mother’s words nicely parallels how we are to interpret God’s words for us in holy Scripture. Thus, I submit the following as a parable of biblical interpretation.

We could start at many different places in our interpretation of my mother’s journal entry. Let me start at a personal level, which is where we usually start in biblical interpretation. The first time you read this text you can easily grasp some of its meaning, even if you know nothing about its author. Especially if you are moving into a new situation, you may respond with empathy: “Yes! This text reflects what is going on in my life. I want to let go of the old and accept the new. This text challenges me to move freely and enthusiastically into my new life!” That was my first response when I read this page. In this kind of reader-response, the text stands as a mirror reflecting our own situation.

The same thing often happens when we read Scripture. We respond to it because we see ourselves in the text. We hear our own thoughts, emotions, fears, and hopes expressed in ways we recognize. My mother’s text itself responds to the words of Jesus in just this way. His words about a new garment and new wine seem to have sparked a sympathetic response in her heart because, evidently, she was facing a new situation in her life.

When we read the Bible, we read with a desire to hear God speak to our needs now. “This is God’s word,” we say, “and I need to hear him comfort me in my sorrow, guide me out of my confusion, and deliver me from my bad habits.” Then we turn the pages of the Bible to find words that speak to our situation. Such a longing is rooted in our conviction that the Holy Spirit who inspired the Bible in the first place still speaks through the Bible today.

Devout Christians have always practiced this personal use of the Bible. Augustine tells us in his “Confessions” how he desperately sought for freedom from the bondage of his past sinful habits. In a time of spiritual crisis he overheard a child singing, “Take it and read it.” Augustine heard this as a divine command to read the Bible. “I snatched up the book,” he says, “opened it, and read in silence the passage upon which my eyes first fell: ‘not in reveling and drunkenness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.’ I had no wish to read further; for there was no need to. For immediately I had reached the end of this sentence it was as though my heart was filled with a light of confidence and all the shadows of my doubt were swept away.”

If you have ever experienced anything resembling Augustine’s encounter with the Spirit through the Word, you probably respond to his account as I do with an “amen and hallelujah!”

This “personalized” use of the Bible needs to be encouraged today. We need to hear God give us a promise to believe and a command to follow for each day. But we must be aware of a danger inherent in this approach to interpretation.

Suppose someone reads my mother’s text and exclaims, “Yes. My new wine is my newfound love affair. What this text means for me is that I should throw off my first wife, like an old garment, and enjoy this other exciting woman as new wine!”

I would strongly object, “But that’s not what my mother meant to say!”

“It doesn’t matter what your mother meant or what Jesus meant by a new garment and new wine,” he says, “I only care what it means for me now!” If personal, present meaning is all that matters, I have no basis to refute his interpretation.

If we only use the Bible as a mirror to see ourselves, we may wind up seeing more of a reflection of our own self-interests than a revelation of God’s interests. Given our capacity for self-deception, our personal appropriation of the Bible can become an abuse of the text to promote our own agenda. We are all painfully aware that leaders of bizarre cults and special-interest groups use Scripture in the service of their oppression.

A famous guru quotes the words of Jesus: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Then he says, “This means, blessed are those who purify their consciousness, for they shall see themselves as God.” This blasphemous equation of holy God and fallen humanity shocks us. We strongly object, “The Bible cannot be twisted to mean that!”

But if the only meaning we care about is what the Bible means to me now, we will have no way to guard against the twisting of Scripture. There will be no right interpretation or wrong interpretation. You will say what the text means for you; I will say what it means for me. And that will be the end of the discussion.

We are facing a crisis in biblical interpretation. Manipulative use of the Bible for self-interest runs like a river through the history of the church. Today such abuse has turned into a flood. This approach to reading the Bible is advocated by a host of recent literary critics. They say that the only thing a text means is what it means for you, not what it meant for the author or for other interpreters. They tell us to give texts any meaning we like, because we can only read texts from our own personal frame of reference. Of course, they don’t want us to read their own texts that way. Apparently, they want us to accept what they meant to say in their texts.

LOOKING BEYOND OURSELVES

It may be that we start our interpretation by asking what the text means for us now, but we should not stop there. In fact, a better beginning point -- but at the very least, a necessary step two -- is to move into the world of the author. Your understanding of my mother’s text would be greatly enhanced by some knowledge of my mother. What was happening in her life when she wrote this text? What was the old and new?

Once we start to address these sorts of questions, the text becomes a window into her world. No longer are we simply seeing ourselves reflected in the text. Now we are trying to see through the text to the situation of its author. What we learn about the author may come from the text itself. Investigation into sources outside the text may also enable us to enter the world of the author.

