On Facebook recently I shared an article by Rachel Held Evans on Facebook. It was a great article with a simple desire to point out that asking tough questions about the text is not a slippery slope to faith abandonment.

The sharing of this article sparked a dialogue both online and offline with a number of people which got me thinking and led to the title of this post. I may not be in the same camp on a number of theological issues as much as mainstream evangelicalism. That is one of the reasons I have no problem labeling myself as a non-evangelical and stating that I resonate with different faith traditions more than evangelicalism. Although I ask the tough questions about the text and have come to some different conclusions, I can boldly say I have very good, well thought out, exegetically honest, and communally vetted conclusions.

So why do I bring this up in the first place? Because I have gotten the sense through the years, from those who question where I have landed, that they seem to think that I don’t accept the stock answers because I am stubborn, rebellious or perhaps something worse. I get the sense some think I reject the standard issues just because. I have never gotten the sense from any of the more controversial conversations on controversial subjects that I may actually have deeply researched my conclusion. It seems they assume I have not, yet they have and that is why they are right and I am wrong. When in all actuality nothing can be farther from the truth.

As much as it shocks me to think about this reality, I happen to be a public authority and noted thought leader in the technology industry. This position has earned me a spot as one of the few technology columnists for a number of publications including TIME.com. I speak regularly to captains and leaders of industry at CEO summits, industry trade shows, and many other public and private forums as an authority / expert within my field of knowledge. To accomplish something like this one does not formulate opinions or expertise without deeply researching, analyzing, and vetting ideas in order to make conclusions that I do. I would approach conclusions made to my faith with no less diligence than I do in my professional practice.

This is why I titled this post the way I did. I have finally reached a point in vetting my beliefs and working out my salvation if you will where I am absolutely confident in the areas that for me are black and white (there are still grey areas). I know where I stand on many issues, I know why I stand there, and I can back it up with sound plausible exegesis.

It wasn’t easy and I have been fortunate to have access to noted biblical scholars, heads of noted theology schools, as well as read most of the major scholarly works from a wide range of scholars from a wide range of faith traditions. This journey started when I was 27 and I am now 33. That is how long it took for me and for many it probably takes longer.

I realize for many of those I engage with debate and conversation with, that they have as well vetted and rigorously wrestled with these issues and come out on a different side. I respect that wholeheartedly and in most cases can see where they are coming from. I value their efforts and their convictions and have no problem to agree to disagree and go build the Kingdom together.

With many of my answers to some of the tougher and perhaps more controversial questions about the text it is important to note the vast diversity which is the Christian tradition. If you only explore answers to questions within the very short and heavily Calvin based history of evangelicalism then you are missing the bigger picture.

For many Christians the questions that pop out in my mind about many biblical issues may never come up or they don’t matter as much to them to answer as they do to me. I am OK with that and I fully acknowledge that reality. The truth is not everyone thinks like me and that is OK. This journey is still going as there are still matters that lie in tension, in a good way, in my brain. But there is a peace in confidently knowing not only what you believe but why you believe it.

Although I read Love Wins back when it first came out, I have recently wanted to see and experience the enhanced E-book version that includes video and a study guide. That’s not the point of this post, what I would like to focus on is more on the thread of Rob Bell thrashing and a common theme he is hit with in God’s wrath.

As I started looking at the enhanced ebook options I started again looking at the reviews. I was hoping the reviews would talk about the new video and the study guide but instead, as to be expected, much of the reviews were around how wrong Rob Bell is. On that topic what many many people keep going back to is the reality of God’s wrath. That biblical reality is what is used to make the claim that God’s wrath means damned to hell.

Now, not getting in and going deep on whether or not there is a hell I would rather try and present a way of understanding God’s wrath. Let’s take for example this verse which gets thrown in Rob’s face frequently.

John 3:36: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”

Establishing a baseline of eternal life. John 10:10b I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. When Jesus said that I don’t believe the bible supports the idea that He only meant life in the future in heaven. Rather I think Jesus was saying eternal life can start right now.

Now eternal life starting now, here on earth, as a bench line let us look at John 3:36′s statement on wrath.

