Jesus Creed Admin: May 2009 Archives

A few years ago NT Wright published a short book on the authority of scripture: The Last Word: Scripture and the Authority of God--Getting Beyond the Bible Wars.

Scot posted on this book when both the book and his blog were new (about 3 1/2 years ago), but it is worth a revisit in the context of our current discussion of the nature of the Bible as the Word of God. As we discuss an understanding of Scripture using terms such as "story" or "light" or "incarnation" or "accommodation"  we would do well to consider yet another feature of Scripture - the Authority of Scripture - and the purpose of Scripture. Wright's book deals specifically with purpose of Scripture and the nature of Scripture as authority by asking the following questions (among others):

1. In what sense is the Bible authoritative?

2. How can the Bible be appropriately understood and interpreted?

Over the last several posts we have been considering approaches to interpret scripture that take seriously the nature of the text we have, the information from historical and scientific research, and the inspiration of scripture. This is, in my opinion, one of the most significant challenges facing  evangelical Christianity today.

Kent Sparks in God's Word in Human Words (GWHW) suggests that the concept of accommodation - that is God's accommodation to human finite understanding and perspective - can help us understand the nature of Scripture.

In Blue Parakeet Scot presents an approach to scripture that involves reading the text as story - God's story of his interaction with his creation.  But the story is told in different days in different ways and we learn by allowing each human author to speak with his own voice. We need not harmonize the different views.

In his short and very readable book Inspiration and Incarnation (no footnotes!) Peter Enns presents yet another powerful approach to understanding the Scripture that we have as the Word of God. He suggests the use of an incarnational model or parallel. As Christ is fully human and fully divine - so also scripture is fully human and fully divine. And Enns invites his reader to consider an important question:

How does scripture's full humanity and full divinity affect what we should expect from Scripture?

Kent Sparks's book God's Word in Human Words (GWHW) was the subject of a session organized by Peter Enns at the Society of Biblical Literature meeting last November. Dr. Enns has made some of this session available to a broader audience on his blog, starting with his review of GWHW, and continuing with his response and Bill Arnold's response. We also discussed these posts here in parts one and two of this series.

Late last week Stephen Chapman's response to GWHW was posted on Enns's blog.  This is excellent timing. Chapman provides an insightful review that brings up several questions that confront me in reading GWHW. And relevant to our last post on GWHW,  Chapman's review touches on the issue of accommodation in the interpretation of scripture.  You can read Chapman's review for yourself. Here I will highlight just a few of his points and open it up for discussion.

We have been working through Kent Sparks's book God's Word in Human Words (GWHW).  A couple of posts ago (here) I suggested a way of looking at scripture as light rather than foundation; a change in perspective that I think takes some of the stress out of the discussion of the nature of scripture.  Our foundation is God alone. But this is only a beginning.  We still need to wrestle with the nature of God's revelation in Scripture.

In Chs. 4 and 5 Sparks discusses traditional evangelical responses and constructive responses to the problems introduced by biblical criticism. These are interesting chapters. I recommend that you read them, but we won't discuss them explicitly.  Here we will focus on Chs. 6 and 7 - constructive approaches to understanding the nature of God's discourse in Scripture, as we have it before us, as the inspired Word of God.

Sparks starts Ch. 6:

God can and does speak to us in diverse and sometimes surprising ways, including through our reading of books. But the Bible is profoundly unique among books because it is, in its essence, both divine and human discourse. It is the voice of God, but also of Paul, of the evangelists, of the Israelite prophets and sages, and of countless others through whom God has given us Scripture. (p. 205)

But why if scripture is divine discourse is there diversity and apparent human error in the text?

Scot linked to an article earlier this year: Obama moves to separate politics and science.  When Scot brought this up (see here) he emphasized and directed conversation toward the issue of stem cell research - clearly an important issue and one well worth discussion.  The CNN article, and the changes introduced by the Obama administration, encompass more than just this however.  Obama has also moved to  strengthen funding for basic science research, to encourage energy and green research, and to support efforts aimed at environmental reform.  This is a topic that is also worth discussion - although perhaps it will not be quite so heated. It also ties in nicely with the post on Romans 8, Scot's posts on eschatology, Wright's view of our hope - and perhaps even Scot's view of the Kingdom Gospel.

Environmental issues provide an example where the Christian track record is not stellar - in fact, I would say abysmal.  Two factors (greed and faith) have led to a callous disregard for the environment and the care of the earth at times (note added: this is not a Christian problem as much as a human problem, however there are specific "Christian" rationalizations for this disregard).  Certainly many Christians have claimed that, if we are, after all, living in the end times, if Armageddon is coming and the world will end in a firestorm, why worry about pollution, renewable energy, global warming, or acid rain? But if the new creation is not a destruction of the world and the space-time universe - but a healing and a restoration - everything is changed.

What should be the Christian response to the challenges of pollution, global warming, and renewable energy?

And more contentiously - what should the Obama administration be doing about it?  Laws and regulations to promote green practice? Funding for basic research? Incentives for private research and development?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail [at] att.net.

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One of the commonly invoked arguments in any discussion of natural theology and the evidence for God is the Anthropic Principle - or put simply, the fact that the universe in which we live is incredibly finely tuned to support...

We continue our discussion of Kent Sparks's book God's Word in Human Words (GWHW) moving into Chapters 2 and 3:  Historical Criticism and Assyriology and The Problem of Biblical Criticism. Before diving into the topic of Biblical Criticism, Sparks considers...

I don't ever jump in to introduce posts by RJS. But this post today is a summary and sketch of a very serious proposal for how to understand the doctrine of Scripture and our knowledge of Scripture/theology. Give this a...

In a post a couple of weeks ago (here) we opened a discussion on Kent Sparks' thought-provoking, and somewhat controversial book God's Word in Human Words (GWHW). Over the next several posts we will delve into this book more deeply.In...