From my mother’s text we learn that she is moving to a new life in “Samarkand.” Whether that is the ancient city in the Near East or another place borrowing that name, we cannot tell from the text. We also discern from the text that there is both eagerness to accept the new and apprehension about what the new may bring. Perhaps there is also some expression of reluctance to let go of the past. Her quote from “Allan E.” (whoever he is) seems to indicate that she wants to express her thankfulness for the past before she lets go of it and moves into the future.

This kind of investigation must go on in our attempt to interpret the biblical text. We need to tease out of the text as much as we can about the historical context of the author. We may also be able to check our understanding of the author’s situation by getting corroborative and corrective information from sources outside the text.

Allow me to be that source. On March 27, 1989, my mother was preparing for a major move. She and my father were packing the last boxes in their home where they had lived for 12 years. On the next day, the movers came as scheduled. My parents had planned for some time to move into an apartment in a retirement center called the Samarkand. The primary reason for making this move was to provide good care for their special Down syndrome son, my brother Kenny. He had lived with them all his life. But they realized that the combination of their advancing age and his increasing needs required a change. Samarkand offered just the right facilities. A few weeks before their move, Allan Emery, a close friend since college days, had sent them a gallon of maple syrup from Vermont. In a note, he lamented that the days of the production of this syrup may soon be over. So, he advised, “We must enjoy God’s gifts while he gives them.”

These facts from my mother’s life help to fill out the picture. If space permitted, I would give you much more information, such as the way her journal reflects a consistent pattern of reflection on biblical passages. But you will have to wait for another article or book to get that information. You could also ask my brothers and sisters. All seven of us children could give you a wealth of information if you were the least bit curious.

Curiosity is a big part of biblical interpretation. The reason that interpreters of the Bible keep deciphering the Dead Sea Scrolls and digging in the dirt of Israel is because they are intensely curious about the historical context of the Bible. We need to research the social, political, and religious aspects of the biblical world if we want to expand our grasp of the meaning of the biblical text. To understand the meaning of biblical words, we investigate how they were used in biblical times.

My mother’s text directs us to the words of Jesus. What was going on in his world when he spoke these words about a new garment and new wine? Why did he say this? Who first heard these words? What would they have understood them to mean? Such questions help to lead us into the world of Jesus, the original author of these words. (For good reasons, which we cannot take space to discuss here, we are accepting the historical reliability of Luke’s account of the words of Jesus.)

As we look into the historical context for the words of Jesus, we find that Jesus was engaged in a controversy over fasting. His disciples were not fasting like John’s disciples and the Pharisees fasted. Jesus explained that the reason for the change was the presence of the bridegroom: “You cannot make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you?” (Luke 5:33-34).

The picture is of a wedding feast. In our day, a wedding ceremony is sometimes followed by a meal. But in the times of Jesus, the feast was the ceremony. Invited guests assembled at the bridegroom’s home and waited for the bridegroom. The bridegroom went to the bride’s home, claimed her, and brought her in procession back to his home. When he arrived, the feast began. It would have been discourteous for the assembled guests to fast in the presence of the bridegroom.

Jesus used this picture to show how inappropriate it would have been for his disciples to fast in his presence. He is like the bridegroom at the wedding, and his ministry is like a joyful wedding feast. This claim places Jesus in the place of God since, in the Old Testament, God is pictured as the bridegroom of his people (Hos. 2:19), and the joyful feast was used as a picture of the presence of God with his people (Isa. 25:6). When Jesus arrived, God came to be with his people!

In the context of describing this picture of the joyful wedding feast, Jesus pointed to the foolishness of cutting up a new garment to patch an old one and of pouring new wine into old wineskins. We may miss the point here, because in our day most of us throw away or give away old clothes, and people buy bottled wine. But in the times of Jesus, old clothes were patched, and wine was stored in animal skins. It was common knowledge then that you did not ruin a new garment by using it for patching an old one. It would be a waste of the new garment, and the patches would not hold when shrinkage occurred. It was also the conventional wisdom of that day that it would be disastrous to store your new wine in old skins that had lost their flexibility. The fermenting wine would expand and eventually burst the old skins.

Jesus gave these pictures about new things and old things to explain why he and his disciples did not fit into the religious practices of their day. Jesus did not come to patch up the old or be stored in the old. Jesus was not simply leading another renewal movement within Judaism as the Pharisees were trying to do. Jesus created new life in his disciples. No wonder Paul could exclaim, “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: the old has passed away; everything has become new.” This new creation is not the result of self-help, self-improvement, or any other program of patching up the old life. Jesus is the source, power, and sustenance of new life.

These last two paragraphs have been an attempt to illustrate what happens when we are investigating what the author meant when he said those words in his context. Such investigation is not always easy. Two thousand years and cultural differences separate our world from the world of the author. But we need not despair. An enormous amount of work has been done to excavate the world of Jesus. Resources too numerous to list here abound for any curious reader. If we really want to know the meaning of the text, we must engage in this exploration of a world different from our own.