If eternal life starts now and I can start living an eternal kind of life while here on earth, as a human being, truly embracing my humanity and my image-bearingness in the present, then what if God’s wrath is simply the opposite of all of that? What if God’s wrath is living as a broken, deceived, worldly, abandoned, lonely, greedy, lustful, anxious, angry life?

If we could add that perspective then we can view John 3:36 to say. If you obey and surrender to God and seek to live life to the full, free from a less than human life then you have found and will have life. However if you do not obey God you will chase after a less than fulfilling life.

My point is what if that verse is not talking about the future but the present? What if God’s wrath is what happened long ago when earth fell and the less than fully human life reality came into this world?

I tend to believe the bible is very heavily centered on God’s desire for humans to become the true humans who are showing the world who he is and what he cares about by being image bearers in the present. However a lack of submitting to God as the sovereign King would result in the chasing after a life less than what God desires or AKA his wrath.

Those who’ve read my blog for any length of time know that I dispute the usual Evangelical/Fundamentalist doctrines of Biblical inspiration.  What may have not been so clear, except by extrapolation, is what I do (and do not) propose this means when it comes to the authority-basis for Christian belief and practice.

I begin with the premise (unprovable—that’s why it’s a premise—but I believe it’s defensible) that the texts we commonly refer to as the Bible; that is, the 66-text collection accepted by both Catholic and Protestant Christians, is authoritative for the understanding of God’s intent and humanity’s role in creation and redemption.  Though recorded by human beings with all their foibles, biases, and limitations, the Biblical texts are a faithful account of the things godly human beings have seen, heard, experienced, and done as they have interacted with their creator over a rather large span of history.  Whatever other traditions humans may have passed down—and there are many—the ancient texts of the Biblical documents are older (and therefore closer to the primary sources), more complete, and more faithfully preserved than many, if not most, other historical documents.  They deserve to be heard.

Nevertheless, if the Bible is authoritative about anything at all, we must consider its texts authoritative to the extent they do or do not self-identify.  Here is where I part company with the vast majority of the Evangelical church:  nowhere in the entire text of the Old and New Testaments, do we find a defensible basis for the claim that the Bible is the Word of God, or that it is infallible (as an aside, it’s actually a little silly to talk about a text being infallible at all…the only thing that can fail–or not–are those who attempt to interpret it).  I have written on this subject before and will not repeat the entire discussion here; nevertheless I cannot let this claim stand without referring to 2 Tim. 3:14-17 (my inclusion of all four verses, not merely v. 16 is deliberate).  In brief:

• The term our Bibles translate as “scripture” is “gramata,” a form of the word graphe which refers to any writing, not only sacred scriptures (“scripture,” for that matter, is just the Latin word for “writing”).  In Paul’s day (if less so than in ours) there was plenty of writing that was clearly not divinely inspired…the lesbian poetry of Sappho or the racy plays of Sophocles for a couple examples.  The only reasonable interpretation of Paul’s use of “all scripture” in v. 16, I believe, is to refer to the context he set up in v. 14-15, in which he refers to those writings Timothy learned from his youth, which are “able to make you wise unto salvation.”  There is no basis but presupposition, to suggest that Paul was referring to the compendium of a canon that would not be agreed for another three hundred years.
• Next we turn to the word which is usually translated as “inspired” or “God-breathed” in the passage.  Paul did us the inconvenience of coining a word theopneustos (the Liddel-Scott lexicon shows no prior usage) without giving us a definition of what he meant.  The word is obviously a compound of the word Theos, which can mean any god but in the New Testament is nearly always in reference to the one God of Abraham and Father of Jesus, and pneuma, one of two more or less synonymous words (the other is pnoe) that are variously translated in the Bible as “spirit,” “breath,” or “wind.”  A tradition has built up in the church that theopneustos refers to the process by which God influenced the writers of our scriptural texts, though Christians differ wildly about whether that influence was more in the form of a gentle nudge in the right direction or a direct control of the words and phrases used.  However, if we are candid (and here, few are), we must acknowledge that this tradition is conjecture at best; certainly not enough upon which to hang a dogma.  It’s equally possible that theopneustos refers, not to the source-mechanism of scripture, but rather to the operation of God’s spirit in the reader(s) as he/she/they/we seek God in the texts.  Whatever it means, there is absolutely no basis to use theopneustos as a synonym for “God’s Word,” a phrase which carries very specific meanings in the Biblical texts.
• The interpretation of 2 Tim. 3:16 is further complicated by the fact that the sentence contains no verb in Greek.  While it is perfectly true that a translator must insert a verb (the “is”) into the English statement to make a coherent sentence (at least, if we presume that v. 16-17, not v. 14-17, are a single sentence), there is nothing in the text to guide the translator as to whether the “is” belongs before or after whatever word is used to render theopneustos.  In other words, while most translations read declaratively “All scripture is inspired…,” it is equally-valid to render it as the 1901 American Standard Version does:  “All scripture inspired of God is profitable…” which is a decidedly different claim.

