41 Sermon Illustrations on Hermeneutics

The land promises in the Old Testament are fulfilled in an extraordinary way in the New Testament - God's people, Jews and Christians, inherit the whole world. A literal interpretation of Gen 17:8 not only requires land for Israel, but circumcision for all believers. Paul [better: James] settled this at Jerusalem Council.

Miracles can happen, but not as often as some claim. Three mistakes concerning miracles:

1. Assuming certain passages of Scripture which have a specific application

can be applied generally today.

2. Failing to distinguish between the different commands of Jesus.

3. Claiming that salvation guarantees wholeness here and now.

"Promise" passages are analysed: greater works, faith moving mountains, and prayer for the sick.

We should not expect miracles to happen regularly here.

Interesting alternative interpretation to James 5:13-16; it is possible James is not talking about the healing of the sick, but about ministry to the dying. This was the view that was widely held in the early church. The words "save" and "raise up" can be used to refer to healing from sin and death and to resurrection to eternal life. The word "heal" can mean restoration to health. But it can also mean healing from sin. Perhaps James's statement that the prayer of faith will save the sick and that the Lord will raise him up is an assurance to the dying that those who are reconciled to God and the church will be raised in the resurrection and have their sins forgiven.

Baptists stress that they are a “biblical people,” yet American Baptists have drifted from the principle of biblical authority.

Peter Davids said, “What Scripture says, God says. This truth stands whether or not anyone ever obeys Scripture, for it does not gain its intrinsic authority from the consensus of a religious community, but from the fact that God has put into the volume a description of reality (i.e. his will) AS IT IS.”

Once we agree that the Bible is authoritative, we must discover the MEANING of the passage in its original context, and from that the SIGNIFICANCE for our lives. Christians often disagree about what is essential and non-essential in the Bible’s teachings. A bigger problem today is that many doubt the original meaning of the Bible can be discovered at all. The relativism and subjectivism of the “New Hermeneutic,” which states that the meaning of the Bible resides in the hearer and not the original writer, has led to much confusion. The hearer’s socio-economic or gender or ethnic identity becomes paramount. The Bible ends up losing its authority.

The West now essentially worships the SELF. We proclaim the Bible’s authority but in reality we claim ultimate authority within ourselves. “This is what the Bible means to me,” is a dangerous way of interpreting.

Passages in the Bible that make us uneasy may be the ones we need most. The story of Mary and Martha is often twisted (examples given of various interpreters), but really means we must keep our focus on Jesus or things will go wrong. Social justice is good but should not be a primary concern - just Jesus.

Some laws of hermeneutics:

1. Passages you don't like are the important ones for you.

2. The interpretation you like least is normally the correct one.

#3348

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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

Religious trends during the past few decades have made today’s debate over homosexuality almost inevitable. In a growing number of denominations, the Bible’s moral statements are increasingly seen as irrelevant to our culture. The latest findings of science and an individual’s personal experiences are treated as higher authorities than the Scriptures.

Discussions about homosexuality frequently center around a few isolated Bible passages. Often overlooked is the foundational teaching on human sexuality found in Genesis 1: “So God created man in his own image ... male and female he created them” (v. 27).

Jesus based His teachings against divorce on this passage (Matt. 19:4-6). God created man and woman for each other, and ordained sex only in the context of a lifetime commitment. The opening chapter of Genesis explains why fornication, adultery, and prostitution - as well as “homosexual marriage” -- are all distortions of God’s original plan for sex.

Some scholars have offered new interpretations for specific biblical passages that prohibit homosexual acts. In the story of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19), Lot’s visitors demand to “know” the angelic visitors (v. 5, KJV). The explanation that they wanted merely “to get acquainted with” the strangers makes Lot’s response most puzzling: “Don’t do this wicked thing” (v.7). The context supports the traditional interpretation of homosexuality, and other biblical passages link Sodom with sexual immorality and perversion (2 Peter 2:7; Jude 7).

In Leviticus 18:22, God clearly commands, “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.”Pro-homosexual scholars argue that Christians are no longer under the Mosaic law. But we must carefully distinguish the dietary or ceremonial laws (abolished in the New Testament - Mark 7:19; Heb. 10:8-10) from the moral laws (reinforced in the New Testament and still applicable today -- Mark 7:20-23; Matt. 5:27,28).

Differentiating the two types of laws answers the question, “Why do Christians quote the Old Testament on homosexuality, then ignore the commands that prohibit eating shellfish or wearing clothing of mixed fibers?”

The important distinction between these laws is reflected in the Old Testament penalties for breaking them: Disobedience to the ceremonial laws resulted in uncleanness (Lev. 11:24, etc.), while breaching the moral law meant death (Lev. 20).

The first chapter of Romans is usually considered the most thorough and clear condemnation of homosexuality in the Bible. It also contains the only specific reference to lesbianism. But some people claim that Paul’s statements are “culturally bound,” addressed to first-century believers and therefore not applicable today. But God declares that His moral laws do no change and that His Word “stands forever” (Isa. 40:8).

What did Paul mean when he stated that homosexual acts are “unnatural” (Rom. 1:26,27)? Contrary to what a person feels is natural? Not necessarily. Many homosexuals say that they have always felt attracted to others of their own gender. But we live in a fallen world; sin has distorted our perception of truth (Rom. 1:18). So what someone feels is “natural” can still be wrong. Paul was referring to the natural order as God originally created it.

Those who practice homosexual acts receive “in themselves the due penalty for their perversion” (Rom. 1:27). Homosexuals reap a bitter harvest of emotional and physical suffering. Though AIDS is not necessarily a direct judgment from God, it certainly is a devastating consequence of sin.

First Corinthians 6:9 mentions “homosexual offenders” in a long list of people who will not inherit the kingdom of God. This passage seems clear -- until the discussions begin about the exact meaning of the original Greek word.

Does “arsenokoitai” refer to lustful, uncommitted male prostitution or to a loving, permanent relationship? The literal meaning is “a male who lies with a male.” There are no qualifications. All homosexual behavior is forbidden, no matter what degree of love or lust is involved.

What about Jesus’ silence on this issue? There are many sexual behaviors that He did not address (incest, rape, bestiality). That doesn’t mean they are permissible. Jesus always upheld the Old Testament law (Matt. 5:17-19), which strictly condemned homosexual acts. And He affirmed celibacy as the only legitimate alternative to heterosexual marriage (Matt. 19:12).

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For more extensive article on homosexuality and its myths, see c:\word.wrk\bible-st\homomyth.doc.

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

*

Can We All See the Bible Alike?

I. IF WE LEAVE OUT OPINIONS (Isaiah 55:8-9; Isaiah 1 Pet 4:11; 2 John 1:9).

II. IF WE ARE NOT FOLLOWING...

1) Traditions (Matthew 15:1-9).

2) Relatives (Matthew 10:34-37).

3) Majority (Matthew 7:13-14).

III. IF WE STUDY AND RIGHTLY DIVIDE (2 Timothy 2:15; Romans 10:3; 2 Corinthians 10:5).

IV. IF NOT BLINDED BY...

1) Satan (2 Corinthians 4:3-4).

2) Error (2 Thessalonians 2:10-11).

3) Ego (Revelation 3:17-19).

V. IF WE APPROACH IT HUMBLY (John 7:17; John 8:43; Acts 17:11).

VI. IF NOT, WHY DID...

1) David Proclaim (Psalms 119:104-105)?

2) Isaiah Prophesy (Isaiah 35:8; Isaiah 40:5)?

3) Christ Say (Matthew 11:16-25; John 6:44-45, John 6:63)?

4) Paul Plead (1 Corinthians 1:10; Philippians 3:16)?

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| My Source:

| NORTH MARSHALL MESSENGER

| Number 424, April 11, 1999

|------------------------------

| Author: David Lemmons

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CAIN'S COMPLAINT

by David Lemmons

One of the most important and basic aspects of ascertaining Bible authority is to understand what might be labeled: The Law of Exclusion. If a person understands clearly this important principle, his acceptance of other truths of the Bible is greatly aided. Whenever we have an opportunity to help someone understand this wonderful principle, we OUGHT to avail ourselves of that opportunity.

The fact is that this principle is illustrated in many ways throughout the Bible. We will not be lacking in ways to help other people understand this important principle if we are familiar at all with our Bibles. We certainly should not be surprised at this fact, of the abundance of material on this important subject, because the Bible contains all things that pertain to life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). Let's notice just a few of these in a series of studies together.

In the very beginning of God's dealings with mankind, we find the law of exclusion at work. Consider the account of Cain and Abel. We know that Abel offered his sacrifice by faith (Hebrews 11:4). We know also that faith comes by hearing the word of God (Romans 10:17). Therefore we must conclude that God gave instruction to these brothers about the sacrifice which would be acceptable. However, one of these brothers had respect for the law of exclusion and one of them did not. What was the result of Cain's disrespect for the law of exclusion? Well let's read it from God's word: "And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering: 5 But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell" (Genesis 4:4-5).

How did Cain disrespect the law of exclusion and thus cause God to have no respect for his offering? It is very easy to see that Cain made a substitute. He did not appreciate, at the time, the fact that when God speaks there can be no substitute. Man's part is to do what God commands and to refrain from attempts to make substitute. How did Cain feel after God "had not respect for" his offering? The Bible says that "his countenance fell." One version says: "his face became sad." Have you ever seen a disobedient little child hang their head in shame? This is similar to what Cain did here.

