Tag: scripture

What is this book?

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Of course I have could have entitled this post ‘what are these books?’ but regardless of choice of title we still run into issues. What books should be included? We operate with 66 books with a firm line around them so that none others can enter – but other traditions use a different set. I have always struggled with the arguments that inevitably use various in- (fallible / errant) words to defend a doctrine of Scripture. Each lecture I sat through no New Testament introduction had to prove that the authorship was ‘apostolic’. I suspect that in part fuelled the view that became reasonably popular in the more-academic charismatic circles that the Old Testament prophets spoke the very words of God and the New Testament prophets were not at that level… the New Testament apostles being the counterpart of the Old Testament prophets. I have never driven a bus but I think without any training I could drive right through that without hitting anything! It all ends up so convenient; the church is built on the foundation of the prophets (=OT) and apostles (=NT)! Built on a book or on the lives of those who provoked people to follow the ‘Lamb wherever the Lamb goes’?

Yes Houston we have a problem.

The ‘canon’ is a problem that I do not think can ever be fully bottomed out. Not too different to that the Jews faced. They had books / scrolls, but it might surprise us if we were able to find out which books Jesus read. Maybe 1 Enoch was in there – a book that definitely does not go back to Enoch, not at any level in spite of being quoted as ‘Enoch the tenth from Adam said…’ No. It seems that the Jews formed – or moved toward forming a canon pretty much to exclude other writings, probably the list to be excluded included some of what we term the ‘New Testament’. There are other ‘gospels’ out there that are not included. Some might contain authentic sayings of Jesus, but…

I am very happy with the 66 we got! I treat them as authoritative (and inspired) in a way that I don’t treat other incredibly helpful (and inspired at a level) pieces of writing. The practical issue is the interpretation of what is written.

The first incredibly helpful presentation I heard on the authority of Scripture was from a youngish-definitely-up-and-coming person who went by the name of Tom Wright. (This was 1989; he has become fairly well-known globally since – his writings are more widespread even than mine!) He suggested that the authority of Scripture lay in its narrative and suggested if a lost (and unfinished) Shakesperean play had recently been found it might be a good analogy to the book(s) we have.

The play in 5 parts with:

  • Act 1 being that of origins / creation
  • Act 2 that of the Fall / falls
  • Act 3 Abraham and the historic people of God that we read of in what we term the OT
  • Act 4 being centred on Jesus, and
  • Act 5 being the opening scenes of the New Testament and the spread of the message… then the script is clearly unfinished although within the existing texts there are ‘hints’ where the play will end.

Wright put forward that the authority of Scripture is the narrative with the centre being Jesus.

I have suggested we could have three responses to the ‘Shakesperean’ story:

  • We realise the value of the writing, store the script in a museum and organise regular lectures on the play, its historical context etc.
  • We draw together experts who could ‘write’ the missing part and through their knowledge enable us to have in our hands a completed play.
  • We bring together Shakesperean actors who immerse themselves in what we have, rent a theatre and let the play roll. When the original script runs out just let them carry on with no predetermined script nor action.

Those three options do not have to be totally exclusive one of the other, but the priority has to be the third option. The theatre – our world; the actors – well these are not professionals, but are from the ‘not many…’ group! Passionate about the story, learning to act, react, speak, listen, challenge, making mistakes, but increasingly with a passion for the narrative and wanting to move the story forward toward the hints (‘new creation’) that are within the existing script. Acting ‘under’ the story, motivated by the Spirit, and with an eye on where the narrative is headed.

It does not answer all the issues of ‘canon’ or in what way are the texts ‘inspired’, but maybe that model describes what we do have before us and how we should respond to it. All our attempts to tie up the loose ends probably only take us to places that are unhelpful. ‘All Scripture’ (and what did that mean in the context of that text???) ‘is inspired… and is useful‘. That would not make for a very long lecture if that was the extent of what we had to say on our doctrine of Scripture. But once we make statements beyond that (the ‘Chicago statement on Biblical Inerrancy’ (1978) for example maybe did not give us much material to enable our response to the Bible to be useful but certainly gave us material to argue with others!) we run into the favourite land that Protestants / evangelicals have inhabited: ‘I am right and you are wrong’. Now all readers of these posts know I am right(!!) but (sadly) I discovered years ago that being right did not seem to be high on God’s agenda as a goal for my life. ‘Being perfect as My Father in heaven is perfect’ was certainly nearer the goal for my life! And that perfection (in the context where Jesus made that statement) was to do with how I related to others. Inspired and useful. (Maybe useful should be translated ‘will nail you down’?)

