Believing the Bible: A Place To Start or Stop?
February 5, 2009 by iMonk
Let’s say you’re sitting around talking with a group of friends, some of whom are Christians and some aren’t.
A subject comes up; for example, marriage. People share their stories, their thoughts, their accumulated wisdom.
After a moment, one of the Christians present begins to speak. He speaks longer. His tone is different. He’s quoting verses…and more verses.
There’s a sense of finality and authority to this talk. You can sense a reaction, even before anyone says anything.
Some present are annoyed. Some are angry. Some want to move on to a topic as far away from the Bible as possible.
Then another Christian speaks. This person validates that the quoted verses are crucial and important for Christians to understand. But this person raises questions. She interacts with the scripture AND with the comments of the other participants. From ideas in the verses- like submission, for instance- she asks the group to explore what submission might mean in a non-abusive context?
The room relaxes a bit. This Christian wasn’t authoritative. She wasn’t ending the discussion. She was continuing it. She was curious. She didn’t have all the answers, but still had questions. She wanted to listen to others; to hear their insights and experiences.
Somehow, this second Christian seemed to think Christianly, but to think differently. The scripture was the beginning of her thought process; a place to launch out from, not just a place to stop.
Of course, when the evening is over and everyone is walking out to their car, the first Christian stops the second, reads her more verses and suggests she may not be a Christian.
(I know….that was ugly. I’m sorry.)
Here’s my thought. It seems that for some people, the Bible is the end of the thinking/exploring process, while for others it is not the end, but a place from which to continue learning, thinking and exploring. For one the Bible is a very short anchor; for the other, a kind of map.
One kind of Christian seems to feel that the Christian life is “lived” by accumulating Bible passages and talking about them frequently and loudly. (Yes, blogs were made for this kind of person.) This is called “honoring” the Word of God and “living the Godly life.” As a long-time observer, this looks less like living the Christian life and more like turning it into a particular kind of activity that bookish, obsessive, aggressive types are very good at.
The other kind of Christian arrives at the Bible, gains bearings, affirms truth, then launches out into the many different worlds that are part of human experience. They aren’t accumulating verses or listing them in long diatribes, but they are living in such a way that the meaning of the Bible’s message is put into practice.
The other day, a young earth creationist challenged me, as they have done many, many times before. The challenge is always the same: why don’t I take the Bible as seriously as they do? (I’m an old earth/old universe guy.)
Now, by “taking the Bible seriously,” they mean get to the answers by getting to the verses, establish the meaning of the verses and stop there. If you go any further, you’ve abandoned the authority of the Bible and are making a dangerous mistake.
But what if the creation passages are a starting place for my own encounter with the world? Can I study science and still say I believe those passages? Can I believe them if the record of God’s creation leads me to believe in an old universe? Does a person have to stop with the Biblical material at its most literal and then only affirm science that affirms those verses?
I don’t think so. I believe that thinking and living Biblically is far more than stopping at passages and saying “this far and no more.” I prefer to say “This is my map of what matters most in creation, and from here I will read the record of creation and rejoice in what God has made.”
I’m not going to worry if a conclusion seems to bring me to more questions or to a need for more study and more light. I won’t make my faith and my experience into an “either/or” where I have to ignore my mind to believe God’s Word. I’m not going to act like I have arrived ahead of everyone else because I believe Genesis 1-3.
I especially won’t believe that God wants me to know the Bible, but not know literature, relationships, beauty, work, sacrifice, science, art and service. I will approach all those things as a Biblically thinking Christian, with a grid of God and the Gospel giving cohesion and hope to all I experience and encounter.
I want to suggest that “Bible study” that amounts to an obsessive concern with what the Bible says and no more is not the way we live the Christian life. If we know God and the Gospel, we should raise our sails in the winds of human experience, creativity and discovery, expecting God’s truth to be there as well.
I experience this frequently. I will teach a poem or story and realize I am in the Biblical world. I will sense in human brokenness the Biblical story. In a thousand ways I see the face and compassion of Jesus. In explorations and discoveries I see the marvel of God’s power and detail in creation.