Cain's lack of respect for the law of exclusion was the fundamental cause of his sadness and the rejection of what he had to offer to the Lord. God will not allow man to make substitutes for His will. Why cannot men today learn the lesson of the law of exclusion?

Do you know what God called that which Cain did? God referred to Cain's substitution--his lack of respect for the law of exclusion--as SIN! Let's listen in on God's conversation with Cain--"And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? 7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee [shall be] his desire, and thou shalt rule over him" (Genesis 4:6-7). There is a way that is right and it leads to acceptance with God. There is a way that is wrong and it involves SUBSTITUTING man's will for God's will. This way of substitution, this way of neglecting the law of exclusion, is a way that is called SIN! There were consequences for Cain's lack of respect for the law of exclusion. There will always be consequences for neglecting the law of exclusion!

Can we be instructed by Cain and his neglect of this law? Cain went his own way. Cain made the substitution. Cain was told by God what he did wrong. Cain would not receive instruction about his own wrongdoing, but set about to "get even" by attacking the one who did show respect for the law of exclusion, his own brother. Cain's way is much too familiar in the religious world today!

When we cry out today of the need to have Bible authority for all that we do, that cry is met, in far too many instances, by "Cain's Complaint." Cain's Complaint, in effect was: God didn't say not to offer "the fruit of the ground." Men today, when confronted with this principle, cry out: "The Bible doesn't say not to __________."

How can men expect to be well pleasing to the God of heaven when they are unwilling to be instructed by plain teaching in God's word? We will want to be noticing some more of the illustrations of the "Law of Exclusion" in the coming weeks. Please don't ignore it in your life.

Please tell a Junior or Senior in High School of the Prom Alternative…

\webpage{http://www.hcis.net/users/dlemmons/ccd.htm}

My Source: NORTH MARSHALL MESSENGER

#510, January 9, 2000

Author: David Lemmons

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SLOSHING WATER

by David Lemmons

I think it was at a Preachers' Meeting in Greenfield, TN that I heard Lee Davis use the expression something like: "There's not enough water in that argument to slosh in a bucket." I believe that was the first time I had heard such expression; though, if I recall correctly, Lee indicated at the time that it was not original with him. Of course the idea of the statement is that the argument was WEAK. Lee was saying that a conclusion had been drawn without adequate support from the evidence presented.

There is certainly a danger in "jumping to conclusions" in any area of life. Many things have been said, no doubt, between husbands and wives and in all other relationships which fall in this category. Such is especially dangerous and foolish when it involves spiritual matters, (i.e., teaching from God's word). I subscribe to the fact that every Bible expositor needs to follow the "Law of Rationality." I can recall hearing Roy C. Deaver cite and define this law numerous times. The "Law of Rationality" goes something like this: We must never assign to any proposition or claim any more weight than is absolutely demanded from the evidence presented.

As I prepared for Wednesday Night Bible Study this past week, I came across a lecture which contained a reference to the text I was studying, but had nothing to do with what I was studying. However, the lecture had an interesting title and I found myself sidetracked (as sometimes happens in my Bible study) and I read the entire lecture. There were some challenging and interesting statements made in the lecture by the brother, and he made some good points. The title of his lecture was: "Bridging Generation Gaps in Worship." In discussing this topic attention was given to worship under the Old Testament, to synagogue worship, and to worship in the first century.

There was a statement made toward the end of this writing that, interestingly enough, was placed under the heading: "A FALSE CONCLUSION," which I certainly believe the writer had drawn, although that was not the meaning he intended by supplying the heading. He made the statement about the reaction of a modern Christian visiting a worship assembly in the first century:

Even if the entire assembly was conducted

in English (which did not exist), HE WOULD

NOT RELATE TO ANY PART OF THAT

WORSHIP (emphasis mine, DRL).

Surely all of us can recognize in this statement, even without having read the entire lecture, that this is an overstatement of immense proportions. I would submit to you, brethren, that if this is true where this brother preaches, the elders had better be doing a LOT of changing in their worship assemblies (which evidently is the desired result of this brother). Now I was with him on some of his argumentation, but when he put forth this very strong exaggeration, my reaction was to quit listening and to discount his proposition. Brethren, if we have the truth on a particular matter it is not necessary to use such tactics of argumentation as this obvious hyperbole.

The point of this article is that, as we teach, all of us ought to strive with all due diligence to avoid transgressing "The Law of Rationality," because we are urged to use such care and caution in dealing with Scripture in numerous places in God's word (Acts 17:11; Ephesians 5:6-10; Ephesians 1 Ths Ephesians 5:21; Ephesians 2 Tm Ephesians 2:15; 1 John 4:1). It really does our cause no benefit to draw conclusions which do not have the support of Bible evidence. Additionally, we need to realize that there are millions of examples of argumentation which "doesn't contain enough water to slosh in a bucket." Let us never be swayed into action by anything but TRUTH, which can stand on its own without the props of extended hyperbole and "needs-based" argumentation.

What are the principles of interpreting the Bible? A conference with Norman Geisler, Carl F. H. Henry, Roger Nicole, J. I. Packer and others came up with these 25 points:

1. WE AFFIRM that the normative authority of Holy Scripture is the authority

of God Himself and is attested by Jesus Christ, the Lord of the

church.

WE DENY the legitimacy of separating the authority of Christ from the

authority of Scripture, or of opposing the one to the other.

2. WE AFFIRM that as Christ is God and Man in one person, so Scripture is,

indivisibly, God's Word in human language.

WE DENY that the humble, human form of Scripture entails errancy any

more than the humanity of Christ, even in His humiliation, entails

sin.

3. WE AFFIRM that the person and work of Jesus Christ are the central focus

of the entire Bible.

WE DENY that any method of interpretation which rejects or obscures

the Christ-centeredness of Scripture is correct.

4. WE AFFIRM that the Holy Spirit who inspired Scripture acts through it

today to work faith in its message.

WE DENY that the Holy Spirit ever teaches to anyone anything which is

contrary to the teaching of Scripture.

5. WE AFFIRM that the Holy Spirit enables believers to appropriate and apply

Scripture to their lives.

WE DENY that the natural man is able to discern spiritually the

biblical message apart from the Holy Spirit.

6. WE AFFIRM that the Bible expresses God's truth in propositional

statements, and we declare that biblical truth is both objective and

absolute. We further affirm that a statement is true if it represents

matters as they actually are, but is an error if it misrepresents the

facts.

WE DENY that, while Scripture is able to make us wise unto salvation,

biblical truth should be defined in terms of this function. We further

deny that error should be defined as that which willfully deceives.

7. WE AFFIRM that the meaning expressed in each biblical text is single,

definite, and fixed.

WE DENY that the recognition of this single meaning eliminates the

variety of its application.

8. WE AFFIRM that the Bible contains teachings and mandates which apply to

all cultural and situational contexts and other mandates which the

Bible itself shows apply only to particular situations.

WE DENY that the distinction between the universal and particular

mandates of Scripture can be determined by cultural and situational

factors. We further deny that universal mandates may ever be treated

as culturally or situationally relative.

9. WE AFFIRM that the term hermeneutics, which historically signified the

rules of exegesis, may properly be extended to cover all that is

involved in the process of perceiving what the biblical revelation

means and how it bears on our lives.

WE DENY that the message of Scripture derives from, or is dictated by,

the interpreter's understanding. Thus we deny that the "horizons" of

the biblical writer and the interpreter may rightly "fuse" in such a

way that what the text communicates to the interpreter is not

ultimately controlled by the expressed meaning of the Scripture.

10. WE AFFIRM that Scripture communicates God's truth to us verbally through

a wide variety of literary forms.

WE DENY that any of the limits of human language render Scripture

inadequate to convey God's message.

11. WE AFFIRM that translations of the text of Scripture can communicate

knowledge of God across all temporal and cultural boundaries.

WE DENY that the meaning of biblical texts is so tied to the culture

out of which they came that understanding of the same meaning in other

cultures is impossible.

12. WE AFFIRM that in the task of translating the Bible and teaching it in

the context of each culture, only those functional equivalents that

are faithful to the content of biblical teaching should be employed.

WE DENY the legitimacy of methods which either are insensitive to the

demands of cross-cultural communication or distort biblical meaning in

the process.

13. WE AFFIRM that awareness of the literary categories, formal and

stylistic, of the various parts of Scripture is essential for proper

exegesis, and hence we value genre criticism as one of the many

disciplines of biblical study.

WE DENY that generic categories which negate historicity may rightly

be imposed on biblical narratives which present themselves as factual.

14. WE AFFIRM that the biblical record of events, discourses and sayings,

though presented in a variety of appropriate literary forms,

corresponds to historical fact.

WE DENY that any such event, discourse or saying reported in Scripture

was invented by the biblical writers or by the traditions they

incorporated.

15. WE AFFIRM the necessity of interpreting the Bible according to its

literal, or normal, sense. The literal sense is the grammatical-

historical sense, that is, the meaning which the writer

expressed. Interpretation according to the literal sense will take

account of all figures of speech and literary forms found in the text.