Therefore, I hold that the 2 Tim. passage, whatever its meaning(s), cannot validly be used as the basis for a claim of divine infallibility for the Biblical canon.  Other prooftexts used by the verbal-inspiration crowd fare no better when properly examined.  The Bible does not call itself God’s word–therefore, neither should we.

This does not mean we have no record of God speaking.  Specific places–particularly the prophets with their “Thus saith the LORD” declarations, highlight that at the particular point thereby designated, they are repeating God’s word.  If we believe anything at all about Jesus’ divinity (a topic for another time), then Jesus’ own words certainly rise to the level of God’s words…and of course Jesus himself is described as the Word of God become flesh.  If, as I have claimed above, it is in error to view the entire Biblical text as the Word of God, and yet the texts in many places contain words from God, then it becomes incumbent upon us to discern which is which.  I have misappropriated another Pauline phrase and labeled this discernment process “Rightly Dividing the Word,” from which I get the R in my ROCK summary.

As a rule of thumb, I hold to a hierarchy of authority among the texts, where the words of Jesus as reported in the Gospels take supremacy, and shortly behind them, the words of the prophets where they explicitly highlight their message as the “Word of the LORD.”  Explicative works like the epistles follow behind these, and historical reporting still further behind, with wisdom and poetry such as Proverbs and Psalms bringing up the utmost rear (well, along with apocalyptic literature which frankly, nobody really understands any more despite their enthusiastic claims to the contrary).

There is much more that can be said about the process of Biblical interpretation.  As is (I hope) evidenced in my writing, I hold that legitimate interpretation of the Bible begins with assessing the source of the particular message, examining both the historical and textual context surrounding it (the only valid use for a “prooftext” is to refute somebody else’s invalid prooftext…responsible Biblical interpretation can never hang a dogma on a single phrase).

It is also valid to consider what other faithful believers have gleaned from a text.  But please note I said “consider,” not “accept.”  While I just got done stating that infallibility claims for the Bible are in error, it remains that nothing else rises even to the level of the Bible’s authority.  The claims of apostolic authority made by various church magisteria, episcopates, etc., are circularly established…that is, the authority by which they make their claim is the very claim itself.  No one—not the ancient church fathers, not the ecumenical councils of the fourth and fifth centuries, not Augustine or Aquinas or Calvin or Luther, and most certainly no one of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries (including the elders or pastors or bishops of your own church fellowship)—has the right or authority to make any statement that is not subject to the accountability question “what is your scriptural basis for that claim?”  And even if they answer that question, the validity of their hermaneutic is still subject to challenge, re-examination, and even correction.  The fathers, the great theologians, and the faithful “lay” people (and even, I would submit, the “heretics”) of all these ages still deserve to be re-heard through the lens of the Body of Christ searching the scriptures, yet again today, to see whether the things they say are so.

And this brings me to my final point on Biblical interpretation:  it’s not a spectator sport.  If we believe anything about the work of the Holy Spirit, and if we accept the Biblical accounts as valid at all, then God’s modus operandi tends toward reserving his most important messages to be delivered by the “unimportant” among us (from a foreign whore to a talking donkey to a 12-year-old kid to a guy hiding out on the threshing floor to a young girl accused of breaking her betrothal vow to a swaggering, cussing fisherman…the people God uses tend not to be those we might have chosen).  Michael Jordan may be (or may become) a follower of Jesus, but in faith, there are no Michael Jordans.  I am grateful for the insight careful researchers such as Tom Wright have brought to the table, as I am for the insights in other centuries of many faithful men and not enough women who have also sought to understand God and his ways, and share their understanding with the rest of us.  But the real work of following Jesus—including rightly dividing his word—occurs not in the halls of academia and the magisterium, but around the tables (including the virtual tables of the net) where we break bread and open the texts in fellowship with one another.