None of these thing take the Bible away from me. I take the Bible with me into these parts of my life. I take the Bible, its “map” of reality and truth, its message of hope and most of all, its Gospel of redemption, resurrection and a new world begun in Christ.
Is the Bible a stopping place or a starting place for Christian thinking?
If your goal is to collect “truths” (dogmas) like Boy Scout merit badges, to demonstrate to yourself, other Christians and to God that you are a “good Christian” then the Bible is a stopping place. If your goal is to humbly know the truth, because God is truth, then it is a starting place.
Thats an interesting dynamic. In my experience when ever a topic comes up I always start the conversation with “The Church teaches…” then expand on it by quoting the Bible if nescesssary.
However I would say that one you may be being too hard on the person that quotes scripture. May be they really think that is the way to present the faith.
In my personal opinion of course is tha the Gospel must be lived fist and taught second.
I’d encourage anyone to go with their none Christian friends to a coffee shop and conduct the experiment described. If I’m wrong, I’d like to know.
I’m not denying the authority of scripture. I’m just tired of what is done with it.
All too often the Bible is a stopping place when due to a presupposition a quoted verse (or part of a verse often) is taken to “clearly” mean something. However, anyone who does not share the same presupposition does not see this “clear” meaning. When one does not, the “not a Christian” assumption is all too often made. Also in many responses to blogs, the response consists of numerous Bible quotations that often do not indicate anything to the reader. Christians should use their God given minds.
Of course, when the evening is over and everyone is walking out to their car, the first Christian stops the second, reads her more verses and suggests she may not be a Christian.
(I know….that was ugly. I’m sorry.)
Yes, it’s ugly, IMonk. It’s ugly because it happens for real.
Having the Bible forced on you as a stopping place can make you incapable of seeing it as a starting place.
One kind of Christian seems to feel that the Christian life is “lived” by accumulating Bible passages and talking about them frequently and loudly. (Yes, blogs were made for this kind of person.) This is called “honoring” the Word of God and “living the Godly life.” As a long-time observer, this looks less like living the Christian life and more like turning it into a particular kind of activity that bookish, obsessive, aggressive types are very good at.
I believe the Arabic word for “Submission” (and all the baggage that brings) is a better description of this particular kind of activity.
Or, alternatively, the Soviet thoughtstopper “Ees Party Line, Comrade!”
There’s a reason I cannot hear the word “Scripture” without nausea. Too often it’s been used as The Party Line. Too often Christ has been reduced to nothing more than The Party Line, with Thought Police Commissars there to overhear every word and drag you to Gulag on any pretext.
Now, by “taking the Bible seriously,” they mean get to the answers by getting to the verses, establish the meaning of the verses and stop there. If you go any further, you’ve abandoned the authority of the Bible and are making a dangerous mistake.
In my experience, they’re a lot more likely to mean “Thou Shalt Agree With ME 1000%!”
And it all becomes a domination game/power play, with the Bible nothing more than a cosmic-level weapon in the quest to dominate the other. (Or would Screwtape use the word “Devour” instead of “dominate”?)
One thing that I think that the story and the beginning of the post points out well is that we have to realize that when speaking with non-Christians, is that they do not look at the Bible they way we do. To them it may be a book with some good ideas on morality, spirituality, etc., but they do not see it as the Word of God.
The second Christian here understands that, and engages scripture and the people around in a way where he/she is able to bring God’s Word into the conversation, but where he/she will still be listened to and considered.
Personally I feel that you a right on how you are looking at God’s Word. It is to be in our heart, engaged, and lived. In many ways I look at it both the starting point AND the ending point, but there is a lot of living in between.
IMO Scripture is a journey, not a destination. Unfortunately, the Gnostic Nazis tend to use it as a weapon. And it’s a great temptation to move into that elitist camp because of the power thing that Headless Unicorn Guy just mentioned.
That said…
I don’t think we can discount the fact that God may use even the mis-use of His Word to His glory when He chooses.