But there is a danger in this approach. It is tempting to get lost in the exploration of that ancient world. There are so many fascinating areas of study. Thousands of scholars and their students are engaged in a lifetime quest for knowledge of the first-century context. We are debtors to their valiant efforts. But is the meaning of the text available only to those who can enter their complex world of scholarship? And even if it were possible to be an expert on the historical context of a text, would that guarantee a sure grasp of the meaning of the text? I have been engaged in enough scholarly discussion of the meaning of biblical texts to make me skeptical of the “assured results of scholarship.”

“THEN” MEETS “NOW”

There are actually two sides to the crisis of biblical interpretation in our day. On the one side, we have the claim that a text has no meaning apart from what it means for me now. Such a claim leads to radical relativism: the text means something different for each reader. But on the other side, we have the claim that the meaning of the text is somehow inherent within the text; it has nothing to do with the position or perspectives of the reader. Such a claim can lead to arrogance (“I can excavate the meaning of this text without any faith in God”) or despair (“There is no way that I can understand the text since I cannot understand its historical context”). In response to these two opposite claims, I suggest that the meaning of the text is found when our world converges with the world of the author in the reading of the text. What the text means to me now must be rooted in what the text meant then. What the text meant then must be related to what it means to me now.

Sometimes knowledge of the historical situation surrounding the text can dramatically change our understanding of the meaning of the text. Even events that happened after the writing of the text can cast new light on the text.

My mother suffered a fatal heart attack on the evening of March 27, 1989. The movers came the next day as scheduled. My father moved into Samarkand as planned. But my mother moved to heaven. She was given a new garment, but not as she anticipated. At least her text indicates that she expected to move to Samarkand, not to heaven. But I believe that she did “step out with gratitude and accept the new” when she stepped into the presence of the Lord that day. Does her text have a deeper meaning than even she intended? I think so. I read the text in the light of her death.

When the New Testament authors read the Old Testament, they read it in light of the death of Jesus. Texts like Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 gained new meaning in light of this event long after they were written. Even if we believe, as I do, that divine inspiration gave these authors prophetic insight into future events, we still recognize that greater meaning is found in the text by those who actually witnessed the event than by those who foretold it.

Since I certainly do not claim that divine inspiration gave my mother prophetic insight, I put her text in a different category from that of the biblical text. Yet, just as the event of her death after she wrote the text fills her text with new meaning, so the events of the death and resurrection of Jesus fill Old Testament texts with new meaning for Christian interpreters. We can even read the words of Jesus with new understanding if we interpret them in the light of his death and resurrection. His words about a new garment and new wine certainly have an added depth of meaning when we consider that in his death the old sinful humanity died, and in his resurrection the new humanity was raised. Paul expresses this truth: “I am crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). As we read the words of Jesus about a new garment and new wine, we should also interpret them as an invitation to put on Christ as our new garment (Gal. 3:27) and to be filled with the intoxicating wine of his Spirit (Eph. 5:18).

I read my mother’s text as her son. There is an interpretation of love. It is not a dry, academic exercise for me. Yes, of course, my mind is engaged as I think through the implications of her words. But I am also emotionally involved. Her words have had a transforming impact on my life. They nourish me. They give me hope and courage.

Interpretation of the Bible also demands involvement of the whole person. While we can benefit from the work of scholars to define the meaning of the words, only an interpretation of love will lead to a transforming experience of their meaning. If we accept the claim of the biblical text to be the word of God who loves us, then the words of that text have power to create, convict, forgive, heal, and empower.

UNDER THE CROSS

In this use of the process of interpreting my mother’s text as an analogy for biblical interpretation, I have been responding to three key issues in recent discussion.

First, there is a polarization between those who insist that meaning is found in the author’s intentions for writing the text and those who say that readers construct their own meaning out of the text. My analogy attempts to bring those two perspectives together. Meaning is found as the world-views of the author and the reader converge in the text. The text is always in some ways transformed by the reader’s own personal point of view. But the text can also transform the reader if there is a willingness to listen to the author’s point of view. The text is not only a mirror; it can also be a window. If we believe that the Spirit of God is the ultimate author of the biblical text, then we believe that God’s point of view is expressed in the biblical text. The Spirit can use the biblical text to enable the reader “to look not at the things which are seen, but on the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal, and the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18). Such a transformation of perspective is an ongoing process, an upward spiral that continually enlarges our horizons.

A second false disjunction in contemporary discussion of biblical interpretation is the contrast between propositional and personal. Some say that the revelation of meaning takes place only in propositional form. Others assert that the disclosure of meaning is found only in personal encounter. When I read the propositions in my mother’s text, I have the experience of hearing her heart. Even though she is absent from this world, I have come to know her in deeper ways by reading her words. Personal encounter happens through words. As John Donne says, “more than kisses, letters mingle souls.” Words from the heart, like letters we write, are the necessary means to personal encounter. Yes, there is a revelation of meaning in the words given by the Holy Spirit through the human authors of the Bible. Their words are the words of God. But their meaning is not grasped until, reading them, we have them engrafted into our lives by the heart-opening action of the Spirit. Then there is the disclosure of meaning found only in a personal encounter with God.