You, my sister, and you, my brother, may have as much to share with me about the things of Christ, as Calvin or Luther or Aquinas or Augustine ever did—perhaps even more than they.  We’ll still need to search the scriptures together to see if you’re getting it right (I need you to do the same with my thoughts), but don’t ever let the “authorities” tell you you’re wrong to speak or to question just because they say so, or because God gave them authority over you.  Jesus—and the real apostles, the ones in the first century—say otherwise.

I’ve been reading an amazing book by Abraham Heschel a leading Jewish Rabbi, theologian and philosopher of the 20th century. In his book “God in search of Man” I stumbled across a phrase that captured my attention and said so eloquently a key phrase. He said “There is in the bible God’s word to man, but there is also man’s word to Him and about Him; not only God’s disclosure but man’s insight.” I’d like to unpack that statement just a little.

Dan has fleshed out quite a bit on the notion of how we should understand biblical inspiration here. I would like to add a little color from my own perspective and studies and use Heschel’s quote as a baseline.

Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone).  It’s a phrase originally made famous by the reformer Martin Luther.  I’m not clear on the historical precedent, but today I hear it most often from those who consider themselves part of the Reformed tradition–which now seems largely to mean modern Calvinism–when they recite it as one of the Five Solas.  Aside from the irony of having five “onlys” in anything,  the claim of Sola Scriptura is that only the Biblical texts are authoritative for matters of doctrine/dogma in the church.

Sola Scriptura.  Not “Scriptura et magisterium,” scripture plus the authority of the church.  Not “scriptura et patres,” scripture plus the authority of the early church fathers.  Not “Scriptura et Aquinas,” “Scriptura et Augustine,” not “Scriptura et Calvin” (and sorry, I don’t know how to make those names properly Latin).  Not Scripture plus John MacArthur or John Piper or Mark Driscoll or N.T. Wright or Rob Bell or Greg Boyd either (and I hope I have enough “liberals” and “conservatives” to satisfy the reader that I’m not taking aim at a “side” here).  And not “Scripture and my pastor or my bishop or my elders,” for these are merely a part of the local incarnation of the Body of Christ, and while we should seek to understand Scripture together in the local body, there is no valid hierarchy or authority among human leaders in biblical interpretation.  To the contrary, these and all of the body should have their words evaluated over against Scripture, by all their hearers.

Sola.  Scriptura.

No doctrine or dogma or teaching or credal test dare be claimed with certainty, that is not clearly derivable solely from the properly-exegeted text of the Bible.  My choice of the word “derivable” is deliberate.  It’s not enough to determine that a doctrine is not inconsistent with scripture.  It’s not even enough that the doctrine, once framed, can be supported by scripture, although in reality I find such claims often fail to withstand careful scrutiny anyhow.  I suggest rather that any doctrinal claim should be subjected to the following thought experiment:

Imagine we could find a reader who knew nothing about church history or dogma…one who had never heard of the various heresies and controversies and schisms of the church throughout the century.  Imagine further that, though ignorant of the faith, this reader was fluent in Biblical Hebrew and Greek, and was able to read the texts and study them carefully.  Would this hypothetical reader be able to come up–solely from studying the biblical texts–with the doctrine at hand?  If yes, then we can and should ascribe it serious weight.  If no, then however helpful it may be in understanding a difficult passage or concept, it must be considered optional and not core to the faith.

(Even with “core” doctrine, I caution the reader with my previous warning about creeds).

A study group I’ve been meeting with has been asked to memorize Hebrews 4:14-16, and it’s dug up an old, nagging irritation for me.  The writer of Hebrews states that our High Priest, Jesus, “in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”  I’ll come right to the point:  at least as that sentence reads in English, I cannot accept it as true (please read to the end of this post before freaking!).