WE DENY the legitimacy of any approach to Scripture that attributes to

it meaning which the literal sense does not support.

16: WE AFFIRM that legitimate critical techniques should be used in

determining the canonical text and its meaning.

WE DENY the legitimacy of allowing any method of biblical criticism to

question the truth or integrity of the writer's expressed meaning, or

of any other scriptural teaching.

17. WE AFFIRM the unity, harmony, and consistency of Scripture and declare

that it is its own best interpreter.

WE DENY that Scripture may be interpreted in such a way as to suggest

that one passage corrects or militates against another. We deny that

later writers of Scripture misinterpreted earlier passages of

Scripture when quoting from or referring to them.

18. WE AFFIRM that the Bible's own interpretation of itself is always

correct, never deviating from, but rather elucidating, the single

meaning of the inspired text. The single meaning of a prophet's words

includes, but is not restricted to, the understanding of those words

by the prophet and necessarily involves the intention of God evidenced

in the fulfillment of those words.

WE DENY that the writers of Scripture always understood the full

implications of their own words.

19. WE AFFIRM that any preunderstandings, which the interpreter brings to

Scripture should be in harmony with scriptural teaching and subject to

correction by it.

WE DENY that Scripture should be required to fit alien

preunderstandings, inconsistent with itself, such as naturalism,

evolutionism, scientism, secular humanism, and relativism.

20. WE AFFIRM that since God is the author of all truth, all truths,

biblical and extrabiblical, are consistent and cohere, and that the

Bible speaks truth when it touches on matters pertaining to nature,

history, or anything else. We further affirm that in some cases

extrabiblical data have value for clarifying what Scripture teaches

and for prompting correction of faulty interpretations.

WE DENY that extrabiblical views ever disprove the teaching of

Scripture or hold priority over it.

21. WE AFFIRM the harmony of special with general revelation and therefore

of biblical teaching with the facts of nature.

WE DENY that any genuine scientific facts are inconsistent with the

true meaning of any passage of Scripture.

22. WE AFFIRM that Genesis 1-11 is factual, as is the rest of the book.

WE DENY that the teachings of Genesis 1-11 are mythical and that

scientific hypotheses about earth history or the origin of humanity

may be invoked to overthrow what Scripture teaches about creation.

23. WE AFFIRM the clarity of Scripture and specifically of its message about

salvation from sin.

WE DENY that all passages of Scripture are equally clear or have equal

bearing on the message of redemption.

24. WE AFFIRM that a person is not dependent for understanding of Scripture

on the expertise of biblical scholars.

WE DENY that a person should ignore the fruits of the technical study

of Scripture by biblical scholars.

25. WE AFFIRM that the only type of preaching which sufficiently conveys the

divine revelation and its proper application to life is that which

faithfully expounds the text of Scripture as the Word of God.

WE DENY that the preacher has any message from God apart the text of

Scripture.

*

Luke Timothy Johnson thinks that the Christian crisis over homosexuality is not really about sex at all. Instead, it “has less to do with sex than with perceived threats to the authority of Scripture and the teaching authority of the church.” In reality the crisis is about both sex and biblical authority, as Johnson himself makes clear.

Johnson serves as Robert R. Woodruff Professor of New Testament at the Candler School Of Theology at Emory University. He is one of the most influential Roman Catholic scholars in the field of biblical studies. In “Scripture & Experience,” published in COMMONWEAL magazine, Professor Johnson presents what can only be described as a rejectionist approach to the Bible’s teachings on homosexuality.

This rejectionist approach means that Professor Johnson directly rejects what the Bible teaches on this issue, and does so with a boldness shared by few others in this debate. He accepts that “the Bible nowhere speaks positively or even neutrally about same-sex love.” Even as he argues that the church has “never lived in precise accord with the Scriptures,” he suggests that Christians pick and choose which biblical commands they will take seriously. Nevertheless, he straightforwardly acknowledges that the Bible condemns same-sex sexual acts.

He claims that the authority of Scripture and the tradition of the church are “scarcely trivial,” but criticizes those “who use the Bible as a buttress for rejecting forms of sexual love they fear or cannot understand.” In other words, he argues that those who believe that the Bible’s clear condemnations of homosexual behaviors are still authoritative for Christians do so only out of fear or a lack of understanding of homosexuality itself. As he explains later in his essay, he has grown by experience to overcome this fear and ignorance. He now believes that the Bible is simply wrong.

He demands intellectual honesty and says that he “has little patience with efforts to make Scripture say something other than what it says.” Thus, he dismisses “appeals to linguisitic or cultural subtleties” as intellectually dishonest.

This is refreshing in itself, as we grow tired of seeing revisionist scholars and homosexual advocates try to explain, for example, that Romans 1 does not condemn homosexual acts committed by homosexual persons as “against nature,” but rather condemns homosexual acts undertaken by heterosexual persons. We should appreciate the fact that Professor Johnson, unlike so many others pushing for the normalization of homosexuality, does not suggest that the church has misread Scripture for two thousand years.

No, he directly rejects the Bible’s commands:

I think it important to state clearly that we do, in fact, reject

the straightforward commands of Scripture, and appeal instead to

another authority when we declare that same-sex unions can be

holy and good. And what exactly is that authority? We appeal

explicitly to the weight of our own experience and the experience

thousands of others have witnessed to, which tells us that to

claim our own sexual orientation is in fact to accept the way in

which God has created us. By so doing, we explicitly reject as

well the premises of the scriptural statements condemning

homosexuality -- namely, that it is a vice freely chosen, a

symptom of human corruption, and disobedience to God’s created

order.

Well, that is about as straightforward a rejection of biblical authority as can be found. Professor Johnson argues that experience -- his own experience and the experiences of others -- represents an authority greater than that of the Scriptures.

He defends his position by arguing that opponents of slavery and the ordination of women found themselves in the same position. “We are fully aware of the weight of scriptural evidence pointing away from our position, yet place our trust in the power of the living God to reveal as powerfully through personal experience and testimony as through written texts.”

This is where Professor Johnson turns to evasive argument. He offers no sustained intellectual argument on the issues he mentions for moral support (the abolition of slavery and the acceptance of “women’s full and equal roles in church and society”) and he never even asks the most obvious question to be addressed to his argument: If we are to trust human experience as an authority superior to that of the Bible, whose experience are we to trust? He can only mean his own experience and that of others whose experience he chooses to privilege.

In his own words:

By “experience” we do not mean every idiosyncratic or impulsive

expression of human desire. We refer rather to those profound

stories of bondage and freedom, longing and love, shared by

thousands of persons over many centuries and across many

cultures, that help define them as human.

What are we to make of this? Professor Johnson will trust his ability to judge the Bible against “profound stories of bondage and freedom, longing and love, shared by thousands of persons over many centuries and across many cultures?” Which stories? Which cultures? Who defines bondage and who defines freedom?

He explains:

For me this is no theoretical or academic position, but rather a

passionate conviction. It is one many of us have come to through

personal struggle, and for some, real suffering. In my case, I

trusted that God was at work in the life of one of my four

daughters, who struggled against bigotry to claim her sexual

identity as a lesbian. I trusted God was at work in the life she

shares with her partner -- a long-lasting and fruitful marriage

dedicated to the care of others, and one that has borne fruit in

a wonderful little girl who is among my and my wife’s dear

grandchildren. I also trusted the many stories of students and

friends whose life witnessed to a deep faith in God but whose

bodies moved sexually in ways different from the way my own did.

And finally I began to appreciate the ways in which my own former

attitudes and language had helped to create a world where family,

friends, and students were treated cruelly.

We should not doubt for a moment that Professor Johnson holds his position out of passionate conviction. That passion comes through every paragraph of his essay. There is no doubt that he is passionately and personally involved in this issue. There can also be no doubt where his argument leads.

His position is by no means unclear. He argues “if the letter of Scripture cannot find room for the activity of the living God in the transformation of human lives, then trust and obedience must be paid to the living God rather than to the words of Scripture.”

Thus, the Bible cannot be the Word of God if God must oppose His own Word. We are no longer to submit our experience to the authority of the Bible but instead are to submit the Bible to the authority of experience. The “living God” is juxtaposed to the (presumably dead) “words of Scripture.”

Professor Johnson’s argument leads to disaster. Indeed, it is a disaster in itself, justifying what the Bible condemns as sinful. Nevertheless, his rejectionist approach to the authority of the Bible’s commands is remarkably -- even breathtakingly -- honest. We could only wish that others would be equally honest.

*

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #6750]

Wheaton College graduate Rob Bell and his wife, Kristen, started Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids, Mich., with a desire to reach people for Christ.

This is normally what one would expect to be the ambition of the mind and heart of a pastor who had previously been intimately acquainted with the institutions and church life of modern day evangelicalism, as Bell had been. What began as a church plant has grown to envelop thousands who come to hear Bell preach each Sunday. He explores a “rabbinic style” of preaching he says comes directly from Jesus’ example. Gone are the influences of professional engineers of preaching (a.k.a. seminary professors of preaching) who teach that the sermon should be written as if the pastor was preparing some sort of speech for a class.

The trajectory for Bell’s preaching is more of an “art form” than some sort of theologically scientific speech. He sees preaching in need of “rescue” from textual analysts who seem to have everything figured out.