Subsequent to reading Tom Wright’s narratival approach I discovered the Anabaptist ‘Jesus hermeneutic’. Scriptures are not at the centre, but Jesus is, therefore the Gospel accounts of Jesus are not subject to the clever theology of the letters but rather the other way round. I am not a Marcionite (see last post: the god of the Old Testament is not the God of the New) but to give a hint of where I will be headed in future posts – not everything declared about God / what the text implies are an accurate reflection of who God is.

Jesus is the express image of the invisible God.

I am not Barthian (apologies to all the current wave of Trinitarian writers) but his description of the three-fold dimension of the ‘word’ of God is helpful. Our speech (or for Barth ‘preach’) that is based on Scripture that bears witness to the revealed word of God in Jesus. If we wish to use inspired, inerrant etc. with capitals we reserve that for Jesus – although even he had to ‘learn’.

So far then my overall approach to Scripture is both that of narrative and that it has to pass through the ‘Jesus lens’ to be authoritative! For example the patriarchal parts? No they don’t pass.

I have not resolved everything but have noticed recently that there are some YouTubes and articles on ‘how reading the Bible made me an atheist’. We could certainly add to that ‘How reading the Bible made me a religious bigot / hate anyone different / afraid of the world / want Palestinians to be wiped out…’

We do have (a) difficult book(s).

I write this glad that we have the NT. One of my readings this morning was:

Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

Useful. Now it requires me to align, for ‘we are NOT justified by faith alone!’

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A little Scripture helps the ‘medicine’ go down

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

I have been provoked by the quoting of Scripture in the mouth of ‘the adversary’ when confronting Jesus in the temptations. Three intertwined temptations related to mammon, religion and power. Interrelated because they impinge on one another, and are seldom ever totally separate. The Scriptures are a dangerous set of writings as can seemingly bend them for my own purposes. The three take place in three separate locations: the wilderness (the journey through with enough but not an over-abundance) hence a good place to throw the temptation of abundant provision; the high mountain to see whatever oikoumene (imperial domain) might be appealing to us to be the king of the castle over; and then the Temple (religious context) – the context in which the Scripture was quoted by the adversary.

In Revelation (the book that corrects our sight) the wilderness was the place where Babylon was manifest (Rev. 17:3) to John; unless we learn how to navigate the wilderness it is unlikely we will see Babylon manifest. Likewise it was at the top of the mountain that John saw the New Jerusalem come down (21:10) and we are going to be tormented by the seemingly eternal existence of Babylon unless we can refuse status, domination and hierarchy.

So to the temptation where Scripture is quoted:

Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written,
‘He will command his angels concerning you,’
    and ‘On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’ ”

This is the temptation in the temple. God is with you in a unique way. Always this is what seems to be the signs that surround those who can tell us the way to go. God is with them, thus proving they are beyond me. Or… God anoints the person who is embodying the great rejection of heaven (the king); the disciples (not the 11 but the 12) come back with ‘even the demons are subject in your name’. Says a lot about God; does not speak about the approval of deviant behaviour or position.

There are those who carry the presence of the Lord in unique ways – that is the nature of the anointing… but super-stardom is not the way of the kingdom.

One of the big concerns I have is when the three temptations come together in a way that ‘a three-fold cord is hard to break’… Economic promise, political power and religious uniqueness, then add to that the quoting of Scripture. Warning bells sound!

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Not always clear

Beyond the text

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Ever since I was a kid I was taught to read the Bible, the simple Bible stories that still stick with me. At night my mother taught me and then told me to pray ‘me bonnie words’, which was a simple prayer from the verse of a hymn. Level of understanding – minimal to start with. Then through the more adult phase of my life had only one approach to Scripture and it all (had to) fit together, perhaps with a few tensions but certainly no internal disagreements. (Confession always found a lot of the ‘Old Testament’ difficult; there was an early church leader, Marcion (85-160AD), who posited that there were two revelations of ‘god’. The God of the Gospel who sent Jesus was the true God, the one of the Old Testament not the true ‘God’ but a ‘demiurge’. I certainly don’t think he got it right, but he has my sympathies!)

Marcion was wrong, but we all have to find some kind of solution, unless the solution is that the revelation of God in Jesus was temporary, and we all await the day of (violent) vengeance when the God that Jesus hid from view is revealed! The post I wrote on Jesus (because) he was God emptying himself sought to show that Jesus was the express image of God; all Christophonies are Theophanies. There is not a non-Jesus like God.

Scripture makes us work. We cannot always just take every word as if they are the ‘words’ of God. The book, and above the book, the story that unfolds I have no trouble giving to it the title ‘word of God’, provided we understand that the ‘word of God’ (Scripture) is bearing witness to the ‘Word of God’ (Jesus).