I accept the teaching of scripture that Jesus lived a sinless life.  There are many witnesses to back up this claim, and frankly no serious evidence to challenge it.  But I am unable to reconcile the notion of a sinless life with the Hebrew writer’s claim that Jesus was tempted in every way as we are.  There are too many ways in which “missing the mark” (ἁμαρτία, “hamartia”) in one area is simply not a temptation unless one has well and truly screwed it up in a related way already.  No one can be tempted to theft, who is not already guilty of covetousness.  No one is tempted to adultery or sexual misconduct, who is not already guilty of lust.

One might attempt to parse the desire from the deed, and say that only the latter is sin.  To do so would be downright comforting, and frankly, to some extent I think most of us believe it (and those who don’t, are likely burdened with massive guilt or depression).  Unfortunately, Jesus himself demolished this particular rationale pretty decisively in Matt. 5:27-28.  And if looking lustfully at a woman not one’s wife is adultery, then the vast majority of straight men I’ve ever known, are adulterers (I do not therefore suggest we should just give up and do the deed).  And if, by his own definition, Jesus wasn’t guilty of mental adultery, than he certainly wasn’t tempted in all respects as we ordinary males are.

OK, so what do we do with this apparent contradiction?  I see three possibilities:

1)  The writer of Hebrews may be wrong.  The notion of Jesus’ sinlessness is indispensable to a substionary atonement doctrine, but it’s also pretty important in any understanding of the incarnation.  But the idea that he was tempted just as we, though it could be a comfort, is not so central.  Maybe in his quest for an appropriate simile the Hebrew author went overboard and misrepresented Jesus’ earthly experience.

2) The Hebrew writer could be right, with the proviso that he was talking about Jesus’ actions, not what might have gone on in his head–that is, for example, Jesus may have gotten an eyeful of a pretty girl as much as any guy, but never given in to that temptation by making an advance (or worse) on her.  This is more palatable, for sure, but in order to swallow this interpretation, we are then stuck with Jesus’ own statements referenced above.  Although Jesus’ standard is the harder one to handle, it IS the words of Jesus over against those of the author of Hebrews, and if I have to choose which to accept, Jesus’ own words have to take precedence.

Either of these two options slam squarely into the notion of Biblical inspiration.  Readers of this blog already know I do not accept a flat-book dogma of verbal inspiration, but many Christians hold this teaching dear.  Is this one of those cases where God deliberately put a paradox in place to test whether we’d trust him over the brains he gave us?  (for the record, I don’t believe God plays this sort of “belief trick,” but some folks seem to give the idea credence–think young-earth creation vs. the fossil record).

3) There is, of course, a third option.  We could take a look at what “temptation” actually means.  The usual working definition of “enticement or desire to sin” may be our real problem here, and actually, I think this is the case.  According to Young’s Analytical Concordance, the original word here (πειράζω, peirazw) occurs in some form about 38 times in the New Testament.  Twenty-eight of those times it’s translated “tempt” or “temptation” in the King James version (I don’t have statistics for other versions), but in several others it’s translated something like “test” or “prove.”  It’s actually easier to understand if we think of the old English metallurgist’s concept of “trying” an ore; that is, applying heat to it in order to see how much gold comes out.  This idea of “trying” can be described as applying difficulty in order to reveal the content, or character, or purity of a substance.  It’s no leap of logic to go from assaying an ore (“assay” is another way peirazw can be translated), to assaying human character, and in fact that’s what is often meant.

For example, the same word peirazw is used in John 6:6, where Jesus suggested to Phillip that he procure bread to feed the five thousand.  John tells us he did this to “try” Phillip…Jesus already knew what he intended to do.  2 Corinthians 13:5 is another example, where Paul exhorts believers to “examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith.”  The word translated “examine” is the same word as the one in Hebrews 4!  I hope no one thinks Paul is suggesting that it’s healthy to put ourselves in a position where we could be induced to sin, just to see how strong our faith is!

To wrap it up, then, the Hebrew writer is not suggesting that Jesus had the same problems of temptation humans wrestle with to varying degrees.  What he is saying is that Jesus understands the tests and discouragements of life, because he went through them too.  This is why the first half of the same verse states that we “…do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin (NRSV).”  Change “without sin” to “without failing the test” and we’re probably closer to the actual meaning of the text.  Or as my Mom put it last year, “he didn’t flunk!”

This, of course, fits nicely with Philippians 2:5-11.  It was because Jesus remained faithful–obedient–to death, that God has highly exalted him.  The glory follows the passing of the test…and that’s why he’s now our High Priest.  This, I have no trouble believing.