Third, a long debate continues over whether there is a single meaning or multiple meanings in the text. Can the text mean more than the single meaning intended by the author of the text? The most treasured meaning of all that I have found in my mother’s text is not derived from my understanding of what she intended when she wrote the text but from the event of her death after she wrote the text. Now her text has a whole new meaning not intended by her. And yet, this new meaning is rooted in her intended meaning. She really was writing about getting a new garment. I know that she got a better one than she anticipated. In a similar way, the events of Christ’s birth, life, death, and resurrection illuminated the New Testament authors’ reading of the Old Testament texts. For example, Hosea was describing the historical event of the exodus when he spoke the word of God, “Out of Egypt did I call my son” (Hos. 11:1). Matthew saw greater meaning in this text when he quoted it as a description of an event in the life of Christ (Matt. 2:15).

Part of the motivation for restricting the meaning of the text to the single meaning intended by the author is the concern to protect the text from being abused and twisted by readers who want to promote their own agendas. But I don’t see how we can protect the text from such abuse by limiting ourselves to the single meaning intended by the author when the biblical authors themselves did not limit the meaning of the biblical texts they used to authorial intention. The event of the Cross enabled them to see new meaning in old texts.

The best way to protect the text from self-centered manipulation is to interpret it under the shadow of the cross of Christ. Here again I am learning from my mother’s text. Her own interpretation of Luke 5:36 was an application of the Cross to her life; it was a “cruciform interpretation.” Her understanding of the meaning of that text guided her to die to the old life. “Let us be careful not to try to patch up the old in any way,” she wrote. She interpreted the text in a way that conformed her to Christ, “who though he was rich, became poor, that we through his poverty might become rich.” Her interpretation of Christ’s words enabled her to give up her beautiful home and rose gardens so that she could give better care to her special son, Kenny. She knew that in that giving, she would receive; in that dying, she would be living the eternal life. If our interpretations of the text are marked by the Cross, then self-serving interpretations will be put to death. Interpretation in the light of the Cross exposes self-interest and the use of texts to advance personal power. Cruciform interpretation is suspicious of self-deception. The interpreter who uses Jesus’ words to justify throwing off his marriage vows like an old garment so that he can enjoy the intoxicating wine of an illicit affair is terribly wrong. Jesus clearly meant that the new garment and new wine represent his presence. How can someone enjoy the presence of Jesus by using his words to justify selfish pursuits? Guided by cruciform interpretation, we ask how we can interpret the text so that we can be identified with Christ, “who humbled himself by becoming obedient unto death, even death on the cross.”

“What will this involve?” my mother asked. I have thought for a long time about that question mark at the end of her last journal entry. Exclamation marks were more her style. She had exuberant confidence in God. But she did not know what surprises God had in store for her. As she sought to understand the meaning of the words of Jesus for her life, she applied them to the new home she had prepared. But she sensed that those words had deeper meaning for her than she could fathom at that time. Her biblical interpretation had to be revised when she entered the new home God had prepared for her. “Now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part, then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12).

Our biblical interpretation should be marked by exclamation marks and question marks. When the Spirit guides us to know the meaning of God’s Word, we exclaim with unshakable confidence, “This I believe!” At the same time, we need humbly to admit that even after our best attempts at biblical interpretation we still “know only in part.” And so we wonder, “What will this involve?”

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G. Walter Hansen is associate professor of New Testament and director of the Global Research Institute at Fuller Theological Seminary, and the author of Galatians, part of the IVP New Testament Commentary Series.

Copyright (c) 1995 Christianity Today, Inc./CHRISTIANITY TODAY Magazine ctcurrmrj5TC0225A10

Jacob de Shazer was sent as one of Jimmy Doolittle’s raiders on the famous bombing attack on Japan in April 1942. He was an atheist, believing in no God. During the air attack his plan was hit by enemy anti-aircraft fire and he was forced to bail out. He was captured and imprisoned by the Japanese and thought certainly his life was approaching the end. He saw two of his companions shot by a firing squad and saw another die of slow starvation. During the long months of imprisonment de Shazer pondered the question of why the Japanese hated him and why he hated them. He began to recall some of the things he had heard about Christianity.

Boldly, he asked his jailers if they could get him a Bible. At first they laughed at him like it was a joke and warned him to stop making a nuisance of himself. But he kept asking. A year and a half later, a guard finally brought him a Bible, flung it at him, and said, “Three weeks you have. Three weeks, and then I take away.” True to his word, in three weeks the guard took the Bible away and de Shazer never saw it again. However, in those three weeks of intensive searching, meditating, and delving into the meaning of life and humanity’s ultimate destiny, a change came about. Later he was released from Japanese captivity and returned to the States. In 1948, de Shazer, his wife, and infant son were on their way back to Japan as missionaries, all because the atheist asked for a Bible and a Japanese guard gave him one for three weeks.