But that doesn’t hold us guiltless for doing it.
I’m genuinely curious. Would you then use the term “insufficient” to describe scripture? You seem to be saying that you believe the bible, but only if it’s affirmed by experience and other sources (like the creation story). Nothing in the bible itself explicitly states we should take the story metaphorically. If you were just reading the bible without any knowledge of evolution or carbon dating, you would assume God is telling you exactly how the earth was created. People interpret the story differently because things outside the bible (like certain scientists) tell them to.
I’m not saying this is wrong. Just thinking through what that would mean about the “sufficiency” of scripture. I disagree with your thinking here, but I’m intrigued. How do we draw the link between using scripture as a “starting point” and using other sources, and when we’re just rationalizing our disbelief of scripture because it doesn’t jive with something outside itself?
The conversations and friendships I have had with EX-Christians has persuaded me more and more that the more firmly a person treats Scripture as the stopping place and conversation stopper the more likely I am to find out those people, ten years on, have become atheists. I have had at least one or two friends over the last fifteen years who have led me to this observation. All it takes is to run into a personal struggle or observe a wrong in the world for which their stopping point spirituality has no answers and they abandon it in favor of something else.
I believe that too few Christians argue for the authority of Scripture as the starting point for the Christian life rather than as the stopping point and conversation stopper. Scriptue is more than sufficient to guide us on our journey with Christ and to reveal to us who Christ is … but it is not sufficient as an encyclopedia to answer our questions as so many Christians have employed it, as a checklist of what job to get, who to marry, how many kids to have, which candidate to vote for, etc. Christians are often tempted to employ Scripture to solve problems it never proposes to solve while ignoring it on the issues it speaks most trenchently to … or at least I find that is often my experience.
thanks for this post. there are so many times that pastors are looked at as “The Bible Answer Man” (no intended slight on someone who wants to call themselves that) but that is NOT how I view my role. I, as well as all other Christians, are here to spur one another on. We are to encourage debate and wrestling with the issues.
I cannot tell you how many times I have gotten myself into hot water because I wanted to discuss the “other” side of an issue. Some people just do not want to here it.
When I stand up to present the Word of God to people, I do not see myself as finishing a discussion, as presenting the final word. I see myself as starting a conversation. Presenting things to people that they may not have thought about and encouraging them to examine the scriptures themselves to see if this is right.
Our search for “answers” is just another indication of our consumer laziness. We want to know the answers without the struggle, and we want to pay someone to give them to us.
I wouldn’t use the term insufficient. That’s assuming its the Bible’s job to affirm theories of science, history, etc. The Bible speaks for God and is authoritative. But it is not a place to stop. It is a map to use to live, obey, enjoy, believe, etc. It is sufficient for use, and isn’t confined by the strictures we put on “how” something must be true for us to acknowledge it.
i personaly believe the bible is inerrant. My definition of that , with out error. There are no errors. I believe the Earth is really old. Jesus taught in parables. Why can’t the Genesis stories be used as the greatest teaching tools given to man? People who read Genesis and get the age of the Earth from this book seem to often to be the ones who truly just don’t”get it”. There is no error in the parables of Jesus. There is no error in Genesis.
Sorry Imonk and you know I love your blog, but why stop at Genesis 1-3?
Why not I Samuel 2, or Exodus 13?
It seems when we pick a point to start taking God’s word for what it says and that point is determined by our understanding of science instead of our faith in what the word says then we are on the wrong course.
I’m not saying you have to be a young earth guy to be a Christian, I don’t even think you have to be a young earth guy to be an evangelical ( dispensationalist have it written in their Scofield notes for them) I’m just saying that believing that God spoke this thing into being takes no more belief than believing Christ died and rose, and is coming again on part.
iMonk,
Great post. Just this week, I ran across an agnostic who used the Bible the same way as Christian #1 in your example. He quoted Scripture and “proved” his points that God was evil and so on, end of story. Perhaps because of this experience, I would be very wary of someone who seeks to define everything in an ironclad way more now than I was. (I once was one of those people, terrible English I know) The irony was that the agnostic didn’t believe God exists or is real, but was using Scripture as a battering ram against any and all comers.
