Three Truths of Biblical Study
As I begin this, I would lay out my position on biblical study. Not that it is better that anyone elses, but I have been asked many times about it and it is just what I use to approach the text.
1: God can make his Bible anyway He wants.
God is not limited to our understanding of text and language. He is quite capable of using contradictions and contrasts to teach thinking believers what he wants them to know.
2:We have the Bible that God wants us to have.
The Bible text has changed a great deal over time, especially in the last 200 years as more and more critical scholarship was brought to bear. This has often gone too far - such as the notorious Jesus Seminar - but has also given us the best, most researched Biblical text the world has ever known. This is not an accident.
3: God is not afraid of the Truth.
God is not worried about what we are going to discover in His Word. Such hesitation is tempation and dross. We should embrace principled skeptics - not cynics - and always be willing to see new truth in the text.
1: God can make his Bible anyway He wants.
God is not limited to our understanding of text and language. He is quite capable of using contradictions and contrasts to teach thinking believers what he wants them to know.
2:We have the Bible that God wants us to have.
The Bible text has changed a great deal over time, especially in the last 200 years as more and more critical scholarship was brought to bear. This has often gone too far - such as the notorious Jesus Seminar - but has also given us the best, most researched Biblical text the world has ever known. This is not an accident.
3: God is not afraid of the Truth.
God is not worried about what we are going to discover in His Word. Such hesitation is tempation and dross. We should embrace principled skeptics - not cynics - and always be willing to see new truth in the text.
posted by JCH | 11:29 AM
1 Comments:
Would we agree that the medium is not the message? The text is the vehicle to deliver God's inspiration into us. "All scripture is inspired by God...." God provides the inspiration for the words to mean what He intends us to understand. To those who have not received the inspiration thru His Spirit, the book is a set of parables. To those who have been given the inspiration, there is a meaning (or, there are meanings) communicated. Thus as you say God is not limited by our understanding of text and language, and we are not limited by our scholarship, and God is not worried by our misunderstanding of text -- because He will provide the understanding to those who ask Him.
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