[see also HolwickID #19510]

MORE TRUTH YET TO BREAK FORTH

If God reveal anything to you by any other instrument of His, be as ready to receive it as ever you were to receive any truth by my ministry: for I am verily persuaded, the Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of His holy Word. – John Robinson (1576?-1625) to the “Mayflower” emigrants

#1485

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There are many stories about Sophie, the scrub woman, who lived in New York City, and made her living scrubbing floors in the skyscrapers of New York. By that means, she earned thousands of dollars to send out missionaries. That one woman supported some twenty or thirty missionaries, alone.

Sophie had a wonderful character of glory about her all the time -- so much so that she used to cause people to stop her and ask what her secret was. On several occasions, while she was working, some office worker would come to work late and would say to her, “Sophie, I wish I had your faith -- I wish I knew God like you know him.” And she would say, “Well, if you would read your New Testament right, you could know him.” This person would say, “Well, I read my Bible.”

In fact, she said this one time to a minister. He said, “I read the Bible -- I read the Bible in Greek and Hebrew.” And she said, “Well, you don’t read it right!” And he said, “What do you mean?” “Well,” she said, “when it says g-l-o-r-y in tribulations, you read it g-r-o-w-l, growl. That is the trouble with you, that is why you don’t have joy in your heart, you growl in tribulation.”

The Bible is both divinely inspired (fundamentalists) and humanly produced (Karth Barth and neo-evangelicals). Fundamentalists have a danger of reducing the Bible to a legalistic code, while Barthians are in danger of separating the Word of God from the word of man, producing only a partial understanding of Scripture. Barth was especially weak when he insisted the Bible must contain falsehoods because error is essential to its full humanity.

1. Both views are open to danger.

2. Karth Barth on Biblical Authority.

3. Karth Barth on the humanity of Scripture.

4. What Evangelicals can learn from Barth.

5. Where Barth went awry.

6. What about Biblical criticism?

7. A redaction criticism?

8. Is authority limited to faith and practice?

"A consistent evangelical is open to accept any view of the critical origin of the books of the Bible except one that would flatly contradict the Bible's view of itself."

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Full text:

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One group of Christians points to the written text of Scripture and declares: "the Bible says." By contrast, another group affirms: "God speaks to us through the Bible."

BOTH ARE RIGHT

Both are biblical. Scripture means writing and Bible means book. The first group, the fundamentalists, can show many biblical passages beginning: "It is written,"; and clearly, if Scripture says it, that is supposed to settle the matter. For the Christian, the Bible is not like any other book. It has divine authority, and we are in danger if we ignore it. The second group, the "liberal" evangelicals, or, interchangeably, neoevangelicals, are equally biblical. They, too, can cite: "The Holy Spirit says," and "The Holy Spirit ... said through Isaiah." Again, the Bible is not just like any other book. In the Bible God communicates directly to the believing man or woman prepared to hear. Of course, the Bible is only a dead letter to some. By hardness of heart a person may read aimlessly and choose to hear only a wandering Hebrew preacher from the eighth century B.C.; understanding is limited to what such a person can glean from archaeological investigations of the ancient text.

But the "liberal" evangelical knows that God is active now in the hearts of men and women. The spirit transforms human words of Scripture into contemporary speech of the living God. The Bible then becomes a means of grace, and study of the Bible is no mere academic or literary exercise. It is a book best read and studied on our knees. We worship and adore our God as he speaks to us immediately out of its pages.

AND BOTH ARE OPEN TO DANGER

The historic view of the church encompasses both these approaches to the Bible. Yet unless each is carefully safeguarded it may also pervert the Bible's own view of its nature and function.

The danger for the fundamentalist is that he will respond to the Bible as a legalistic code. For him it will be only a set of true prophecies, divinely given by a past act of inspiration. Viewing the Bible as a legalistic code, he relates to it as he does to Euclid's geometry. He is committed to its propositions because that is the way the universe is; -no doubt God made it so by original creation. The Bible, likewise, is only God's ancient word, true because God said it, and binding upon us because he commanded obedience to it. We may then reverence the Bible as a sacred relic from the past on which we set high value, but the Bible does not bring us sharply into immediate contact with God. We are not now face to face with the living God.

Anyone who sees the Bible this way loses the mystery of the presence of God.

The fundamentalist must not be so fearful of dangerous error that he fails to listen to what the neoevangelical is saying about the living God who speaks to us directly in Scripture. For here the "liberal" evangelical is on solid biblical ground and stands with the faithful tradition of the church from the ancient Fathers through the Reformers and on down to the twentieth century. Even Charles Hodge has a beautiful section on the Bible as the present means of grace, though it is not in volume 1 on Bibliology and the Word of God, but lies tucked away, overlooked and almost forgotten, at the end of volume 3.