It made me stop in my tracks to read your post. Heaven help me, I never want to come across as the “answer man.” Scripture is the start of the journey, not the end of the road.
On a lot of Christian forums, people post threads asking questions to which they already know the answer, eg, “Is premarital sex wrong?” Everyone enters the thread and posts the correct answer and bible verse. For fun I will go in and post the wrong answer on purpose and then sit back and watch as they all gang up on me and tell me I need to get on my knees and read the bible. Such threads are really like spider webs that are used to snare anyone who doesn’t answer correctly.
Is the Bible sufficient or insufficient? It is not sufficient to teach me about mitosis, quantum mechanics, or crystallization of a magma beneath the surface of the Earth. It is sufficient to point out my sin and to point me to Jesus Christ as the solution for sin.
I do like the holistic approach of person #2. This person takes both the Bible and the other person seriously. The first person only takes himself and the Bible seriously.
My experience in the old-earth/young-earth conflict is that the old-earthers take the Bible every bit as seriously as the young-earthers. I am an old-earth creationist, yet I believe the Bible, including the opening chapters of Genesis. I’ve had to wrestle with some issues, but the young-Earther perhaps needs to wrestle with some issues as well.
A fascinating post. Is the Bible a stopping place or starting place? I’d have to say both…..
The fact that we [the church] meet in different buildings at the same time attests to the fact that we intepret, apply, and prioritize scripture differently. And I think there is great wisdom in doing so as the frequent collisions of differing beliefs on the blogs validate.
Pastor chad’s comments struck me. It seems that the majority of our people want the answers…. without having to grapple with the questions. At times, I make some people very uncomfortable when I try to get them to think.
One thing I have noticed in my little corner of the world is that the majority of those who might view scripture as a “starting point” eventually find an “ending point”. Many times those “ending points” are not well supported biblically….. so what do you actually have in the end?
Hmmm. I see a little bit of a different problem with your coffee shop parable. Having encountered some actual people like the one you described, I’m finding it pretty difficult to envision them sitting in a coffee shop with a bunch of people who aren’t Christian discussing serious matters of life.
That’s really all I have to contribute. I’ve participated in enough of these discussions to recognize that I simply don’t speak the same language as many who want to discuss ’sufficiency’ and ‘authority’. Even where we use the same words, we clearly mean them in different ways. We may talk, but there is no real communication.
Willoh commented on inerrancy and the age of the Earth.
The writers of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, one of the the standard statements of the doctrine, purposefully left out any statement on the age of the Earth. Henry Morris of the Institute for Creation Research pushed to have a young Earth inserted into the document as they were writing it. The vote to remain silent on the issue was almost unanimous.
Matthew, before iMonk responds, I hope you don’t mind me giving a partial reply to one of your claims. What iMonk is describing is part of my daily life. I teach the Great Books in a seminar format. And I find one of the most important breakthroughs many students have to make in order to actually engage these texts is to learn how to argue about the text rather than with the text (and consequently, the author). The context in which any true understanding occurs is conversational, and when you are a reading an old book, it is even more important that this structure of reciprocity be respected and intentionally nurtured (C. S. Lewis’s introduction to Athanasius’ On the Incarnation is really good at describing this).
What iMonk is describing in the context of a group of people conversing is applicable to the context of the individual reader and the text. The reader asks questions of the text, but the text also asks questions of the reader. If the reader is not open to being questioned by the text, and is engaging the text primarily to pursue and extract something from it, then the insights and truth of the text cannot pursue him.
