Category: Doctrine

Be Careful Lest You Fail to Take What God Is Doing to Heart

Pharaoh did not take to heart a movement of God in his time.

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In Exodus 7, we read that God moved in visible and compelling ways to convince Pharaoh to listen to the request by Moses to let the people go into the wilderness and be with God. Pharaoh was given demonstrative signs that God was behind the request, but Pharaoh was not swayed.

“Instead, he turned and went into his palace, and did not take even this to heart.”

Exodus 7:23 NIV

Pharaoh’s magicians answered Moses and Aaron with their own divination, and Pharaoh did not take the demonstration of the movement of God to heart. This is the character of hardness of heart. We see God move, but we have an answer to explain it away, and we do not take it to heart.

Pharaoh and Egypt are considered to be analogous to the world that does not know God, a world that has set itself against God. We don’t consider ourselves to be like Pharaoh or like Egypt.

When we do the same thing, however, we are no different. When we see God move, and we explain it away and do not take it to heart, we are no different.

The Pharisees, the religious leaders of God’s people, did the same thing. When Jesus performed miracles right in front of them, they explained it away. They said it was of the devil, and they did not take it to heart.

Be careful that you are not quick with an answer to explain away what God is doing and fail to take it to heart.

Do not be quick to explain away what is happening at Asbury University (and reportedly at other universities now, too). Do not be quick to dismiss it and miss what God is doing.

Take it to heart. Ponder it like Mary pondered what the angel told her: that she would give birth to Jesus. Be open to what God is doing, and what God wants to do in you.

The Pharaoh that didn’t take to heart what God was doing in his time lies entombed today like a stone. The God of Israel lives! Jesus, who was also entombed, rose from the dead and lives! The grave could not hold him, and he offers that same life to you!

A New (Old?) Take on Inerrancy

The Bible is the book God wanted us to have, and He wanted us to have it the way it is.

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I did the research and wrote a thesis in college in support of the concept that Scripture is inerrant. I have mentioned this before. I was not a religion major in college only because I did not turn in my thesis.

I didn’t turn it in because I was having a hard time getting to where I wanted to go using Scripture and the scholarly work that was done up to the early 1980’s. I could not support my thesis with integrity, so I shelved it and did not return to the subject for almost 40 years!

I had a high view of Scripture then, and I have a high view of Scripture now. I read the Bible daily for personal guidance and edification. I believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God (which I can support from Scripture itself. (2 Timothy 3:16-17))

I believe, like the Moody Bible Institute, that the Old and New Testaments are divine revelation from God. The original autographs were verbally inspired by the Holy Spirit. The revelation is God’s self-disclosure recorded in human language. God is the source of it.

I stop, though, in going further to say that every word is true, and the Bible is free from error. The very statement begs the questions: which version? Written in which language? And other questions.

I agree with the Moody statement that the Bible is the supreme source of our knowledge of God and of salvation through Jesus Christ. I agree that it is “our indispensable resource for daily living”. I agree, also, that humans are left to interpret the Bible, and our interpretation is guided by “our reception and understanding of that which God revealed”.

I stop short of saying that God “recorded” Scripture, because we all know that it was written down by men. This difference distinguishes the Bible from the Quran and the Book of Mormon, both of which are claimed to have been dictated to men in a trance-like state.

I agree that “revelation is a divine act”, and “interpretation is a human responsibility”. I agree that our interpretation is fallible, but I must admit the possibility that the writing down of the Bible may, also, be fallible.

I say these things not to argue with anyone about the reliability of Scripture, and I do not desire to make a mountain out of a molehill. I go far down the road on my confidence in the reliability and trustworthiness of Scripture. I have written on the subject many times, and I have even given presentations on the topic.

I also recognize that I am fallible and must remain humble in my approach, so take what I say with a grain of salt and make your own determinations. I share my thoughts for what they are worth.

When I was in college sitting in a World Religion class, reading the Bible for the first time in my life, I was struck by a thought that I believe to this day came from the Holy Spirit (along with others). My professor was liberal and progressive, so I can’t “blame” it on him.

It occurred to me that, if God is real, and the God of the Bible is the creator of the universe, then He could orchestrate His communications to humans in a way that they could understand them and preserve the important points for posterity. If God is sovereign, He can do that.

I believe the Bible is the book God wanted us to have.