Yet the "liberal" evangelical viewpoint too often presents only a partial understanding of Scripture. Its crucial defect lies in that it seeks to separate the Word of God from the word of man.

To some in this group - more liberal than evangelical - this presents no problem. A Scottish theologian, John Baillie, for example, sees the Bible as a human book - a record of man's response to the God who shows himself not in the revealing of truth but only in wordless acts.

For such thinkers the Bible is neither the Word of God nor a trustworthy witness to the Word of God. It is the ancient prophet's response to God's act (truly miraculous or otherwise), seen, understood, and recorded by one who stood wholly in the cultural milieu of his own day. The Spirit of God uses this very human and very fallible record from the past to speak to us what he wishes to reveal to us today. The words of Scripture are

only the occasion that the Spirit uses to communicate what he has to say to each of us. Suppose we validly exegete a particular passage with proper attention to grammar, syntax, and cultural milieu. However, in spite of this, what the original author or his various redactors had to say when they wrote their words may not be at all what God wishes to say. Those ancient words are simply the instrument God here and now chooses to use to reveal himself to us in the form appropriate to us.

KARL BARTH ON BIBLICAL AUTHORITY

The more conservative among the "liberal" evangelicals are troubled by such looseness with the biblical text. They want to retain a divine authority for the written text of the Holy Scripture. No one struggled more earnestly with this problem than the famous Swiss theologian, Karl Barth. At Amsterdam in 1948, Barth publicly rebuked Reinhold Niebuhr for his selective attitude toward Scripture. Niebuhr and others at the conference, Barth affirmed, were picking and choosing out of the Bible the parts that supported their own views rather than going to the Bible to discover what it said, and then accepting it as determinative for their views. No one should approach the biblical writers as "a high school teacher authorized to look over their shoulder, benevolently or crossly, to correct their notebooks or to give them good, average, or bad marks." The very opposite is true. A theologian must agree to let the biblical writers look over his shoulder and correct his notebook. So Barth speaks boldly and often of biblical authority. We must test our theology by the word of the written text. Not one word of Scripture dare we set aside as irrelevant to the truth of God.

The importance of the biblical text to Barth has not been adequately recognized - especially by American evangelicals. We are grateful for Barth's strong defense of biblical authority. The written text of Scripture must stand in judgment over against us and our theology.

KARL BARTH ON THE HUMANITY OF SCRIPTURE

Yet Barth also insisted that we must give equal place to the radical humanity of Scripture. Barth himself struggled through the critical approaches to Scripture stemming from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He was trained in the radical liberalism of German universities at the turn of the century. He read deeply in the history of biblical criticism from Strauss, Baur, Wellhausen, Ritschl, Troeltsch, Harnack, Bultmann, and a host of lesser scholars. He accepted the basic outlines of their construction of Hebrew- Christian history. For him the humanity of Scripture lay so evident on every page of Scripture that to deny it would require a sacrifice of the intellect he is unprepared to make. He took the humanity of Scripture in the fullest possible sense, holding that every word of it completely reflects the culture of its time. He made no attempt to harmonize Gospel accounts, and freely admitted discordant elements in the record of the resurrection of Christ.

Essential to this full humanity of Scripture is error, and he found error not only in the historical and scientific but also in the theological teaching of Scripture. When challenged on this point, he once responded that if God is not ashamed of errors in the text, why should we be?

WHAT EVANGELICALS CAN LEARN FROM BARTH

Barth's rationale for this is easy to follow. In revealing himself to us finite, sinful human beings, God did not choose to invent a new language. He certainly did not destroy our humanity or eliminate our culture. Rather, he choose to reveal himself to us within the framework of our sinful, erring human culture. And so far from being the language of heavenly perfection, Canaanite Hebrew was the speech of one of the foulest societies ever to pollute God's fair earth. Every page of the Old and New Testament reflects the culture of which it is a part, with all the infelicities, inexactnesses, and even crudities (to our taste) that were part and parcel of that culture.

There is unity in the Bible, but it is not the facile unity that lends itself to easy harmonization. To take the humanity of the biblical text in all its full diversity drives us to a comprehensive understanding of reality, and above all to the mystery of the triune God. The discordant elements of Scripture simply reflect the complexity of reality and the variegated picture of the real God revealed in it. Barth writes, "The eternally rich God is the content of the knowledge of evangelical theology. Its unique mystery is known only in the overflowing fullness of his council, ways, and judgments."

It is possible to argue that every word of the Bible from cover to cover is so tainted by its sinful culture that it is less than perfect in the way it lays hold of the truth. Some philosophers (Thomas Aquinas, no less) argue that all human thought forms (and, therefore necessarily, all biblical statements) fall short of the perfect truth of God and in a sense are erroneous. They call this the analogous nature of all our human knowledge.