Bell is quick to point out that he is in rediscovery mode. What he is rediscovering is “Christianity as an Eastern religion.” These were the exact words Bell used when recently interviewed by author Andy Crouch of Christianity Today magazine.

Bell’s sojourn began with a jettisoning of the legal language that so ardently dominated evangelical thought. Both he and his wife also began questioning their long-held assumptions about the Bible itself. Discovering that the Bible is a “human product” made all the difference for them. Kristen Bell is on the record as stating, “I grew up thinking that we figured out the Bible –- that we knew what it means. Now I have no idea what most of it means. And yet I feel like life is big again -– like life used to be black and white, and now it’s in color.”

Their mentor -- or their “lifeboat” as Kristen says -- was Brian McLaren’s now famous book, “A New Kind of Christian.” The Bells are not alone. Hundreds are reading McLaren’s books -- so many, in fact, that PBS' “Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly” recently aired a two-part series on McLaren and what has come to be known as the Emerging Church Movement (ECM). The program interviewed McLaren and evangelical theologians.

The result was a clearer-than-expected articulation of some of the animating beliefs of McLaren and, presumably, those who look to him as one of the movement’s standard bearers. McLaren stated that “for some people the traditional view of hell makes God look like a torturer.” He goes on to state that he desires to start a conversation about “the old view [about hell] and problems with it so that we can together move forward in reconsidering, and maybe there is a better understanding of what Jesus meant and what the Scriptures mean when they've talked about issues like judgment, justice, hell.” The “old view” must be amended in some way so as to open the way for Christians to be “more ethical and humane,” McLaren said. To read the Bible literally will result, in his estimation, in “stonings going on in the street.”

As expected, this has created concern (some in the ECM would describe it as paranoia) in evangelical ranks. It is becoming clear that this is not just a way to become more culturally adaptive, but instead is a fundamental questioning of the inspiration, authority and perfection of Holy Scripture. What if McLaren is right? Could it be that the lives of Christians actually improve if they do not know what the Bible means? What if the very teaching of Jesus and the Apostles has been drastically misunderstood to the point that a new discovery of the true gospel is now needed in order for the worlds of everyone to move from black and white to color? Could it be that such discussions now dominate the evangelical landscape -– including the Southern Baptist Convention?

If history teaches the church anything, it is that all too often the Bible is the source of great discussion and even disagreement to the point that sooner or later the issues become very personal -- as does faith itself. The SBC fought great battles to defend the doctrine of the plenary, verbal inspiration of Holy Scripture. Many people, through decades of controversy, vociferously opposed the hermeneutic approach that held the Bible was simply the product of culturally shackled men authoring error-filled documents that reflected more ancient practice than eternal truth. The idea that the task of the church in each generation should be to reconfigure the doctrinal framework of the Gospel was adamantly rejected.

The great danger is not that such discussions about these issues are still taking place. Discussions (or conversations) are always welcome among Christians as a safeguard, because the best of men are men at best. Humans are prone to error, and no one can honestly claim to understand everything revealed in Holy Scripture. That said, continued debate about the veracity and authority of Scripture’s very essence should not be welcomed in the name of cultural relevance, beauty or further attempts to restore to the church an “uncorrupted” faith. Ideas such as justification and the careful preaching of the very words of the Bible should not be sidelined only to be replaced by human speculation regarding various tenets of unknowable truth.

Sociologists have noted that participants in the Emerging Church Movement are largely “emerging” from churches that are forcefully conservative to the point that doctrine is propositionally structured in historic confessions, creeds, or other statements of faith. While Christian unity and charity is to be aggressively pursued at all costs so as not to perpetuate a sinful factionalism which would bring dishonor to Christ, the fascination of blurring the lines of orthodoxy in favor of more progressive ideas should not be accepted uncritically.

For in the end, the Apostle Paul spoke not only of a crisis of corruption in the church, but of a kairos of the times whereby he asked the Ephesians to pray that words (not unknowable or difficult to understand concepts of metaphysics) might be given to him so that he might boldly proclaim the mystery of the Gospel -– Eph. 6:19. For Paul, the Gospel was mysterious insofar as the doctrines which he understood actually to be the Gospel were beyond his ability to understand. For instance, it is and forever will remain a mystery as to why God would save sinners. The Gospel’s teaching was and is clear, knowable and able to be easily understood.

While no human being will ever be able adequately to explain the mystery of the incarnation, the resurrection, or the Trinity, a “generous orthodoxy” (an idea taken from McLaren’s book by the same title) would never reframe these doctrines or others like them in such fluid terms so as to confuse others of their true meaning. In the end, this orthodoxy is not generous, but dangerous.

________

Douglas Baker is a writer who lives and works in Washington, D.C.

*

“David, when you get to England you are going to meet Christians who are amillennialists. How will you handle that?” It was one of the final questions posed at my ordination council thirty-four years ago.

Quickly and confidently I replied: “If an amillennialist invites me to speak in his church, I will do so. But I will never let him speak in my church. Everyone knows that an amillennialist allegorizes Scripture and so is just one step away from liberalism.”

“Amen, brother!” “Never lose that conviction!” The council’s response was immediate and affirming. I knew I would be recommended for ordination.

My theology was cultivated in the soil of dispensational premillennialism. Holding this view was almost as important as believing in the substitutionary atonement of Christ. I began ministry a convinced dispensationalist, with all other views suspect. It was for me a test of fellowship.

Regrettably, prophecy has often fueled conflict among Christians. There are three major millennial views which interpret the 1000 year reign of Christ mentioned in Revelation 20. Here are some basic definitions.

Premillennialism holds that Jesus will return to earth before the millennium begins — a literal 1000 year reign of Christ on earth. Among the many variations of premillennialism, two stand out: “historic” and “dispensational.” Space does not permit an extensive discussion of these views, but the main difference is that historic premillennialistssee a one-stage second coming of Christ, whereas dispensationalists see a two-stage second coming — the rapture of the church followed by Christ’s return to establish his earthly kingdom.

Amillennialism, sometimes referred to as the “realized (or Gospel) millennium” believes that Christ’s kingdom is a spiritual kingdom and that the first resurrection mentioned in Revelation 20 is a spiritual one occurring at the moment of regeneration. The 1000 years mentioned in Revelation 20 symbolizes Christ’s present heavenly reign, after which He shall return.

Postmillennialism holds that the Christian faith will permeate the world, gradually ushering in a golden age on earth — the millennium. Like amillennialists, postmillennialists believe the 1000 year reign in Revelation 20 will occur before Christ’s return.

In some respects, historic premillennialism, amillennialism and postmillennialism are similar. All three see a one-stage second coming of Christ. Dispensational premillennialism is quite different in that it maintains a strict separation between Israel and the Church — two separate peoples with two separate programs. Unlike historic premillennialists, amillennialists and postmillennialists, who demonstrate flexibility with one another, dispensational premillennialists tend to separate from those who disagree in the details. I was among those separationist-prone dispensationalists.

It was in 1976, while. rubbing shoulders with British “one-steplaway-from-liberal” amillennialists that the Spirit of God began chipping away my youthful arrogance. Imagine my shock at discovering many godly amillennialist pastors who held the Scriptures in high esteem. They were hardly teetering on the brink of liberalism. I learned that equally devoted Christians can hold a number of views with reference to eschatology.

Somewhere along the way I gave up dispensationalism while retaining a premillennial outlook. I also discovered that one’s millennial view does not significantly impact daily life.

This is not to say that eschatology is unimportant, or that all views are equally valid. Every view cannot be right and Christians ought to wrestle with prophetic texts, coming to conclusions, but conclusions that are held with grace and humility.

My friend and coworker, David Cooke, with whom I often discuss eschatology, recently shared five interpretive principles he uses when studying biblical prophecy. I offer them to you as he gave them to me.

CONTEXT. We must pay careful attention to the context in which a prophecy occurs. Firstly, there is the cultural-historical context of the writer’s day and age. Secondly, there is the redemptive-epochal context — how God was dealing with His people in that particular time. Thirdly, there is the narrow literary context of the writer’s book. Fourthly, there is the broader literary context of all the writer’s books, all the books of that particular biblical genre and all the books of the Bible as a whole. We must discover how each prophecy “fits in” to its context and how the context shapes the form and meaning of the prophecy.

PARALLELS. We should examine other prophecies and Bible texts that seem to relate to or parallel the prophecy in question. The principle is: “Scripture interprets Scripture.” A prophecy may be represented very differently in different times, but it will speak the same fundamental message.

RELEVANCY. We observe that some prophecies are relevant to certain subjects, themes and topics in particular, while others are not. We must search the Scriptures to discover where certain prophecies are given to explicitly address a particular subject. If we go to a prophecy and apply it to a subject that it was not intended to address, then we have distorted the Scriptures.

PROGRESSION. Since the Bible is a progressive revelation, earlier (older) prophecies need to be interpreted in light of later (newer) prophecies. Specifically, Old Testament texts need to be understood in light of New Testament teaching and not vice versa. The New Testament provides the interpretive framework for discerning the true meaning of Old Testament prophecy.

FAITH. Most important of all is to have personal, saving faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Prophecy is a spiritual matter that requires spiritual discernment. Without the Holy Spirit operating in our hearts, we will be unable to grasp the essential truth of any prophecy. All interpretation must be done in faith and with prayer.