So now to my point: you are assuming that iMonk’s beliefs about creation, for example, have been formed by a dynamic in which he argued with Genesis 1-3. Hence, you speculate about his beliefs regarding how knowledge is justified, and therefore that he “disbelieves” Genesis 1-3 because he has a faulty criterion for determining truth. The enormous assumption underlying your comment is what the QUESTION is to which the Bible is giving the answer. From this assumption, you then make some bold claims, such as:
This is a prima facie false claim. Counterexample: Augustine. He knew nothing of evolution or carbon dating (nor inertia, heliocentrism and gravity for that matter). But he did not assume that God was “telling [him] exactly how the earth was created.” In point of fact, Augustine said:
I’ve quoted Augustine from David Young’s excellent article here.
I don’t think it’s an option for the Christian to regard extra-biblical literature and material as unimportant or irrelevant to their understanding of God’s special and general revelation. Given that they must be related, the question is how we are to understand what is their proper relation.
Harvard biologist, and leading supporter of Darwinism in the U.S. was also a Christian. He didn’t consider Darwinian evolution a stopping place, but a starting place. In fact, he found a consonance between Scripture and evolution by noting that evolution is not a denial of God’s creation but a map, or step-by-step look at how God had gone about creating.
If I’m reading you correctly iMonk, you’re suggesting a similar sentiment to Asa Grey, yes? That is, you don’t see Scripture as a denial of continued conversation via literature, aesthetics, music, etc., but as a guide to their worth, usefulness, and applicablity.
I am not a strident Christian. I used to be when I first became a Christian, but I think that’s par for the course and is a good reminder that becoming a Christian is not a place to stop; discipleship helps a new Christian converse less stridently while still maintaining all the fervor of his/her newfound convictions.
There are times when you can’t even start with scripture. I can remember having a discussion with a young college student about the existence of God. Another Christian student who overheard our conversation, said to me, “Why didn’t you just tell him what the Bible says.” I told her that if the person I was talking to didn’t believe in God, then why would he believe that the Bible had anything to offer the conversation. Once he was willing to consider that there was a God, then he might be willing to consider what God’s word has to say to us.
Others who start with the premise that there is a God are a lot more willing to consider how the Bible might contribute to a discussion.
I’ve seen atheist sites that do exactly that: take verses from the Bible and argue that God is evil, Christ says he is going to be the cause of violence, and so on – generally with a challenge to Christians: “Hah! Your very own holy book says that!”
“Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience.
Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?
Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although ‘they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.’ [1 Timothy 1.7]”
- Saint Augustine (A.D. 354-430) “The Literal Meaning of Genesis (De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim)”.
Now, if your Young Earth friend wants to argue that St. Augustine wasn’t a Christian, you’re on your own, I’m afraid
Certainly, many are afraid to use the Bible as a starting point because of where they fear the end might be; and that might be a life not tied up in a neat, tidy, little, package. Life is sooooo much easier when you know everything!
In Matthew 7, when Jesus finished the Sermon on the Mount, 28th verse says ‘people were astonished at his doctrine.’ 29 says, “….he taught them as one having authority.” To me..scripture is the beginning and ending authority. But the true meaning of he Word has to be revealed by God. 1 Cor.2:14 “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned.” There likely are many Bible teachers out there who know little of ‘rightly dividing the Word.’ A wise Bible scholar always presents the Word in context of a group or individual situation. I find comfort in Proverbs 9:9 concerning going forth or the ‘coming back in your face’ teaching of scripture. “Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser: teach a just man and he will increase in learning. 10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the Holy is understanding.” I believe every word in the Bible. If ever there seems to be a contradiction, I look further. The contradiction is always in my lack of understanding. Not in the errancy of the Word. So, I agree totally with the verses above….that persons have to be open to learning scripture in order for them to ‘learn’ scripture.
Sorry that’s Davis Young, professor emeritus of geology at Calvin College.
I see joel got there before me with St. Augustine, so I’ll quote Galileo (who was quoting Cardinal Baronius): “The Bible was written to show us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.”
It is either? Seriously, both people in the story spring from backgrounds which lead them in interacting with the Scripture in their distinct ways. The Bible, really isn’t a starting or ending point for either person. How their community tells them to interact with it is an ending point for one and the starting point for the other.
Great post.