If this were all Barth meant, we would have no quarrel with him, because we heartily applaud the unequivocal way in which he recognizes the complete humanity of Scripture in every way. Indeed, evangelicals are grateful for Barth's radical insistence on the humanity of Scripture. In their earlier battles against liberals, fundamentalists so stressed the divine authority of Scripture that the reality and importance of its humanity was lost.

WHERE BARTH WENT AWRY

Hence it is not to the radical and all-pervasive humanity of Scripture that evangelicals object, but to Barth's teaching that the Scriptures must contain falsehoods because error is essential to their full humanity.

The simple truth is that in ordinary language we do call some statements true. It is possible for even finite, sinful human beings to make statements we call true. I sat in three courses of Karl Barth for half a year. I heard him refer to Rudolph Bultmann dozens of times, but I cannot remember that Karl Barth ever made a single approving reference to any writing of Bultmann. According to Barth, Bultmann's statements were false, and he hoped that we would not accept them as true. By contrast, Barth's own statements were in a different category-and Barth tried to persuade us they were true. Certainly his own statements were thoroughly involved in our twentieth-century culture. He spoke in no language of heavenly perfection, but in "schrift Deutsch" (with occasional asides in Bernese Swiss, to the dismay of all except Swiss students).

Now we ordinarily make a distinction between, on one hand, statements that are less perfect (reflecting the human culture of which they are a part) and, on the other hand, statements we call false. Barth believed he was not making this latter kind of false statement, but was stating what we ordinarily call the truth. Evangelicals insist that every sentence of the Bible is thoroughly human and fully reflects the human culture of its own time and place. Yet they also believe the Bible contains only the kind of statements Barth thought he was making-the kind we ordinarily call true-and not the kind Bultmann made, the kind we call false. Barth does so because he is convinced that this was the view of Holy Scripture held by his Lord Christ and taught by him to his disciples. And it is the Bible's own view of itself .

In his early years, Barth taught a Christology that was consistent with his bibliology. In his Incarnation, Jesus Christ took upon himself our sinful humanity. Even then Barth never accepted the radically -liberal view that Jesus performed sinful acts. Later he shored up his Christology to make clear that there were no moral imperfections in the character of Christ. Unfortunately, he never got around to similarly straightening out his bibliology. Still, though Barth continued to assert the presence of errors in Scripture, it is exceedingly difficult to locate any instances in his writing where he sets forth any particular error in Scripture. More and more he came to stress the radical humanity of Scripture and, at the same time, a complete trustworthiness of Scripture. And that is just what the church has always meant by its doctrine of the infallibility or inerrancy of Scripture.

WHAT ABOUT BIBLICAL CRITICISM?

Fundamentalists and evangelicals of all types have always acknowledged the legitimacy of "lower" or textual criticism, although they have vigorously disagreed over conclusions. The same is true of "higher" criticism, that is, historical criticism that deals with the background, origin, authenticity, and historical truth of the biblical text. In this area, however, the anti-supernaturalism that dominates the thinking of most liberals on critical problems places a sharp cleavage between -them and all evangelicals (both fundamentalists on one hand, and "liberal" evangelicals, also called neoevangelicals, on the other). Even so, there was no party line among fundamentalists and there is none today among evangelicals. For example, J. 0. Buswell, Jr., fundamentalist president of Wheaton College (1926-39) and former professor of systematic theology at Covenant Theological Seminary and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, accepted B. F. Streeter's rather liberal view of the origin of the Gospels. Among other things, he taught an original Mark and "Q" used by both Matthew and Luke, who added much material on their own and arranged all to suit their own literary purposes.

Evangelicals are pretty much united that the pastoral and Petrine letters were at least in some legitimate sense authored by the apostles Paul and Peter. But the particular sense in which these two men are to be reckoned as the authors is certainly not a part of this consensus. They are also agreed that the Book of Daniel stands from an early sixth-century date and represents predictive prophecy, not merely an imaginative exhortation to discouraged Jews of the Maccabean period.

The basic principle that guides evangelicals is that which has guided the orthodox church down through the centuries. This was brilliantly stated by E. J. Carnell: a consistent evangelical is open to accept any view of the critical origin of the books of the Bible except one that would flatly contradict the Bible's own view of itself.

A REDACTION CRITICISM?