The importance of these principles is illustrated in the prophecy of Amos regarding “raising up the tabernacle of David” (Amos 9:11-12). Written prior to the Assyrian invasion of 722 BC, Amos describes a glorious Israel inhabiting a land of supernatural fruitfulness and ruling over elect Gentiles from around the world. Reading this prophecy without any further clues might lead one to imagine a future theocratic kingdom of Israel, replete with a temple, priestly service, and a king ruling the nations.

However, as the NT church began to grow, James declared to the council meeting in Jerusalem that the flood of Gentiles coming to faith was in fact the fulfillment of Amos’s prophecy (Acts 15:12-17). David’s raised tabernacle is nothing less that the NT Kingdom of God comprised of believing Jews and Gentiles.

By all means read and study prophecy. Come to conclusions. But hold them in graceful humility.

~~~~~~~~~~

By Rev. David Daniels, Director Of New Covenant House, The Ministry Centre Of The Toronto Jewish Mission

FEBCC -- The Fellowship of Evangelical Baptist Churches in Canada

Challenges to biblical authority often arise when we apply biblical teachings to our 21st-century context. The question we bring to the Bible shifts from, “What did the Scriptures mean to those to whom it was first given?” to “What do the Scriptures mean to us?” The biblical context and our context are sometimes embedded in different cultures and worldviews. I. Howard Marshall asks, “How is meaning found when what is common sense in one culture is not common sense in another?” Paul’s command to obey one’s master in all things (Col. 3:22-23) is addressed to a culture of involuntary slavery. Our economic system differs greatly from that world. Today employees are often partners in their work with employers. Does this kind of relationship call for loyalty or obedience? If we say that for today the biblical command means that we should give appropriate respect and loyalty to employers rather than unconditional obedience, are we diluting it or expressing the essential meaning in terms appropriate for contemporary working conditions?[3] Cultural differences challenge us to hear God’s Word clearly.

A missionary has related an account of telling the Joseph story (see Genesis 37—50) to a group of Europeans and to a group of Third World people. The Europeans heard the story of Joseph as a man who remained faithful to God no matter what happened to him. The Third World group, on the other hand, pointed to Joseph as a man who, no matter how far he traveled, never forgot his family. Different cultural backgrounds prompted each response. Can we say that one is more consistent with the authority of the biblical story? Is the other one incorrect? Is it possible that both are legitimate understandings?[4] How can an ancient text speak to us authoritatively so that our own cultural, temporal, and social meanings do not become dominant over the historical meaning of the Bible? Certainly, D. A. Carson is right when he says, “No human being living in time and speaking any language can ever be entirely culture-free about anything.”[5]

In line with our divine-human (Christological) understanding of Scripture, Harvie Conn has suggested six helpful clues on this subject. From the divine perspective he offers three important guidelines.

1. The beginning point is a commitment to Scripture’s total truthfulness. The only proper control for our judgments remains the primary historical meaning of the biblical text.

2. The cultural patterns of the biblical time period do not simply provide God with sermon illustrations. That culture becomes the providentially controlled matrix from which His revelation comes to us (for example, Exodus 3:12; Luke 22:19-20). That context is the place from which the history of God’s unfolding special revelation has been manifested. From that cultural particularity come the universals that link the faith of the biblical characters to ours.

3. The Holy Spirit, who brought the first horizon of the text into being (see 2 Pet. 1:20-21), must open our hearts and illumine our minds to open the biblical text for our world. The Spirit does not become some mechanical or magical answering service. Nor does the Spirit become an intermediary between God and us; He is God who addresses us.

Conn also provides three helpful insights from the human perspective.

1. A distancing must take place before we can hear the ancient biblical text for our day. This might sound like just the opposite thing we want to accomplish. But many biblical stories (such as the parables of the prodigal son [Luke 15] or the repentant publican [Luke 18]) need to be distanced from our setting so the parables’ “punch lines” can be heard.

2. Our presuppositions and world view must be reshaped by the Bible. Our values and perspectives must become more and more what God wants them to be. Our vantage point must be shaped by creation, the fall, redemption, and consummation. In this sense, our cultural and temporal distinctions can become a help, not a hindrance, to understanding and responding to the biblical message.

3. Holy Scripture is presented in cultural forms that are different from ours. These cultural forms often need to be restated and translated for our day to speak to matters of our day.[6]

We can maintain our confession of biblical authority, recognizing the divine-human aspects of the nature of Scripture and the interpretation of Scripture. The Bible’s truth is untainted by either the culture from which it comes to us or the culture to which it goes. The message of Scripture uses various cultures while simultaneously and authoritatively standing in judgment over them.

________

This is the third of five articles by David S. Dockery, president of Union University in Jackson, Tenn., on the authority of the Bible. The four articles were published as one article in the February 2008 issue of SBC Life, journal of the Southern Baptist Convention (www.sbclife.org).

FOOTNOTES

3. See I. Howard Marshall. BIBLICAL INSPIRATION (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 1982), 105.

4. See Harvie M. Conn. “Normativity, Relevance, and Relativism.” INERRANCY AND HERMENEUTIC, ed. Harvie M. Conn (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1988), 186-89; and Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart, HOW TO READ THE BIBLE FOR ALL ITS WORTH (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1982), 58-60.

5. D. A. Carson, BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION AND THE CHURCH: THE PROBLEM OF CONTEXTUALIZATION (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1984), 19.

6. Conn. “Normativity, Relevance, and Relativism,” 197-209.

Conservative Christians take very seriously the profound significance of God’s Word, the Bible. Indeed we believe the Bible to be our ultimate authority for faith (spiritual belief) and practice (ethical behavior). These assumptions, coupled with our understanding of biblical inspiration popularly known as “inerrancy” remain fundamental to biblical interpretation. In fact, sober hermeneutics (the science of interpretation) becomes a non-negotiable enterprise to all conservative believers. Why? If the Bible is God’s Word written, then it becomes incalculably necessary to ensure we interpret His flawless Word as accurately as humanly possible. And, while no guarantee exists that fallible human beings may interpret the infallible Scriptures with infallible results, we nonetheless both openly welcome and enthusiastically pursue sound hermeneutics designed to expose fallacious interpretations of the Word of God.

So, what does hermeneutics have to do with what the New Testament says about wine and wine-drinking? I think Robert H. Stein, a senior professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, ably answered this question in a short article published in Christianity Today several years ago entitled “Wine-drinking in New Testament Times” (June 1975). At the time, Dr. Stein was serving as associate professor of New Testament at Bethel College in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Stein explains the role sound hermeneutics plays not only in understanding what the Bible would say about wine-drinking, but also what role sound hermeneutics plays in answering what the Bible says to us about any subject today. He writes: “The basic principle of hermeneutics.... is that the question ‘What does it [the Bible] mean for us today?’ must be preceded by the question ‘What did it mean for them yesterday?’” In other words, it becomes next to impossible to discern intelligently what God says to us now without first grasping what the text originally meant when written thousands of years ago to a people living in a culture far removed from ours. Such caution applies whether we are speaking of wine-drinking or any number of behaviors we could name.

Dr. Stein moves on to consider the ancient practice of wine-making, including its preservation and consumption. Interestingly, Stein playfully asks rhetorical questions from his reader’s standpoint: “Is he going to try to tell us that wine in the Bible means grape juice? Is he going to try to say that the wine mentioned in the New Testament is any different from the wine bottled today ...?” Stein answers, “no and yes: No, the wine of the Bible was not unfermented grape juice. Yes, it was different from the wine of today.” (For the record, the reader needs to understand that while I wholeheartedly agree with Dr. Stein’s profound contribution toward and historical analysis of wine-making, preservation, and consumption in general, there exists evidence not covered by Dr. Stein which led me personally to believe that the varieties of wine in the ancient world did, in fact, essentially include what the professor called “unfermented grape juice,” a subject I pursued in a book-length monograph.)

Even so, Professor Stein summarily describes the ancient practice of wine-keeping and wine-drinking. The custom included storing the juice (or sometimes other fruits) in “large pointed jugs” called amphorae. From there, the wine was dispensed into kraters, or, what we would call large bowls, “where it was mixed with water.” It is significant to note that the bowls were definitively for mixing the wine, not for drinking the wine. Wine was served as a drink in a cup called a kylix. We also note the kylix was not used to get the wine straight from the amphorae (large jugs). To do so would be called, in ancient times, a “Scythian” or “barbaric” practice. Indeed, as Stein rightly points out, even the Greeks viewed drinking unmixed wine as fool’s play. As for the ratios of mixture goes, some sources recommended 20:1 (20 parts water to 1 part wine), while the most common appeared to be about 3:1 (3 parts water, 1 part wine).

We emphasize once again, the custom when consuming fermented wine in the New Testament era was always to consume mixed wine. Stein concludes: “The ratio of water might vary, but only barbarians drank it unmixed, and a mixture of wine and water of equal parts (1:1) was seen as “‘strong drink’ and frowned upon.”

So, just what difference does the ancient practice of wine-making, preservation and consumption have on our understanding of the New Testament? For one thing, whenever we see the term “wine” employed in the New Testament, an interpretative flag should accompany our thoughts. For example, while there are other Greek words in the New Testament which are translated “wine” in our English Bibles, the most often used word is “oinos” (e.g., John 2:3, 9, 10; 4:46). Hear carefully Dr. Stein’s conclusion concerning the term “wine” (oinos) as we find it in the New Testament: “The term ‘wine’ or oinos in the ancient world, then, did not mean wine as we understand it today but wine mixed with water.” It was, he argues, the “safest and easiest method of making the water safe to drink.”