I struggle with the inerrancy concept myself because I do not believe that having a Bible in our hand automatically means that we know more about psychology than Freud, Skinner, or Maslow, more about education than Piaget, Erikson or Vygotsky, more about science than Hawking or Sagan…you get the idea.
Excellent post. It makes me think of the common bumper-sticker phrase: “God said it. I believe it. That settles it,” which seems to express Person #1’s philosophy. The trouble is, we have to figure out what God *means,* and that isn’t always clear.
“Is the Bible a stopping place or a starting place for Christian thinking?”
It’s a starting place. Although, many will disagree. I’ve seen the scene that you so vividly describe play out time and time again. And it’s true – to those who take the Bible as an answer book for all of life, someone who actually questions, thinks through, and doesn’t feel like the discussion has to end at chapter and verse seems a very real threat. If we are to reach out with Christ’s love to those who don’t know Him, we can’t come across so arrogantly.
Jeremiah’s comment said it really well:
“The conversations and friendships I have had with EX-Christians has persuaded me more and more that the more firmly a person treats Scripture as the stopping place and conversation stopper the more likely I am to find out those people, ten years on, have become atheists. I have had at least one or two friends over the last fifteen years who have led me to this observation. All it takes is to run into a personal struggle or observe a wrong in the world for which their stopping point spirituality has no answers and they abandon it in favor of something else.”
One needs to be sensitive to the group one is with. If you are with believers and unbelievers, then you may respond to a certain topic without using Scripture. If you are only with Christians, then of course, use the Scriptures. Now, if you have friends or family members who claim they are Christians but do not like to deal with topics using Scripture then ….. well, don’t waste your breathe.
@Matthew: “If you were just reading the bible without any knowledge of evolution or carbon dating, you would assume God is telling you exactly how the earth was created. People interpret the story differently because things outside the bible (like certain scientists) tell them to.”
You describe exactly Martin Luther’s reading of the Bible re did the sun revolve around the earth or vice versa. Said Martin Luther: “People Gave ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon. …This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth.” Martin Luther, without any knowledge of astronomy, believed the Bible _clearly_ taught that the earth was the center of the solar system and all other heavenly bodies revolved around it.
Trouble was, Luther was wrong. His misreading of scripture was only corrected by “things outside the Bible (like certain scientists)”. When the _scientific_ evidence for a heliocentric solar system became overwhelming Christians had to accept that they had simply misunderstood what the Bible was teaching. Full Christian acceptance of the fact trailed the evidence by a couple hundred years, so maybe in another couple hundred the age of the universe and evolution will be non-issues, just as geocentrism is today. One can only hope.
(BTW, there are still Christians who assert believe that the earth is the center of the solar system and the sun revolves around it. They base their belief solely on the Bible. See http://www.geocentricity.com/)
I can remember my Gnostic days, of “doing evangelicalism” (as we called it) on campus that we were taught, thus practiced, the belief that the physical Bible had supernatural powers . . . sort of like kryptonite to Superman. So it was more than inerrancy. Just walking down the halls of the dorm and carrying a big, green, padded Living Bible, the evil forces would bifurcate around us.
Then, we knocked on a student’s door and asked, “Can I speak to you for a moment?” If we were allowed to come in, we were taught that we must ignore every thing they said and just quote a few pre-determined verses from that Bible. The power was in quoting the verses. Everything the student said was just a “smoke screen” so we were never to respond to their questions . . . just quote the damn verses and get the hell out. So we ignored their science questions and their questions about having sex with their girlfriends. Once the magical verse was inside their heads then God would eat them from the inside out like brain worms, tormenting them to repentance.
For some odd reason, the students stopped letting us come into their dorm rooms. We knew it had to be persecution, part of the signs that the end times were near . . . you know, leading up to the great tribulation. It’s a wonder the students didn’t tar and feather us.
We also used the Bible like a Ouija Board, getting deep meanings from a few words, meanings that had nothing to do with the author’s intent.