Robert Gundry tied the conservative Evangelical Theological Society in knots last Christmas by defending redaction criticism as a legitimate tool for understanding the Gospel of Matthew. (According to this criticism, the sayings of Jesus and the events recorded in the Gospels were worked over [redacted] by the biblical authors to meet the needs of the early church, and often tell us more about the message of the biblical writer than about Jesus.) Among other things, Gundry argued that Matthew did not intend that stories in historical format need always be taken as actual events, but only as an effective way to make a theological point. While asserting his adherence to inerrancy, he ascribed the Trinitarian formula to Matthew, not to Jesus (Matt. 28:19), and on exegetical grounds contested the factuality of the slaughter of the infants at Bethlehem. -

Other evangelicals noted that such methodology, if applied to the bodily resurrection of Christ, would allow us to understand it merely as Christ's continuing spiritual existence. And likewise, by this line of thought, the Virgin Birth could simply be an honorific title! Yet, however misguided his exegesis, Gundry is not arguing with what he thinks the text really says. Evangelicals must answer him on their common premise - the truth of the text. They must show why, fairly interpreted in light of history and grammar and cultural data, his interpretation really misses the true meaning of the author.

IS AUTHORITY LIMITED TO FAITH AND PRACTICE?

According to one view, inspiration guarantees the truth of biblical statements only in the area of religious faith and ethical practice. On the surface this has considerable attraction. The Bible is not a book of history and science. It is a religious book to teach us about God. We do well to go elsewhere for what we need to know in history and science.

Of course, this view runs completely counter to the basic argument of Barth against inerrancy. If error is essential to the full and free humanity of biblical writers, then the Bible will err in its theological and ethical statements just as much as it will in its history and science. Barth saw this clearly and accepted its consequences by insisting that there were theological and ethical errors in the Bible as well. But his contemporary followers are seldom so clear-sighted.

Our doctrine of Scripture, like all other Christian doctrines, is based on the teaching of Scripture, but the Bible knows no such distinction as that between faith and practice on one hand, and history and science on the other. In fact, the biblical teaching is that the Bible is trustworthy of all that it really teaches, including its facts. The Lausanne Covenant of 1974 caught the biblical sense: the Bible is inerrant in all that it affirms. Of course, evangelicals do not insist that biblical grammar is perfect, but rather that its statements are all true. Each portion of the Bible is imbedded in its own culture and, indeed, is part of that culture. Its vocabulary may be drawn from mythological and unscientific views. It is certainly inexact and general beyond what we approve of today in our twentieth-century scientific world. The biblical authors speak loosely and popularly. Their language is certainly not scientific. We cannot take the words of the Bible and assume that the biblical author means what we would mean were we to use those same words in our twentieth-century Western context today. But the biblical statements are always true and never false.

It should be added that when evangelicals describe the biblical statements as true, they are using the word "true" in its epistemological sense as describing a statement that conforms to reality in a meaningful way. "True" is contrasted with "false." The biblical statements are always true and never false. Some writers today are unwilling to admit that in their view the Bible is false or untrue in this sense. They continue to describe the Bible as true, but shift the meaning of "true" to its ethical sense. The Bible conforms, they say, to what is good or ideal. On occasion, we use the English word "true" in its ethical sense. But in ordinary language, when we apply the word to statements, we use it in its epistemological sense. The evangelical is not playing with words. He means that the Bible is true in this particular sense. Our interpretations of the Bible may be, and often are, false. But the Bible is always true and never false.

On the practical side, moreover, the evangelical points out that faith and history are closely related, and so are faith and the facts of science. If the Bible is not entirely trustworthy, it loses its authority for us unless we are able to distinguish what in it we have a right to trust and what not to trust. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be any clear line we can draw between important history and unimportant history, or between important fact and unimportant fact. The end result, if we do this, is that we build a theology not on the whole teaching of the Bible but rather on our own very selective use of what we choose to take from the Bible. We then stand in judgment over the Bible. The Bible does not stand in judgment over us. And we are back once again where even Barth does not wish to take us: having to pick and choose from what the Bible affirms to be so. We find ourselves looking over the shoulder of the biblical text to correct, reject, or approve it as the case may require.

No doubt there are problems with holding both to the radical humanity of the Bible, and the truth of all it affirms or says. But surely we do not have to solve all problems before we may legitimately accept it as our own conviction. If we were to clear up every difficulty before we believe anything, science would be chaos and history meaningless. Therefore, in spite of problems, we choose to turn to the Scripture just as our Lord directed. In its pages, we find his instructions; through its words, inerrantly inspired long ago, our living Lord speaks to us today his word of grace and truth. And where we now see only dimly, we humbly pray for more light.

#4371

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That's the Book For Me! (Matt. 4:4)

About 42 percent of adults say Bible reading is very important to them and say they have a favorite verse or story. Reasons adults give for reading the Bible:

• Spiritual direction/guidance 81%

• To feel closer to God 73%

• Principles/guidelines for life 71%

• It's interesting 66%

• It's enjoyable 59%

• Christians are supposed to 39%

Tyndale House/Barna

cited in USA Today (9/25/97)

Copyright(c) 1998 by the author or Christianity Today, Inc./Leadership Journal. For reprint information call 630-260-6200 or e-mail LeaderJ@aol.com.

Fall 1998, Vol.XIX, No. 4, Page 67