If Dr. Stein is correct, those who insist upon biblical neutrality concerning the moderate consumption of alcoholic beverages today are not reading the New Testament from the perspective of what the text meant to the original recipients. In other words, they skip what Professor Stein indicated was a fundamental question in sound biblical hermeneutics: “What did it [the Bible] mean for them yesterday?” In essence, if the Bible meant by “wine” to convey “wine mixed with water,” this has profound implications on precisely how we are to both interpret and apply the biblical text toward our behavior today.

Given our contemporary production of alcoholic beverages, we may conclude “alcohol is alcohol is alcohol.” By that we mean that same amount of alcohol exists in our standard drinks, whether it’s a 12 ounce can of beer, a 5 ounce glass of wine, or a 1.5 ounce shot of bourbon. Comparing today’s drinks with a kylix (cup) of wine in ancient times, Stein argues, is wrong.

“To consume the amount of alcohol that is in two martinis by drinking wine containing three parts water to one part wine, one would have to drink over twenty-two glasses,” he writes. “In other words, it is possible to become intoxicated from wine mixed with three parts water, but one’s drinking would probably affect the bladder long before it affected the mind.”

Hence, if those among us today continue to insist on biblical neutrality toward the moderate consumption of alcohol, we must insist they not overlook the more fundamental question: Is today’s beverage about which they argue for moral consumption the same beverage we find on the ancient pages of the New Testament? We think not.

It’s a common scenario. Someone objects to the Bible’s teaching on a point of ethics or morality (often homosexuality, promiscuity or divorce), so he cites a couple of Old Testament commandments and says something like, “Well, the Bible also says not to wear a garment made of wool and linen mixed together (Deuteronomy 22:11) and not to eat pork products or shrimp (Leviticus 11:7-12).”

The implication is either that the person upholding biblical standards of sexuality is a hypocrite because he’s wearing a linen/wool blend sport coat and ate a hotdog for lunch, or that the Bible’s commandments are inconsistent and therefore not credible. And it’s not just a hypothetical scenario. A recent New York Times op-ed article argued against a biblical position on homosexuality by suggesting that the Bible shouldn’t be taken literally because it also says to “refrain from planting multiple kinds of seed in one field” and not to charge “interest to the poor.”

Such arguments may seem convincing at first. But their problem is a failure to recognize the Bible’s overarching storyline. They assume that Scripture is largely a list of doctrines and rules. Since some of the rules seem outdated or impractical, the critics reason, all of them should be taken with a grain of salt. The problem with such reasoning is that the Bible isn’t merely a list of rules and doctrines. It’s a story about how God relates to the world He created. And with a little study it becomes obvious that God gives slightly different instructions to His people in different parts of the story.

In the Old Testament the Jews were God’s chosen people. He gave certain ritual and judicial laws to set them apart from the pagan, Gentile nations around them. The commands mentioned in the Times op-ed are perfect examples. Leviticus 19:19 told the Israelites not to sow a field with two different kinds of seed. The idea was to set Israelite fields apart from Gentile fields, marking the Jews as God’s set-apart people. Similarly, Deuteronomy 23:19-20 forbade Jews from charging interest on loans to their countrymen, particularly the poor, though they were free to charge interest on loans to foreigners. Again, the command was intended to set Israelites apart from all other nations as God’s chosen people -- with whom He had made a covenant and on whom He had set His love. Similar explanations apply to the commandments not to mix wool and linen and to refrain from eating certain types of meat.

After the coming of Christ, however, there was no longer a spiritual divide between Jews and Gentiles. All who placed their faith in Jesus could become God’s people, regardless of their nationality (Ephesians 2:11-22). Accordingly, God abolished the ritual and judicial laws that set Jews apart from non-Jews (Acts 10:9-48; Hebrews 8:13-9:28) -- laws like those about sowing seed and charging interest. At the same time, God kept in force moral standards that promote holiness and general well-being, as in the Sermon on the Mount and Paul’s teaching on marriage and sexuality. That’s why Christians are neither hypocritical nor inconsistent when, for example, they insist on keeping sex within monogamous, heterosexual marriage but do not keep Old Testament ceremonial laws.

Knowing the overarching story of Scripture helps us to know Christ and see a hint of the Gospel in every passage. That alone is reason enough to study the narrative of Scripture. But in addition, knowledge of biblical theology makes us less vulnerable in those all-too-common circumstances when a critic begins, “Well, the Bible also says ...”

________

This column first appeared at the blog of Bible Mesh, a website that teaches the Bible as a unified story pointing to Christ (online at www.biblemesh.com/blog).

Western society is currently experiencing what can only be described as a moral revolution. Our society’s moral code and collective ethical evaluation on a particular issue has undergone not small adjustments but a complete reversal. That which was once condemned is now celebrated, and the refusal to celebrate is now condemned.

What makes the current moral and sexual revolution so different from previous moral revolutions is that it is taking place at an utterly unprecedented velocity. Previous generations experienced moral revolutions over decades, even centuries. This current revolution is happening at warp speed.

As the church responds to this revolution, we must remember that current debates on sexuality present to the church a crisis that is irreducibly and inescapably theological. This crisis is tantamount to the type of theological crisis that Gnosticism presented to the early church or that Pelagianism presented to the church in the time of Augustine. In other words, the crisis of sexuality challenges the church’s understanding of the gospel, sin, salvation, and sanctification. Advocates of the new sexuality demand a complete rewriting of Scripture’s meta-narrative, a complete reordering of theology, and a fundamental change to how we think about the church’s ministry.

Why the Concordance Method Fails

Proof-texting is the first reflex of conservative Protestants seeking a strategy of theological retrieval and restatement. This hermeneutical reflex comes naturally to evangelical Christians because we believe the Bible to be the inerrant and infallible word of God. We understand that, as B.B. Warfield said, “When Scripture speaks, God speaks.” I should make clear that this reflex is not entirely wrong, but it’s not entirely right either. It’s not entirely wrong because certain Scriptures (that is, “proof texts”) speak to specific issues in a direct and identifiable way.

There are, however, obvious limitations to this type of theological method — what I like to call the “concordance reflex.” What happens when you are wrestling with a theological issue for which no corresponding word appears in the concordance? Many of the most important theological issues cannot be reduced to merely finding relevant words and their corresponding verses in a concordance. Try looking up “transgender” in your concordance. How about “lesbian”? Or “in vitro fertilization”? They’re certainly not in the back of my Bible.

It’s not that Scripture is insufficient. The problem is not a failure of Scripture but a failure of our approach to Scripture. The concordance approach to theology produces a flat Bible without context, covenant, or master-narrative — three hermeneutical foundations that are essential to understand Scripture rightly.

Needed: A Biblical Theology of the Body

Biblical theology is absolutely indispensable for the church to craft an appropriate response to the current sexual crisis. The church must learn to read Scripture according to its context, embedded in its master-narrative, and progressively revealed along covenantal lines. We must learn to interpret each theological issue through Scripture’s meta-narrative of creation, fall, redemption, and new creation. Specifically, evangelicals need a theology of the body that is anchored in the Bible’s own unfolding drama of redemption.

Movement One — Creation

Genesis 1:26–28 indicates that God made man — unlike the rest of creation — in his own image. This passage also demonstrates that God’s purpose for humanity was an embodied existence. Genesis 2:7 highlights this point as well. God makes man out of the dust and then breathes into him the breath of life. This indicates that we were a body before we were a person. The body, as it turns out, is not incidental to our personhood. Adam and Eve are given the commission to multiply and subdue the earth. Their bodies allow them, by God’s creation and his sovereign plan, to fulfill that task of image-bearing.

The Genesis narrative also suggests that the body comes with needs. Adam would be hungry, so God gave him the fruit of the garden. These needs are an expression embedded within the created order that Adam is finite, dependent, and derived.

Further, Adam would have a need for companionship, so God gave him a wife, Eve. Both Adam and Eve were to fulfill the mandate to multiply and fill the earth with God’s image-bearers by a proper use of the bodily reproductive ability with which they were created. Coupled with this is the bodily pleasure each would experience as the two became one flesh — that is, one body.

The Genesis narrative also demonstrates that gender is part of the goodness of God’s creation. Gender is not merely a sociological construct forced upon human beings who otherwise could negotiate any number of permutations.

But Genesis teaches us that gender is created by God for our good and his glory. Gender is intended for human flourishing and is assigned by the Creator’s determination — just as he determined when, where, and that we should exist.

In sum, God created his image as an embodied person. As embodied, we are given the gift and stewardship of sexuality from God himself. We are constructed in a way that testifies to God’s purposes in this.

Genesis also frames this entire discussion in a covenantal perspective. Human reproduction is not merely in order to propagate the race. Instead, reproduction highlights the fact that Adam and Eve were to multiply in order to fill the earth with the glory of God as reflected by his image bearers.

Movement Two — The Fall

The fall, the second movement in redemptive history, corrupts God’s good gift of the body. The entrance of sin brings mortality to the body. In terms of sexuality, the Fall subverts God’s good plans for sexual complementarity. Eve’s desire is to rule over her husband (Gen. 3:16). Adam’s leadership will be harsh (3:17-19). Eve will experience pain in childbearing (3:16).