That’s why, when I first read Schaeffer’s concept of trying to give honest answers for honest questions seem so bizarre.
“Is the Bible a stopping place or a starting place for Christian thinking?”
It’s a guide, a compass, but it is neither the beginning nor the end. Christ is. Scripture is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, but it is not the end-all be-all of the Christian Faith.
Your scenario totally describes my experiences. Both as someone who used to quote the bible as if my interpretation of it was the final word, and as someone who now knows better yet gets accused from time to time of being apostate.
I still slide into that mindset, though, from time to time. I try to avoid it, but it’s such a convenient shortcut to just quote the scriptures and shut the other person up. Particularly when what they’re saying annoys me. But smacking a person that annoys you with a blunt instrument is never the Christian thing to do; and even less appropriate when that blunt instrument is the Word of God.
And it may be that the reason I am annoyed is because something in what they’re saying is being used by the Holy Spirit to convict me… and I don’t want to be convicted.
I keep returning to the fact that studying the bible is meant to change me. Not others. Others won’t change unless they study it for themselves. Quoting verses at them does nothing unless they become motivated to meditate on those verses themselves. “Proving” stuff does nothing unless they want to accept my interpretation, and they don’t.
Im – This topic is an appropriate place for me to ask feedback on this, I think:
I noticed something about the first temptation of Christ by Satan in the desert while reading an Greek/English interlinear NT some years back. The “Word of God” in the Greek that man “lives by” has a triple affirming “proceeding word” connotation. What seemed to emerge was a comparison to the written word — the stones (tablets) that the Devil tempted Jesus to turn into food versus the “Bread from Heaven” — the spoken Word from the mouth of God to each ones heart that we are all to hear and believe.
Has anyone heard this analysis before? And what do you people think about it…?
I’m definitely down with “starting place,” and usually go farther than that. When speaking with non-believers, I tend not to quote the Bible at all unless asked. Instead, I describe what I understand the Bible to say, usually under label “the majority report of Christians” or sometimes “some Christians, including me” if I’m not sure the first label is accurate. I’ve seen Bible-quoting end conversations in seconds, while I can talk to the same people for hours, explaining the Gospel in biblical terms, while not quoting word for word.
Is the Bible a stopping place or a starting place for Christian thinking?
If there’s ever some Christian thinking, we’ll find out!
Without the active presence and participation of the Living Word, the Written Word is useless dross — with it is always useful and instructive.
In the right company it is both a start and an end. Otherwise you might as well be slapping them in the face with your leather bound, I think.
Surfnetter: Food for thought! (ha). You could make that comparison since the stone tablets containing the Law, when fulfilled by Christ, would become the Bread of Life. But Lucifer likely could have just been trying to ’sift him as wheat’ since he knew that after forty days….HE WAS HUNGRY. In later scriptures stones were used again e.g as ‘from these stones I could raise up seed to Abraham (paraphrased). Stones are just so solidly ‘earthy.’ And might be reasonably used to make a point of taking something ‘earthly’ and allowing it to become ‘unearthly.’ But I think there would have been no purpose for Satan to speak in parables to Christ. I think he was just HAUGHTY enough to think he might just break Christ down…..over a piece of bread. Now that’s dumb.
Surfnetter: >>>> Without the active presence and participation of the Living Word, the Written Word is useless dross — with it is always useful and instructive.
That statement is a KEEPER. Can’t be any clearer than that since the Word is a LIVING PRESENCE. Without the Living Presence….knowledge of scripture just doesn’t happen.
>>>>>In the right company it is both a start and an end. Otherwise you might as well be slapping them in the face with your leather bound, I think.
Clear as crystal and a KEEPER also. Problems with much of the Church establishment is the bong, bong, bong, in faces with leather bounds. Now that’s not loving. That cruel.
One of my teachers once quoted someone (can’t recall whom), saying that “The Bible is divinely inspired, and not divinely informed”. I haven’t decided whether I agree or not, but still, it’s a really interesting point. I also beleive _God’s_ word is inerrant. Does that give way to errors in how it was “distilled” by the writers of the books? Will that “change” the message? Will that cause us to worship “another God” or “another Jesus”, as some put it? I don’t know.