NT Wright

I still believe that, but I also like the way NT Wright puts it: “I believe the Bible is the book God wanted us to have.” I can buy that! Other things NT Wright says about the character of Scripture also make sense to me, so I will mix his words with mine in the remainder of this piece.

Continue reading “A New (Old?) Take on Inerrancy” →

What Laws Must a Christian Follow?

The tension between the Law and the Gospel and how they relate to each other is the key to understanding Christianity.

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The themes of law and grace are central to Christianity. Sorting them out gets to the very heart of the gospel message. Yet, many people inside and outside of the Christian community are unclear on what laws Christians must follow, what laws are no longer applicable, and why.

Someone recently posted the following question to a group to which I belong on social media:

I get the message of we are not under the law but under grace. But if we live through Christ we will follow the law. How do we know what law to follow? Does this go as far back as to not mix fabrics? 

Obviously everyone says we’re no longer under the law, but ”faith without works is dead” so I am confused. 

How do we know which laws to follow?

Human tendency is to want a list of rules to follow so we can check them off. The rich young ruler demonstrates that human tendency when he came to Jesus one day and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?” (Matt. 19:16)

We also have a tendency to want to quantify rules, and to simplify them to make them easier to follow. Perhaps, that is what motivated someone to ask Jesus, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” (Matt. 22:36)

Or we go the other direction: we add rules on top of rules on top of rules to make sure that we don’t miss anything. The Pharisees demonstrated this approach in how they handled the commandment to observe the Sabbath. The created a list of “work” that was forbidden including, among other things: sowing, plowing, reaping, binding sheaves, threshing, winnowing, selecting, grinding, sifting, kneading, and baking bread; twelve similar activities related to the preparation of clothing, from shearing sheep to sewing; and seven activities related to preparing the carcass of a deer for food or leather. (See What are some Sabbath Observance rules that the Pharisees made?)

Moses started with ten commandments. By the time the books of Moses were completed, there were 613 commandments! (Though not everyone agrees on exactly what they are.)

The Torah (the Five Books of Moses – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers & Deuteronomy) focused on laws. That focus carries through the entire Old Testament. Though the laws are often more prominent in the breach, than in the observance thereof!

The same focus continued into the New Testament. We see it in the question asked by the rich young ruler and the Pharisees’ questions to Jesus. We see it in the tension between Paul and Peter that threatened to divide the early church over whether believing Jews must follow the Law and what laws believing Gentiles must follow.

This is the tension between the Law and the Gospel. If we understand only one thing about the Gospel message, the relationship of the Law to the Gospel might be the most important thing! I have written about it often, including How the Moorings of the Gospel Were Secured.

For the sake of brevity, I won’t summarize everything here. You can click in the links in the last two paragraphs to get an overview from the articles linked there. Understanding what Jesus meant when he said he didn’t come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it is critical.

If you are not a Christian, or you are a Christian, but you are not sure you understand these things, please do not just gloss over them. The tension between the Law and the Gospel and how they relate to each other is the key to Christianity.

It was the focus of almost all of Paul’s writings. It is the major theme in Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, Hebrews and the other epistles. Take some time now to wrestle with it. Don’t stop until it makes sense to you!

Hopefully, the rest of my thoughts in this piece will help.

Continue reading “What Laws Must a Christian Follow?” →

Digging into the Accuracy and Inspiration of the Bible

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I wrote recently on the character of Scripture, prompted by a statement made by Marty Solomon in Episode #82 of the BEMA Podcast, picking up on a statement he made that inspiration doesn’t necessarily mean accuracy. (See Does inspiration mean accuracy?) This topic gets into what it means that Scripture is the inspired word (or revelation) of God.

The idea that Scripture is inspired by God comes from 2 Timothy 3:16:

“All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness….” 

2 Timothy 3:16 (NASB)

Paul’s statement in his second letter to young Timothy is one of the few comments on the character of Scripture in the Bible. In this article, I want to focus on other comments on Scripture that can be found in the New Testament.

You might be surprised to know that Peter references Paul authoritatively, expressly characterizing Paul’s letters as “scripture” (sacred writings). (2 Peter 3:15-16 ESV) The recognition by Peter that Paul’s writings are scripture is highly significant because Jesus said Peter was the “rock” on which Jesus would build his church. (Matt. 16:18) If Peter considered Paul’s writings “scripture”, we should too.