The narratives that follow demonstrate the development of aberrant sexual practices, from polygamy to rape, which Scripture addresses with remarkable candor. These Genesis accounts are followed by the giving of the Law which is intended to curb aberrant sexual behavior. It regulates sexuality and expressions of gender and makes clear pronouncements on sexual morals, cross-dressing, marriage, divorce, and host of other bodily and sexual matters.

The Old Testament also connects sexual sin to idolatry. Orgiastic worship, temple prostitution, and other horrible distortions of God’s good gift of the body are all seen as part and parcel of idolatrous worship. The same connection is made by Paul in Romans 1. Having “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles” (Rom 1:22), and having “exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Rom 1:25), men and women exchange their natural relations with one another (Rom 1:26-27).

Movement Three — Redemption

With regard to redemption, we must note that one of the most important aspects of our redemption is that it came by way of a Savior with a body. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14; cf. Phil. 2:5-11). Human redemption is accomplished by the Son of God incarnate — who remains incarnate eternally.

Paul indicates that this salvation includes not merely our souls but also our bodies. Romans 6:12 speaks of sin that reigns in our “mortal bodies” — which implies the hope of future bodily redemption. Romans 8:23 indicates part of our eschatological hope is the “redemption of our bodies.” Even now, in our life of sanctification we are commanded to present our bodies as a living sacrifice to God in worship (Rom. 12:2). Further, Paul describes the redeemed body as a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19) and clearly we must understand sanctification as having effects upon the body.

Sexual ethics in the New Testament, as in the Old Testament, regulate our expressions of gender and sexuality. Porneia, sexual immorality of any kind, is categorically condemned by Jesus and the apostles. Likewise, Paul clearly indicates to the church at Corinth that sexual sin — sins committed in the body (1 Cor. 6:18) — are what bring the church and the gospel into disrepute because they proclaim to a watching world that the gospel has been to no effect (1 Cor. 5-6).

Movement Four — New Creation

Finally, we reach the fourth and final act of the drama of redemption — new creation. In 1 Corinthians 15:42-57, Paul directs us not only to the resurrection of our own bodies in the new creation but to the fact that Christ’s bodily resurrection is the promise and power for that future hope. Our resurrection will be the experience of eternal glory in the body. This body will be a transformed, consummated continuation of our present embodied existence in the same way that Jesus’ body is the same body he had on earth, yet utterly glorified.

The new creation will not simply be a reset of the garden. It will be better than Eden. As Calvin noted, in the new creation we will know God not only as Creator but as Redeemer — and that redemption includes our bodies. We will reign with Christ in bodily form, as he also is the embodied and reigning cosmic Lord.

In terms of our sexuality, while gender will remain in the new creation, sexual activity will not. It is not that sex is nullified in the resurrection; rather, it is fulfilled. The eschatological marriage supper of the Lamb, to which marriage and sexuality point, will finally arrive. No longer will there be any need to fill the earth with image-bearers as was the case in Genesis 1. Instead, the earth will be filled with knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.

Biblical Theology Is Indispensable

The sexuality crisis has demonstrated the failure of theological method on the part of many pastors. The “concordance reflex” simply cannot accomplish the type of rigorous theological thinking needed in pulpits today. Pastors and churches must learn the indispensability of biblical theology and must practice reading Scripture according to its own internal logic — the logic of a story that moves from creation to new creation. The hermeneutical task before us is great, but it is also indispensable for faithful evangelical engagement with the culture.

What are the principles of interpreting the Bible? A conference with Norman Geisler, Carl F. H. Henry, Roger Nicole, J. I. Packer and others came up with these 25 points:

1. WE AFFIRM that the normative authority of Holy Scripture is the authority

of God Himself and is attested by Jesus Christ, the Lord of the

church.

WE DENY the legitimacy of separating the authority of Christ from the

authority of Scripture, or of opposing the one to the other.

2. WE AFFIRM that as Christ is God and Man in one person, so Scripture is,

indivisibly, God's Word in human language.

WE DENY that the humble, human form of Scripture entails errancy any

more than the humanity of Christ, even in His humiliation, entails

sin.

3. WE AFFIRM that the person and work of Jesus Christ are the central focus

of the entire Bible.

WE DENY that any method of interpretation which rejects or obscures

the Christ-centeredness of Scripture is correct.

4. WE AFFIRM that the Holy Spirit who inspired Scripture acts through it

today to work faith in its message.

WE DENY that the Holy Spirit ever teaches to anyone anything which is

contrary to the teaching of Scripture.

5. WE AFFIRM that the Holy Spirit enables believers to appropriate and apply

Scripture to their lives.

WE DENY that the natural man is able to discern spiritually the

biblical message apart from the Holy Spirit.

6. WE AFFIRM that the Bible expresses God's truth in propositional

statements, and we declare that biblical truth is both objective and

absolute. We further affirm that a statement is true if it represents

matters as they actually are, but is an error if it misrepresents the

facts.

WE DENY that, while Scripture is able to make us wise unto salvation,

biblical truth should be defined in terms of this function. We further

deny that error should be defined as that which willfully deceives.

7. WE AFFIRM that the meaning expressed in each biblical text is single,

definite, and fixed.

WE DENY that the recognition of this single meaning eliminates the

variety of its application.

8. WE AFFIRM that the Bible contains teachings and mandates which apply to

all cultural and situational contexts and other mandates which the

Bible itself shows apply only to particular situations.

WE DENY that the distinction between the universal and particular

mandates of Scripture can be determined by cultural and situational

factors. We further deny that universal mandates may ever be treated

as culturally or situationally relative.

9. WE AFFIRM that the term hermeneutics, which historically signified the

rules of exegesis, may properly be extended to cover all that is

involved in the process of perceiving what the biblical revelation

means and how it bears on our lives.

WE DENY that the message of Scripture derives from, or is dictated by,

the interpreter's understanding. Thus we deny that the "horizons" of

the biblical writer and the interpreter may rightly "fuse" in such a

way that what the text communicates to the interpreter is not

ultimately controlled by the expressed meaning of the Scripture.

10. WE AFFIRM that Scripture communicates God's truth to us verbally through

a wide variety of literary forms.

WE DENY that any of the limits of human language render Scripture

inadequate to convey God's message.

11. WE AFFIRM that translations of the text of Scripture can communicate

knowledge of God across all temporal and cultural boundaries.

WE DENY that the meaning of biblical texts is so tied to the culture

out of which they came that understanding of the same meaning in other

cultures is impossible.

12. WE AFFIRM that in the task of translating the Bible and teaching it in

the context of each culture, only those functional equivalents that

are faithful to the content of biblical teaching should be employed.

WE DENY the legitimacy of methods which either are insensitive to the

demands of cross-cultural communication or distort biblical meaning in

the process.

13. WE AFFIRM that awareness of the literary categories, formal and

stylistic, of the various parts of Scripture is essential for proper

exegesis, and hence we value genre criticism as one of the many

disciplines of biblical study.

WE DENY that generic categories which negate historicity may rightly

be imposed on biblical narratives which present themselves as factual.

14. WE AFFIRM that the biblical record of events, discourses and sayings,

though presented in a variety of appropriate literary forms,

corresponds to historical fact.

WE DENY that any such event, discourse or saying reported in Scripture

was invented by the biblical writers or by the traditions they

incorporated.

15. WE AFFIRM the necessity of interpreting the Bible according to its

literal, or normal, sense. The literal sense is the grammatical-

historical sense, that is, the meaning which the writer

expressed. Interpretation according to the literal sense will take

account of all figures of speech and literary forms found in the text.

WE DENY the legitimacy of any approach to Scripture that attributes to

it meaning which the literal sense does not support.

16: WE AFFIRM that legitimate critical techniques should be used in

determining the canonical text and its meaning.

WE DENY the legitimacy of allowing any method of biblical criticism to

question the truth or integrity of the writer's expressed meaning, or

of any other scriptural teaching.

17. WE AFFIRM the unity, harmony, and consistency of Scripture and declare

that it is its own best interpreter.

WE DENY that Scripture may be interpreted in such a way as to suggest

that one passage corrects or militates against another. We deny that

later writers of Scripture misinterpreted earlier passages of

Scripture when quoting from or referring to them.

18. WE AFFIRM that the Bible's own interpretation of itself is always

correct, never deviating from, but rather elucidating, the single

meaning of the inspired text. The single meaning of a prophet's words

includes, but is not restricted to, the understanding of those words

by the prophet and necessarily involves the intention of God evidenced

in the fulfillment of those words.

WE DENY that the writers of Scripture always understood the full

implications of their own words.

19. WE AFFIRM that any preunderstandings, which the interpreter brings to

Scripture should be in harmony with scriptural teaching and subject to

correction by it.

WE DENY that Scripture should be required to fit alien

preunderstandings, inconsistent with itself, such as naturalism,

evolutionism, scientism, secular humanism, and relativism.

20. WE AFFIRM that since God is the author of all truth, all truths,

biblical and extrabiblical, are consistent and cohere, and that the

Bible speaks truth when it touches on matters pertaining to nature,

history, or anything else. We further affirm that in some cases

extrabiblical data have value for clarifying what Scripture teaches

and for prompting correction of faulty interpretations.

WE DENY that extrabiblical views ever disprove the teaching of

Scripture or hold priority over it.