(After I had written this post an excellent, and creatively written, post was put up by Brad Jersak ‘Reading from the End (with children)’):

https://peteenns.com/reading-from-the-end-with-children/

Disagreement, discussion, enter the dialogue

I think Scripture does not shrink back from disagreement, and invites us into the disagreement. It does not give the answer, but presents the issues, then as we submit to the wider story, and the revelation in Jesus, we will come out of it with our conclusion. And if it is a theoretical conclusion, particularly if we hold to a perspective but do not truly submit to it, we should rightly expect to remain confused. Scripture is useful. It is so far beyond theory.

Disagreements? Well try to put the three books of wisdom together – Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes. One is so principled and is the one we love to quote, for there are no exceptions. With the second one, at least we get a look behind the scenes and can decide Job’s troubles (exceptions) were a manifestation of heavenly conflict. The third one… all is vanity? Better to be dead? Not words pulled out of the first book, Proverbs! But the three open up a window on our complex world and context. (Personal confession: I much prefer Proverbs… much easier to pray from that one!)

Disagreements? Well what about the anointing of a king? So much of the Old Testament, certainly what is written / edited after the rebellious northern kingdoms got their comeuppance through the Assyrians is solidly pro-kingship. Judges – ‘there was no king in the land’ – presents the problem to us, with the solution simply being that all we need is a decent king. Indeed someone even cheekily put a few words into Moses’ mouth, and really into God’s mouth, about the king, long before there was a king:

When you come to the land the Lord your God is giving you and take it over and live in it and then say, “I will select a king like all the nations surrounding me,” you must select without fail a king whom the Lord your God chooses. From among your fellow citizens you must appoint a king—you may not designate a foreigner who is not one of your fellow Israelites. Moreover, he must not accumulate horses for himself or allow the people to return to Egypt to do so, for the Lord has said you must never again return that way (Deut. 17:14-16).

But, but, but the choice of a king was a rejection of God (1 Sam. 8).

God, the law and the death penalty

Then there is God, who really messes things up for us. The death penalty was prescribed for 38 crimes in the Old Testament, murder of course being one of them. So when we read of the first recorded murder (Cain) and that the murderer is confronted by God himself, we should expect a clear result! But… the result was that God covered the murderer with a protective sign. In reality God disobeyed his own law… or we presume that the law is not the law of God, not in an absolute sense, and it seems clear that Jesus came at it that way.

The prodigal son prodigal father

The parable has been understood to be the prodigal son parable and that supposedly speaks deeply to us. If we make it the parable of the older brother it would probably speak to us even deeper, with our sin not being the issue but ‘our’ righteousness. That would be just a little painful to read it that way… though look at the context and see how it is set in the space between the ‘sinners’ and the ‘Pharisees and scribes’. However, there is a third character in the story…

Think about the father, and I don’t think there is much disagreement when we consider this to be a picture of the ‘heavenly Father’. First let’s establish the biblical requirement of a good law-abiding, righteous parent:

If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father and mother, who does not heed them when they discipline him, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town at the gate of that place. They shall say to the elders of his town, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” Then all the men of the town shall stone him to death. So you shall purge the evil from your midst; and all Israel will hear, and be afraid. (Deut. 21:18-21)

The son in asking for the inheritance is (culturally) saying he wishes the father dead. The rebelliousness of the younger son is evident throughout the parable, and so the son qualifies to be given a good old beating by the elders while the father looks on with approval, indeed to be put to death. With this biblical backdrop we meet the father that Jesus presents as the real ‘prodigal’ character in the story. He runs? Never, would that happen. That would be a disgrace, what a loss of dignity, how undermining to the family, how ultimately destructive to the fabric of society. The shocking nature of the parable is hard for us to grasp, but would not have been missed by the hearers in their contextual culture.

And this is God!!!!

A simple textual approach gets us so far, and many times the revelation of God in Jesus will cause us to struggle with certain texts. We have to. I cannot reconcile many of them, but I am thankful that I was not encouraged to understand them but there is something overarching them all with the exhortation that I am to ‘try and find out what pleases the Lord’. That word ‘try’. Those are the kind of words that helps me to love what I read.

I said when I was a kid my level of understanding was minimal. In some ways that has not changed. I probably should pray ‘me bonnie words’ again:

Gentle Jesus, meek and mild
Look upon this little child.
Pity my simplicity,
help me Lord to come to thee. 

Not a bad prayer! Don’t know too much, but in it all and through it all help me find you.

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