GAFCON participants have been organized into about 6 different workshops. I’ve fortunately been placed in the workshop that has to do with scripture. The first session was led this morning by Dr. Mark Thompson from Sydney. He discusses the nature of scripture, its clarity, its truthfulness, and its place in the church. These are my notes from his talk. It was brilliant and incredibly encouraging. I hope GAFCON will post his transcript:
What is the place of scripture and how can we read it responsibly?
The question facing Anglicans: Will we stand with scripture and what is revealed there.
4 presentations:
1. The nature of the bible.
2 Authority of the bible
3. Interpretation of the bible
4. Importance of the bible in our churches as pastorsIn addition: on the first three days there will be an opportunity for hands on work on our own to see how it fits together.
Basic question: What is the bible?
1. What we do with the bible cannot be separated from what we believe about it.
What is so special about the bible?
There are so many other books, so many other sources of knowledge, why this book? Why is what is said here more important than the consensus of the culture? Why should I be willing to stand on the scriptures when my culture pushes another way? Why should we be willing to be divided from others in the culture and others in the Church of the Good Shepherd?
Why do we say that even the councils of the church must be tested or measured by what we see in scripture? Why must all church decisions be tested by the bible?
Why must we allow the bible to stand over and correct and possibly rebuke other bodies? Why should it be privileged over my own ideas, commitments, and experience?
The answer to all of those questions lies ultimately in who God is and what he is like and how he has acted in the world. The living God is a God who speaks. This reality is fundamental to the scripture’s revelation of God. God speaks and things come into being. God brings about his purpose through the word. He speaks and his word changes things. This is the difference between the true God and the false idols of other nations. Only the true God speaks.
Jeremiah spoke of the gods of the nations who are like scarecrows who cannot speak. The writer to the Hebrews sums up the way God dealt with his people…He once spoke through the prophets now he speaks through his Son. The living God speaks
It is also clear that he uses human words. Language is God’s creation and gift to us. God speaks to Adam in words Adam can understand. Adam does not need to struggle with interpretation. God’s word is not given to anyone in scripture in some cryptic mysterious way. He speaks in human words and he is understood. The same was true in the ministry of Jesus.
God does things. He shapes and directs the world he has made. God does this, says the bible, through speaking transformative and powerful words.
Some are willing to grant his but they still have problems with the bible.
They suggest that writing came later as the work of humans as they thought back in what they heard. And yet in the bible it is God who makes the transition from the spoken word to the written word. God gave Moses tablets of stone written by the finger of God. They are God’s own words. Moses did not just come up with the idea of writing down these things. God is the one who shifts from spoken tot written word.
We should never allow someone to present to us “God Speaking” as an alternative to the bible.
Joshua was promised to have the presence of God with him at all times and yet at the same time he was commanded to study and adhere to the book of the law. There was no tension between God’s presence and God’s words.
God’s Word spoken or written has unique authority. God’s words make things happen. They nourish God’s people.
Jesus makes this plane: Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God
Luther: the Christian can live without anything but the word of God
God’s words are uniquely authoritative. They are in themselves relevant. They do not need to be made so. The God who made us also inspired these words. They are not lifeless words. They do not need to be made effective or powerful so that they might work. As the rain and snow come down from the earth…so shall my word be it shall not return to me empty…
So where have we come so far. The living God speaks, he has no difficulty speaking in human words even after the fall, he is heard and understood. Because they are God’s words they have unique authority. They are always relevant and always effective
But is the bible the word of God? Is the OT and the NT the word of God.
We need to turn to Jesus to answer that question. He is the one who reveals the Father, accomplishes our redemption and will reign in the end. He should be at the center of our understanding of scripture
Jesus in the wilderness quoted the OT as the definitive answer to Satan: It is written
Later in his disputes with the Pharisees, he referred to the OT as God’s Word without any hesitation.
When he taught the two followers on the road to Emmaus, he taught directly from the OT prophets and psalms.
Just as Jesus determines our attitude toward the OT he should also determine our understanding of the NT
Jesus promises to send his spirit to the disciples and to remind them of all he says and they were to take his words to the ends of the earth to the ends of the age. He commissioned them to teach his word and to proclaim what the spirit would reveal
Their words them are his words. It is then ridiculous to suggest that we must choose between the words of God and the words of the bible
The bible gives us true human words which all ultimately originate with God. It is important to stress both dimensions.