Those who know me well may have seen this coming…but now that we’ve looked at the Holy Spirit, not as a “being” but as the Wind/Breath of God (see this post if you haven’t already read it), it’s time to take another look at an old friend.  I refer, of course, to θεόπνευστος (“theopneustos”) from 2 Tim. 3:16.  Those who already know Greek will know, and the perceptive among the rest of you may notice, that this is a compound of θεός (“theos,” god–not necessarily the Christian one) and a form of πνεῦμα (“pneuma”, wind or breath or spirit as previously discussed).

The usual translation of θεόπνευστος, as nearly everybody knows, is “inspired” or “God-breathed,” and is the source of the common notion that what Paul was saying to Timothy was that the scriptural canon was breathed out by God…that is, that God is the source of “all scripture” (I’ve previously argued–1 & 2–that this statement cannot legitimately be read as an imprimatur on the entirety of our current canon).  Unfortunately, it appears that Paul coined a word that has no antecedent in classical Greek literature and only occurs once in the entire biblical text.  We are therefore stuck with the task of deducing what he meant by taking the word apart into its constituent parts, and one possibility (of course) is that the translators are right, that equivalents of “breathed out by God” are in fact correct and that Paul is saying that those scriptures which “are able to make you wise unto salvation” (v. 17) actually come from God.

But what if θεόπνευστος is not “breathed out,” but rather “breathed upon” or “breathed into?”  Might Paul be suggesting that the written words, lifeless in and of themselves, become profitable–even powerful–when they are infused with the life-giving Breath of the Father?  Perhaps it’s not an issue of writings being “inspired” at all, but rather what happens when these writings become “in-spirited” in the context of believers individually and collectively seeking God through them.  It stands to reason that any writing, whether by the canonical authors, by modern believers, or even by secular writers, becomes highly profitable if and when it’s enlivened by the Breath of Life.

This is not to suggest that God is not the actual source of any of the biblical writings.  2 Pet. 2:20-21 is one good example of how God clearly and specifically moved prophets to write and speak specific words to his people.  Our task as believers is to discern those words–and the spirit within them–and to pray that God will yet again breathe upon us as we seek to be equipped for his work.

I was under the illusion that I had completed my occasional series on Biblical Inspiration until several friends pushed back on my “ROCK” summary of my faith distinctives.  Reading back over my posts I see that I never really wrapped up my position, so this is a shot at doing so.  I shall not attempt to fully justify my position in this post; interested readers may want to go back to earlier posts in this series for more of the foundation behind what I’m claiming here.

In contrast to most Evangelical statements of faith, I reject the claim that the Bible–either the Protestant or Catholic canon–is the Word of God.  In fact, I believe that insistence on treating the Bible as God’s Word is at the root of a great deal of error, as well as the foundation for many “endless controversies” that both create division and strife within the body of Christ, and drive many who otherwise might believe, from the faith.  The dogma of “Verbal and Plenary Inspiration” (VPI) and its variants (including the companion dogma of “inerrancy”) tend to lead to what I call a “flat book” interpretation of the Biblical texts, whereby any phrase, anywhere in the text can become the foundation (dare I say, the pretext?) for doctrine, often without regard to either its textual or historical context.  But beyond the errors of “flat book” interpretation, I primarily object to calling the Bible the Word of God because to do so is, on the very face of it, UNbiblical.  At its worst, this error devolves to Bibliolatry–ascribing divine status to an object.  Listen carefully to the arguments on VPI from many Evangelicals and you’ll find they’re often not far from Bibliolatry.

The Bible does not call itself God’s word–therefore, neither should we.  Specific places–particularly the prophets with their “Thus saith the LORD” declarations, highlight that at the particular point thereby designated, they are repeating God’s word.  If we believe anything at all about Jesus’ divinity (a topic for another time), then Jesus’ own words certainly rise to the level of God’s words…and of course Jesus himself is described as the Word of God become flesh.  The apostle Paul referred to “all scripture” as “theopneustos” (“God-breathed?”or “God’s breath?”  Paul unfortunately coined a term or borrowed a rare one, and neglected to define it); however, careful thought makes it quite obvious that whatever Paul was referring to by “all scripture,” he wasn’t prospectively endorsing our current canon.

