I suppose my first question has to do with systematic theology. Until recently, I would consider myself broadly reformed. At the moment, I just don't know. Recently I've grown so tired of trying to figure things out. It seems that I fall off the horse either one way or another. Whichever book I've read last seems to be the major influence in my life. It seems that everyone has a good argument from the text of Scripture, e.g. Calvinists, Arminians, Baptist, Paedobaptist, etc. I suppose my question would be this: is a systematic theology possible? Why didn't God give us a systematic manual? Why did his revelation come in the form of narrative, poetry, epistle, apocalypse, etc?I want to use this letter as a springboard for a new, brief series on how Christians read and apply the Bible. I base this series on my book, The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible
.
In Blue Parakeet I point to a problem in Bible reading I call "puzzling." The basic idea is this: some people read the Bible with the belief that (1) behind the Bible and (2) in God's real mind there is (3) a complete system of thought, The System, that (4) if we work hard enough at we can find and then (5) we have solved the Bible. Puzzling then is a criticism of a kind of systematic theology, not all systematic theology and certainly not a criticism of theologizing how the Bible presents its ideas.
Now some thoughts:
1. Inherent to this form of puzzling is the unity of Scripture, which I believe in. There's a problem here: for some the "unity" is equated with their "System." This is dangerous for it tends to grant infallible authority to The System.
2. The earliest Christians, read Irenaeus, did not write The System but instead found the unity of the Bible in the basic Plot -- Adam to Abraham to Moses to David to the Prophets to Jesus to Paul etc..
3. The rabbis did not write -- never really have that I know of -- systematic theologies.
4. God did not give us The System but gave us The Books and calls us to read the Books and to do what most of us today call "biblical theology."
5. No System puts it all together and I'm not convinced that many puzzlers recognize the profound incompletion of The Systems that are used. So many texts are wrenched from their contexts, so many texts are simply left out ... I could go on ... The System demolishes the narrative plot, The Story, of the Bible and replaces The Story with a human system.
6. The tendency -- not always -- of puzzlers is to think they've solved the Bible and all its problems and to miss the mystery and the wonder and the delight of The Story. Along with this comes a belief in The System that seems to displace belief in the God of the Scripture and They Story of that Scripture.
I could go on ... perhaps we can have a discussion about this today.
Now some thoughts:
1. Inherent to this form of puzzling is the unity of Scripture, which I believe in. There's a problem here: for some the "unity" is equated with their "System." This is dangerous for it tends to grant infallible authority to The System.
2. The earliest Christians, read Irenaeus, did not write The System but instead found the unity of the Bible in the basic Plot -- Adam to Abraham to Moses to David to the Prophets to Jesus to Paul etc..
3. The rabbis did not write -- never really have that I know of -- systematic theologies.
4. God did not give us The System but gave us The Books and calls us to read the Books and to do what most of us today call "biblical theology."
5. No System puts it all together and I'm not convinced that many puzzlers recognize the profound incompletion of The Systems that are used. So many texts are wrenched from their contexts, so many texts are simply left out ... I could go on ... The System demolishes the narrative plot, The Story, of the Bible and replaces The Story with a human system.
6. The tendency -- not always -- of puzzlers is to think they've solved the Bible and all its problems and to miss the mystery and the wonder and the delight of The Story. Along with this comes a belief in The System that seems to displace belief in the God of the Scripture and They Story of that Scripture.
I could go on ... perhaps we can have a discussion about this today.
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Jonathan Long: "Surely we need our religious beliefs to be coherent, to be free from contradictions! If this is not a precondition for belief, it must be a precondition for apologetics. Isn't it?"
No.
Why do we think it is correct to impose any sort of system on the vast complexity and variety of the Bible's presentation(s) of the Story? It is not correct to say that Story is imposed just as "systems" are imposed. The Bible is. And the Bible is Story. Scot presses us harder by introducing wiki-stories, that is, various authors' offerings of the Story. Why can't they exist as they are even if they seem contradictory? Who says the human created law of non-contradiction is the hermeneutic of the Bible?? To assume the human mind requires that we make harmonious sense of the data is in itself the imposition of human reason on the text and is, therefore, a collapse of faith IMO.
John, in Lutsk, Ukraine
It is my findings that to study any scriptures one has to find the foundation and build their comprehension from it. The Bible's foundation is Genesis 1, 2 & 3. Chapter 1 is the creation of everything beginning with the separation of light from dark on the 1st day while not having a source of light until the 4th. Waters are separated on the 2nd day and again on the 3rd to provide for the formation of land, fish and birds on the 5th and all animal kind on the 6th. It ends with man's diet being from all seeding plants and the other animals' being only vegetation the earth over.
Chapter 2:1-3 reviews the 1st chapter to include a day of rest, 4&5 previews the rest of the book with a need for "a man to til the ground" he does not do until 3:6. It proceeds to form a single man, place it in a territory, provide a fruit diet for it with 2 abstract fruits, life and death or "the knowledge of good and evil", concerns itself with man's loneliness, operates on him without telling it of its happen, then tells then tells them to leave parents [although they know nothing about them being formed from the earth] and live together.
Chapter 3 is what we have come to call the "fall of man" although this second man does not "till the ground" (17-18) until after doing what we call fall. Therefore, if we begin there and (Isaiah 1:18) with what I suggest we find there we will begin to find the key to comprehend the book.
Pivotal points from a historical perspective
Peter has a vision and the ephiphany reveals
God's love for Jews and Gentiles alike.
Changes his ministry and his understanding.
Denominations use specific texts to justify
ritual and emphasis. To baptize or not to baptize?
do we read the OT more or the NT almost exclusively?
To my way of thinking all you have to do is read
and ask yourself.."what is the principle or guidance
behind the story or text?" That is how you find
the timelessness that makes the Bible a living and
sacred document.
I have books that help you to understand the bible. My understanding
is lacking the purpose of the Old Testament. We can study and talk
about it in a group. There is so much to know for more than a life
time of study. We are made in his image. The soul becomes spirit when
the body dies. Wisdom is simpler because ignorance has blinded many
to understand it. Be Humble. Think about it awhile so you can grasp
it.
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