The scriptures are genuinely human words intended to convey meaning as any other human words do. They reflect the personality of those who wrote them. They are not magical words that fell out of the sky. They are real human words and we are intended to understand and read them as we do any other human words
We do this every day in conversation and in reading any other book or work. WE need to take the human dimension seriously. We need to take seriously their place in God’s unfolding purpose.
We read the bible like any other book because these are human words. But that is never enough it is only part o the story. These words originate with God and they are in the end the words God wanted us to read. God did not bypass the mind or personality of these writers, but the God who made these men ensured that what they freely wrote was what he wanted us ti read and hear proclaimed. The words we have are God-breathed and inspired. Paul in2 Tim 3 says all scripture is inspired and profitable.
However the words might have come to us, eyewitness testimony, the gathering of sources, letters, a record of a vision…what we have has its origin with God. The men were moved by the spirit so what they produced was what God wanted us to have. God did not dictate these words in the way in which a politician might dictate to a personal assistant. But neither was he a spectator who wondered what might be written next
These words communicate effectively because they are genuine human words and they bear the authority of God because they are his words that he inspired and that he wanted written. They speak of God to us, of what he has done for us, and how we ought to live as a result
That’s why the 39 articles in article 20 the bible is referred to as God’s Word written.
I’ll give you an opportunity to ask question s in a moment
What difference does all this make? The way we use the bible arises from the way we think about the bible.
If all that I have said is true, then how does this effect the way that we use the bible in our churches. I want to suggest five principles:
1. The way we use the bible is shaped by what we think the bible is. Every hermeneutic presupposes a doctrine of scripture. We can only dismiss the bible if we think we have a collection of purely human words, words of men that make mistakes like we do. But if we believe that we have God’s Word written, then taking it seriously is how you take God seriously. God who knows the need from the beginning, when he speaks we cannot afford to dismiss or ignore or correct his words. Certain ways of using the bible are ruled out from the start once we recognize that we are dealing with the word of God
2. Our view of the bible is tied to our understanding of God. Is God able to make himself known? Is he capable of communicating his will? Can he speak truly and yet in a way we understand? What we say about the bible has consequences for what we say about God. If the bible is limited by the culture of the 1st century, then what are we saying about God? If it has mistakes what are we saying about God? If it is confused and ambiguous what are we saying about God?
3. If God has spoken then the proper response is to trust God and what he said. The God who speaks is the one who created and redeemed. We know how good God is. We know we can trust his promises. WE can trust his commands as the only way to the blessed life. This is what faith is and that is the proper way to respond to God’s word. Abram heard a promise from God, trust that promise and was credited with righteousness. Faith toward God and a life of obedience in the world that is the way to respond to God’s word. Think about Eden. What was the strategy serpent employed…to cast doubt or distrust in the goodness of God and the goodness and reliability of his word.
4. Since what we have is the word of God in human words we can have confidence as we come looking for the truth about God and about life in God’s word. What God has caused to be written for us is written for our God. As Paul said, whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction so that we might have hope. We can have confidence in the goodness of the bible and the clarity of the bible. He will not leave us in the dark or leave us confused. We can be confident that his word is sufficient and true. He has given us the whole bible in order to understand individual passages. He has given us teachers and congregations to help us understanding. He has given us his spirit, the same Spirit through which he inspired the text. The Christian attitude toward scripture is confident and not confused because we have human words that originate with a good God, our father, the Father of Jesus Christ.
5. God is actively involved as his word is read today as he was actively involved when it was written in the past. When I read a novel most of the time the person who wrote the novel is not in the room with me. But the bible is never read when the Spirit of God is absent. God attends his word today. He speaks the same word to us that he spoke to the first disciples. God will say to us what his word says again and again afresh in every age. God is not an absentee. He is actively involved. WE read his word in front of him and in his presence. We cannot treat his word is something we can set aside and take tangents in our teaching and preaching.
The big first question to be asked is: “Just what is the bible?” Whatever we say will have implications for how we use the bible. The bible itself gives us the answer
Jesus Christ endorsed the OT as the written word of God and he endorsed his apostles to engage in the testimony that would result in the NT. In these genuinely human words that have their origin in God we have a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. There is every reason to stand with the bible over our culture, to Satan with the bible over church bodies and leaders, to stand with the bible over against my personal experiences, ideas and impressions.
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The promises of God never fail to enlarge my spirit. Some can be found here.