In contrast to flat-book Bibliolatry, I hold to what I have come to describe as a “Word of God hermaneutic” which I have also described as “Rightly Dividing the Word.”  In choosing this phrase, I freely admit that I’ve borrowed a phrase from the King James version of 2 Tim 2:15, even though the Elizabethan English phrase “rightly dividing” does not mean what I think it means (inconceivable!).  I find it a helpful way of encapsulating the notion that we are to approach scripture in an inquiring mode, searching within its texts for that subset which actually is God’s word.  As a rule of thumb, I hold to a hierarchy of authority among the texts, where the words of Jesus as reported in the Gospels take supremacy, and shortly behind them, the words of the prophets where they explicitly highlight their message as the “Word of the LORD.”  Explicative works like the epistles follow behind these, and historical reporting still further behind, with wisdom and poetry such as Proverbs and Psalms bringing up the utmost rear (well, along with apocalyptic literature which frankly nobody really understands any more).

This is not to state that the rest of the Bible is either false or untrustworthy.  In particular with the Gospels, I find a great deal that leads me to the belief that they are the honest accounts of faithful human witnesses to Jesus’ words and actions.  The Old Testament historical writings I’m less sure about, in that they so patently include stuff that seems awfully similar to the jingoistic, prejudiced attitudes that many similarly-ethnocentric peoples have displayed throughout history.  But here I argue principally that unless interpreting a text has demonstrable bearing on the life of the disciple of Jesus, it’s really not that important just how true it is, or isn’t.  (please take note I said the “life,” not the “thought,” of the disciple)

Valuable teaching can still be gleaned from much that is not the Word of God…for that matter from much that isn’t in the Bible at all.  But we must learn to reserve the stamp of the divine for that which merits it.  When we do, our priorities tend to skew somewhat differently than those which hold sway in contemporary (and much historic) Christian thought.  It really IS all about Jesus!

OK, so we’ve established that I was wrong in placing 2 Tim. 3:14-17 in a single sentence. But no translation I have EVER read portrays verses 16 and 17 as anything other than a single sentence, and this is important. Let’s look:

16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

Hmmm… notice anything? What’s Scripture given FOR? It’s not for “right belief.” It’s not “that you may believe God created the world in six days.” It’s not “that you may have the correct doctrine of the Atonement.” It’s not even “that you may have the correct view of the Trinity.”

So what’s it for? SO YOU CAN GET ABOUT DOING WHAT GOD INTENDED YOU TO DO!!!

Funny thing about the Bible…it’s way less confusing when you’re looking for stuff to obey, than when you’re looking for theories, systems, and beliefs. Wonder if it’s because that was its purpose???

I just came across an amazing article on Biblical inspiration that goes into much greater detail, and with much more scholarly foundation, than my series has so far. I haven’t had time to read the whole thing yet, but I will. I’ll probably highlight bits of it in future posts.

The article is “Inerrancy, Inspiration, and Dictation” by Joel Stephen Williams, and it was published in the Restoration Quarterly, Vol. 37/No. 3 (1995). I had never heard of Williams before, but it appears he’s an author and professor at Amridge (formerly Southern Christian) University.

Two quick quotes:

We must realize that the doctrine of inspiration is not the capstone of Christian theology. A fundamentalist view of inspiration does not insure orthodoxy. Many who hold to a fundamentalist view of inspiration are in extreme error on more significant truths such as the deity of Christ. Furthermore, many people come to faith in Christ and salvation without knowing even the rudimentary elements of a doctrine of inspiration.

And

Positive statements about the usefulness of the Scriptures in instructing mankind for salvation affirm more about the Bible than a negative statement that it is without error. The Bible is not the ultimate end. Instead, it is a witness to God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit. As John the Baptist pointed toward Christ, the Bible is a witness pointing toward God.

This comes very close to my own perspective, as I expressed it in an email to my Mom last week. Here, then, is my “doctrine of the Bible,” if you will:

I prefer to say that the biblical (particularly N.T. and prophets) authors are faithful witnesses to what they saw/heard, and their writings are to be trusted as the testimony of a faithful witness. . .without blurring the distinction between the witnesses and the truth to which they are testifying.