Paul, likewise, references Luke in his first letter to Timothy. Paul quotes from “the Scripture”, saying: “’Do not keep an ox from eating as it treads out the grain.’ And in another place, ‘Those who work deserve their pay!’” (1 Timothy 5:18 NLT) The first quotation is from Deuteronomy 25:4. The second is from Luke 10:7 (NRSV). Thus, Paul quotes Luke’s Gospel, as scripture in the same vein as the Torah.

This discussion, though, begs the question: what is scripture? Obviously Peter thought Paul’s letters were scripture, and Paul thought Luke was scripture. Most of scripture in that time would have been what we call the Old Testament. There was no “New Testament”, so what else is scripture?

Many misconceptions abound. People claim that books were removed from the Bible. People claim that a group of “church fathers” got together and determined what should be in the New Testament.

These claims are false. They have no basis in the historical record.

The truth is more complicated, and the NT canon developed more organically than what is popularly believed. The writings of the NT developed from the texts that were considered authoritative throughout the scattered regions of the early church, long before the Christianity became the official religion of Rome in the late 4th century and the Holy Roman Empire emerged in the 9th Century (See Encyclopedia Britannica).

We may think of Christianity being controlled centrally from Rome, but that didn’t happen until after the 4th Century. Before that, churches were scattered all over the Roman Empire and beyond. Various centers of influence existed, including Rome, Alexandria (Northern Africa), Jerusalem and Caesarea (the Levant), Antioch (Syria), Lyons (France) and other places. The top down authority of Rome (and Constantinople) developed much later.

The writings that make up the existing New Testament were shared and circulated throughout a wide area, wherever churches took root. Opinions were shared, and a consensus grew based primarily on the authorship (apostolic connection) and message (consistency with the teachings of Jesus).

Many of those writings were accepted very early by a majority of people, and others gained acceptance later by the same organic method of consensus. (See The Formation of the New Testament Canon) Many other writings were considered helpful, but not scriptural, and some writings were considered heretical. Late writings generated after the apostles had all died were categorically excluded. These writings date from the second century and later.

Eusebius of Caesarea was one of the first people to attempt a summary of authoritative writings. The 22 “books” he identified in the 3rd Century are nearly identical to the canon we have today, minus a few and plus a few. The consensus was close to settled at that time.

The first person to name all 27 writings exactly as they are known today was Athanasius in Northern Africa in his Festal Letter written A.D. 367. The same canon was accepted by the rest of Christendom at the African synods of Hippo Regius (A.D. 393) and Carthage (A.D. 397 and 419). (Not the Council of Nicaea as the popular myth goes!)

In between the 1st Century and the early 5th Century when the canon was officially settled, other lists were offered by various sources. Bruce Metzger, the Princeton Theologian, says, “The slowness of determining the final limits of the canon is testimony to the care and vigilance of early Christians in receiving books purporting to be apostolic.”

Metzger notes that “the chief criterion for acceptance of particular writings as sacred, authoritative, and worthy of being read in services of worship was apostolic authorship”. The early church focused on the source or authority – connection to the apostles who knew Jesus. They also measured them by the known message of Jesus, as preserved by those same apostles.

Keep in mind that the apostles lived on after Jesus. Peter died in 64 AD during the reign of Nero in Rome according to contemporary, extra-biblical sources. John, the Apostle, died in approximately 100 AD according to reports preserved from multiple sources.

Thus, the apostles, the closest people to Jesus, lived on 30 to 70 years after Jesus died. They were the standard by which the authority of contemporary writings were judged.

Determining (or accepting) what is Scripture is only a beginning, though. How we view Scripture and interact with it is where the real rubber meets the road. In my last article, I wrestled with what it means that Scripture is inspired, suggesting that accuracy is not necessarily the key component. I will dig a little deeper into that vein in the rest of this article.

Continue reading “Digging into the Accuracy and Inspiration of the Bible” →

Wrestling with the Accuracy and Inspiration of the Bible

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In episode #82 on the BEMA Discipleship Podcast (dealing with “textual criticism” of the Bible), Marty Solomon made the following statement about growing up in a fundamentalist church: “Inspiration means accuracy in the world I grew up in.” Now he says, “That’s not what inspiration means. Inspiration means it was inspired by God.”

Solomon is talking about one of the few verses in the Bible that gives us explicit insight into how we should view Scripture:

“All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness….” 

2 Timothy 3:16 (NASB)

That Scripture is “inspired by God” is what those with a “high view” of Scripture hang our hat on, but what does “inspired by God” mean exactly?