21. WE AFFIRM the harmony of special with general revelation and therefore

of biblical teaching with the facts of nature.

WE DENY that any genuine scientific facts are inconsistent with the

true meaning of any passage of Scripture.

22. WE AFFIRM that Genesis 1-11 is factual, as is the rest of the book.

WE DENY that the teachings of Genesis 1-11 are mythical and that

scientific hypotheses about earth history or the origin of humanity

may be invoked to overthrow what Scripture teaches about creation.

23. WE AFFIRM the clarity of Scripture and specifically of its message about

salvation from sin.

WE DENY that all passages of Scripture are equally clear or have equal

bearing on the message of redemption.

24. WE AFFIRM that a person is not dependent for understanding of Scripture

on the expertise of biblical scholars.

WE DENY that a person should ignore the fruits of the technical study

of Scripture by biblical scholars.

25. WE AFFIRM that the only type of preaching which sufficiently conveys the

divine revelation and its proper application to life is that which

faithfully expounds the text of Scripture as the Word of God.

WE DENY that the preacher has any message from God apart the text of

Scripture.

*

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity. . .” With those famous words, Charles Dickens introduced his great novel A TALE OF TWO CITIES. Of course, Dickens had the two cities of London and Paris in mind, and much of his story revealed that the tenor of the times depended upon where one lived.

In some sense, that remains true as we consider the state of preaching today. To a large degree, this depends upon where one chooses to look.

On the one hand, there are signs of great promise and encouragement. On the other hand, several ominous trends point toward dangerous directions for preaching in the future.

In surveying the current state of preaching, my primary concern is for preaching in the evangelical churches of North America. In these circles, preaching is generally considered to be an important part of worship and church life. Furthermore, it is generally understood to be the chief means of instructing the congregation in the Word of God and in presenting the claims of Christ. Even so, there appears to be little consensus about what preaching is to be in terms of shape, structure, substance, and subject matter. This confusion is readily seen when attending conferences on preaching or in listening to preachers talk about their own understanding of the task.

Signs of encouragement include a large number of younger evangelical pastors who are unabashedly committed to biblical exposition and represent a resurgence of genuine biblical exposition from the pulpits of churches situated in every part of the country, from the inner city to the suburbs and beyond. This new generation is proving once again that the effective and faithful exposition of the Word of God draws persons to Christ and leads to spiritual growth and to the health of the church. A generation of young ministers, along with others making their way through college and seminary education, may point toward a renaissance of biblical preaching in coming years.

On the other hand, several trends represent issues of genuine concern. In the main, the last few decades have been a period of wanton experimentation in many pulpits and preaching has often been redefined and reconceived as something other than the exposition and application of the biblical text.

1. A LOSS OF CONFIDENCE IN THE POWER OF THE WORD.

Contemporary Americans are surrounded by more words than any previous generation in human history. We are bombarded with words delivered to us in every conceivable form -- sung, broadcast, electrified, printed, and spoken. Words have been digitalized, commercialized, and subjected to postmodern linguistic theories.

Taken together, all this amounts to a significant loss of confidence in the word as written and spoken. Several years ago, the photographer Richard Avedon declared that “images are fast replacing words as our primary language.”

This certainly appears to be the case. In THE RISE OF THE IMAGE, THE FALL OF THE WORD, author Mitchell Stephens of New York University argues that “the image is replacing the word as the predominant means of mental transport.”

Since preaching is itself a form of “mental transport,” any loss of confidence in the word leads to a loss of confidence in preaching. Ultimately, preaching will cease to be CHRISTIAN preaching if the preacher loses confidence in the authority of the Bible as the Word of God and in the power of the spoken word to communicate the saving and transforming message of the Bible. The preacher must stand up and speak with confidence, declaring the Word of God to a congregation that is bombarded with hundreds of thousands of words each week, many of them delivered with a soundtrack or moving images. The audacious claim of Christian preaching is that the faithful declaration of the Word of God, spoken through the preacher's voice, is even more powerful than anything music or image can deliver.

2. AN INFATUATION WITH TECHNOLOGY

Jacques Ellul was truly prophetic when he pointed to the rise of technology and technique as one of the greatest challenges to Christian faithfulness in our times. We live in a day of technological hubris and the ubiquity of technological assistance. We are engaged in few tasks, physical or mental, which are now unassisted by some form of technology.

For most of us, the use of these technologies comes with little attentiveness to how the technology reshapes the task and the experience. The same is true for preachers who have rushed to incorporate visual technology and media in the preaching event.

The effort is no doubt well intended, driven by a missiological concern to reach persons whose primary form of “mental transport” has become visual. Thus, preachers use clips from films, dynamic graphics, and other eye-catching technologies to gain and hold the congregation's attention.

The danger of this approach is seen in the fact that the visual very quickly overcomes the verbal. Beyond this, the visual is often directed towards a very narrow slice of human experience, particularly focused on the affective and emotional aspects of our perception. Movies MOVE us by the skillful manipulation of emotion, driven by soundtrack and manipulated by skillful directing techniques.

This is exactly where the preacher must not go. The power of the Word of God, spoken through the human voice, is seen in the Bible's unique power to penetrate all dimensions of the human personality. As God made clear, even in the Ten Commandments, He has chosen to be HEARD and not SEEN. The use of visual technologies threatens to confuse this basic fact of biblical faith.

3. AN EMBARRASSMENT BEFORE THE BIBLICAL TEXT

Through the experience of hearing innumerable sermons from evangelical preachers, I note the tendency of some to appear rather embarrassed before the biblical text. The persistent attacks upon biblical authority and the sensitivities of our times have taken a toll on the preacher's confidence in the actual text of the Bible.

On the theological left, the answer is quite simple -- just discard the text and write it off as patriarchal, oppressive, and completely unacceptable in light of an updated concept of God.

Among evangelicals, we can be thankful that fewer preachers are willing to dismiss or discard the text as sub-biblical or warped by ancient prejudices. Instead, many of these preachers simply disregard and ignore vast sections of Scripture, focusing instead on texts that are more comfortable, palatable, and nonconfrontational to the modern mind. This is a form of pastoral neglect and malpractice, corrected only by a comprehensive embrace of the Bible -- all of it -- as the inspired, inerrant, and authoritative Word of God. ALL of it is for our good.

4. AN EVACUATION OF BIBLICAL CONTENT

The last point was concerned with passages of Scripture that are never preached -- but what about the texts that are preached? Are today's preachers actually studying for the content of the passage? In far too many cases, it seems that the text becomes a point of departure for some message -- no doubt well intended -- which the pastor wishes to share with the congregation. Beyond this, the text of Scripture is often evacuated of biblical content when, regardless of a passage's textual form or context, the content is uniformly presented as a set of pithy “points” that come together in a staple outline form.

Every text does have a point, of course. The preacher's main concern should be to communicate that central truth, and design the sermon to serve that overarching purpose. Furthermore, the content of the passage is to be applied to life -- but application must be determined by exposition, not vice versa.

Another problem that leads to an evacuation of biblical content is a loss of the “big picture” of Scripture. Far too many preachers give inadequate attention to the canonical context of the passage to be preached and of its place in the overarching story of God's purpose to glorify Himself through the redemption of sinners. Taken out of context, and without clear attention to biblical theology, preaching becomes a series of disconnected talks on disconnected texts. This falls far short of the glory of true biblical preaching.

5. AN ABSENCE OF GOSPEL

The preaching of the apostles ALWAYS presented the kerygma -- the heart of the gospel. The clear presentation of the Gospel must be a part of the sermon, no matter the text. As Charles Spurgeon expressed this so eloquently, preach the Word, place it in its canonical context, and “make a bee-line to the cross.”

The approach of many churches -- and preachers -- has been to present helpful and practical messages, often with generalized Christian content, but without any clear presentation of the Gospel or call to decision and accountability to the text or to the claims of Christ. The apostles should be our model here, consistently preaching the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Of course, in order for the Gospel to make sense, authentic preaching must also deal honestly with the reality of human sin and must do so with a candor equal to that of the biblical text. All this presents the preacher with some significant challenges in our age of “sensitivities.” But in the end, preaching devoid of this content -- preaching that evades the biblical text and biblical truth -- falls short of anything we can rightly call CHRISTIAN preaching.

These are indeed the best of times and the worst of times. I am thankful for a renaissance of expository preaching, especially among many young preachers. I am thankful for stalwart pulpit examples who now serve as mentors to a generation hungry to see how biblical exposition constitutes the very center of effective and powerful ministry. I am thankful for a number of outstanding programs in seminaries directed towards encouraging and equipping this generation for that task.

At the same time, I am also concerned that dangerous trends and many popular examples threaten to undermine the centrality of biblical exposition in evangelical pulpits. In the end, the Christian preacher simply must confront the congregation with the Word of God. That confrontation will be at times awkward, challenging, and difficult. After all, this is the Word that pierces us like a sword. The evangelical preacher must set his aim at letting the sword loose, neither hiding it nor dulling its edge.