I think the Bible is a lens through which we see and learn about God. Too many people would rather worship the lens, however.
Internetelias –An interesting sideline to the reference to John the Baptist’s admonition to the Pharisees is that the very place in the Jordan he was baptizing and speaking from is the place of Joshua leading the Israelites across into the Promised Land.
“So the Israelites did as Joshua commanded them. They took twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, as the LORD had told Joshua; and they carried them over with them to their camp, where they put them down.”Joshua 4:8
Ten of those Tribes were considered “lost” and cut off from the Covenant by the Jews and Pharisees, which was a very important dogma as far as the Jews justifying and retaining their prominent place. So what John was saying to them may not have been about “stones” alone.
I think this is why I enjoy reading your blog. I love the succinct way you have described the differences between the two modes. Thanks for this post
Hugh – :I think the Bible is a lens through which we see and learn about God. Too many people would rather worship the lens, however.”
I see it differently — the Spirit of God is the lens through which we are to understand the Scriptures. Jesus Himself said this repeatedly to those who witnessed with their eyes and heard with their own ears the things reported to us in the Gospels. He told them that they wouldn’t have a clue to any of it until the Holy Spirit was given. “And He will lead you into all Truth.”
And that’s “ALL” Truth — not just Bible stuff.
Without the Spirit, we are all hopelessly lost in opinion, in my opinion ….
I believe the Bible is the starting place of thinking in the sense that we begin with the Bible and then reason from it as our foundation–Prov. 1:7.
If I remember him correctly, I agree with Van Til that reason should be a tool [Van Til used the image of a saw I think] and not be content.
If you saw upon the right presuppositions, then you saw in a straight line. If not, then you saw in the wrong direction. [I think I have Van Til right with his thinking and saw imagery, but you might want to read him yourself in the book "Christian Apologetics"]
If you say that reason is content and try and justify that by saying “Well, God did not intend for me to throw my brains out” [or some such thing], then you can position your reason as the criteria by which you interpret Scripture.
You also can become a slave to whatever “they say” [i.e., the supposed experts].
I think it is either “I believe in order to understand” or “I understand in order to believe”.
I think the first option is biblical. I think the second option can lead someone to even reject the Trinity [i.e., "Three...One...that doesn't make 'sense' to me and so I reject it" type thinking].
Grace
Benji
Benji — So you believe that only unreasoning beings can understand the Scriptures …?
Hence the face slapping, Bible thumping ….
From the plethora of return comments I’d say the Monk has pricked a nerve.
Since the days of Adam humankind has struggled with the limited light of revelation, shinning dimly at times, through many passages of the Bible. Sometimes that limitation, with regards to our perception of truth, may result from differences of intellect, education, experience, social constraint, science of the age, or innumerable other human factors.
However we either accept the Bible is fully inspired, sufficient in every way, for revealed propositional truth leading to regeneration of the lost soul or we are of all most miserable and forever lost without hope.
Why not agree that the Bible is not the totality of God nor is it an exhaustive exposition of all truth scientific or otherwise?
It is, however, a statement of inexplicable eternal truth, from the Creator, reduced to the simplicity of this finite fallen creation.
Therefore, whether you believe God is the active agent in some old earth benevolent passive evolution spanning eons, or whether you believe God created the earth in an exact sequence of known increments of devine labor, it would seem such peripheral matters make little difference to the eternal abode of the redeemed soul.
In summary, seeking points of intersection from the limited Biblical narrative, and human experiential science, is an interesting exercise but can never provide the hungry soul with lasting sustenance.
Remember it is all about our loving Creator, and His intersection with time and space, in the person of Jesus Christ the Redeemer of lost souls.
Explore, reason, and search for truth intersections all you wish, but never lose the Anchor of your soul as revealed in the Bible.
That Anchor is absolutely certain and worthy of your trust in the finished work of Christ the Lord alone.