Jesus revered Scripture, and he quoted from it often, He quoted from the Torah at least 21 times and from the Prophets at least 18 times. He referenced those writings when he said,

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For I tell you truly, until heaven and earth pass away, not a single jot, not a stroke of a pen, will disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.” 

Matthew 5:17-19

His words seem to suggest a high standard of accuracy in “the Law”, but I have noted that the quotations of Jesus in the New Testament do not often match (if ever) the exact phrases from the passages he quotes. Of course, he doesn’t cite “chapter and verse” because there were no chapters or verses then, but the words themselves are often not exactly the same.

Further, the Scriptural texts were written out carefully by scribes who were highly specialized in the tedium of copying the text verbatim, but many people could not read or write. Scripture was committed to memory and quoted often from memory.

Solomon’s comment reveals how his position has changed from the view of the church in which he grew up. He still believes the Bible is inspired by God, but he no longer believes that inspiration necessarily means accuracy.

The exact words quoted in the New Testament writings that were spoken by Jesus were likely spoken in Hebrew, or maybe Aramaic, and they were translated into Greek. We have Hebrew manuscripts, Greek manuscripts and Latin manuscripts. We also have very early manuscripts in Coptic, Syriac, and other languages.

We have a virtual treasure of manuscripts of the biblical texts, so much that they dwarf the text of any other ancient writing many, many times over. We also have many modern translations, each with differences in words, sentence structure, phraseology, etc.

The Bible we have is magnitudes more certain in its reliability and integrity than any other ancient text. We can trust that we have a very, very close approximation in the Bible of what was originally said because of the wealth of texts we can compare to each other. But can we say it is 100%, word for word, accurate in every jot and tittle?

Solomon has a “high view” of Scripture, as I do, but he doesn’t necessarily demand, expect, or hold on to it as if every word is accurate (without error). This can be a difficult “concession” for many people who are Christians and believe the Bible must be viewed as 100% accurate in every word and detail.

A “high view” of Scripture, to me, means to view it with the utmost respect, to embrace it as authoritative and inspired, and to study it regularly as food for the soul/spirit, for guidance in knowing and understanding God and His purposes and how to live as one who would follow Christ.

The idea that the Bible is inerrant (without error) is not to be found in the Bible. Rather, we can find in the Bible that it was inspired by God.

All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness….

Most people who claim to be Christians, and some people who don’t, agree that the Bible is inspired. The idea that the Bible was inspired, and inspired by God, is somewhat noncontroversial, but some people take it further: they say that every word in the Bibles we have is from God; they say the Bible is without error; they say the Bible is inerrant (meaning, incapable of being wrong).

We should note, however, when Paul said all scripture is inspired by God, he was likely talking about the Old Testament, as there was no New Testament as we know it when Paul wrote his letter to Timothy. He also doesn’t clarify what he would include in the term, “Scripture”. We have to try to fill in those blanks.

Can we really say the Bible – every word of the text we have today – is 100% accurate to the words that were originally inspired by God, spoken and written down?

Which translation?

In which language?

Maybe there is a reason Paul did not say that Scripture is an accurate, word for word, and verbatim script of God’s words to the people who were inspired to receive them.

Muslims claim that is what the angel Gabriel did with Muhammed. They claim the angel dictated to Muhammed, who wrote down everything exactly as it was spoken to him. The biblical text doesn’t make that claim about itself.

Paul says that Scripture is “beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness“. He implicitly says we can trust it and rely on it. He holds it in the highest regard, but he doesn’t say what we try to claim about the Bible – that it is inerrant.

Maybe we shouldn’t go as far in our claims as we do. In writing this piece, I am not suggesting that we should not trust the Bible or not rely on it. I am not saying we should disregard it or discount it.

I believe Scripture is “alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)

Does it need to be 100% accurate to do that?

Does it need to “inerrant”?

NT Wright makes the bold claim that we have the Scripture God wanted us to have.

Human beings have a strong desire to categorize, define, and reduce to certainty. Maybe we should resist that temptation.

“God’s ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts.” We are finite and limited beings. We will always have a measure of uncertainty. Faith involves placing our trust in what we believe is trustworthy. Faith doesn’t require certainty.

We will never have certainty because we are finite, limited beings. We are not gods, and we are certainly not God.

I realize I have not, perhaps, brought much clarity to the subject. I do have some more thoughts on the subject, including what Peter has to say, and what Peter and Paul say about each other. I will pick up where I leave off here in future writings.