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Comments on Can We Still Trust God's Word, pt. 3
By Next-Wave Readers

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RickSeelhoff
(9/22/02 12:51 pm)
Reply Re: Bigger is better I wote:

> But it's no substitute for Jesus the Word made Flesh, by
> whom God spoke in these last days so expressively and
> supremely. There's just no compensating for the Spirit's
> absence. Lending the written Revelation godlike attributes
> won't fill that gap, I don't think, and will without a doubt
> make more problems for the Church (and the world) than it
> will solve.

I'd like to elaborate a bit more on this. I just read an article on the Future of Christianity in the Atlantic that pressed home the importance of this issue in very clear terms. Barth's point (which Len pointed out) is critical to answering the question, "Can God's word be trusted?"

"Scripture is in the hands, but not in the power, of the church. The church is most faithful to its tradition, and realizes its unity with the church of every age, when, linked but not tied to its past, it today searches the Scriptures and orietns its life by them as though this had to happen today for the first time." Church Dogmatics, Karl Barth.

In light of that, and to tie it back to the original topic of this thread, I see an underlying assumption inside the question "Can God's word be trusted?", one that that can be drawn out by asking the question this question: "Trusted to do what?"

If the assumption is we can trust the word of God to get everyone in line and on the same page as us, then my answer is, no, the written record alone cannot be trusted to do that. I mean, look around. In order to do that we have to draw some additional authoritive oomph from somewhere - from either ecclesiastical/community structures, or from psychological/mystical influences. The underlying assumption going on there is that it's God who blesses those extra oomphs of power.

But there's an even more basic assumption going on underneath that:

We think we need more power.

So, Why is that? I have to ask. And even more to the point, how exactly does faith in God answer that assumed need?

We pray, "Thine is the power..." What, if anything, do we expect to happen when we pray that? How does that prayer translate to our day-to-day navigation through the cultural currents and relational undertoads and presently prevailing winds of social change?

The Logos of God is "quick and powerful" - alive and dynamic - whenever it's heard.

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it."

It has it's own oomph, in other words. We don't have to add any extra oomph to it. When we do, it's obvious to me that it gets even more out of hand. But more significantly it seems to me it belies a *lack* of faith and trust. Our faith and trust become misplaced by trusting in whatever or whomever provides that extra oomph. Mistaking that extra power as "the Power of God unto Salvation for everyone who believeth" is a most serious and grave mistake, I would think.

God's word will accomplish that which God pleases. The Wind of God blows where it wills. Seems to me it's best to just let it do its thing. Any additional spin we try to put on its trajectory (English? American!) only complicates things. I'm not exactly sure how we do that, but I think it's something we need to acknowledge and consider.

I wonder how much of what we see happening in Africa and South America is due to that kind of tampering with the spin of the Message by emphasizing extraneous powers, powers that would of course appeal to those who are poor and sick and powerless. Did they hear the Gospel? Or a compromised, truncated, embellished and glossed over version of it? What powers were loosed on the lost and needy? www.theatlantic.com/unbou...-09-12.htm

One thing's for sure, it's out of our hands. I have to trust it's in God's; go with His flow with integrity and as much empathy as I can bear. I trust in the Word, but even more in the WORD. There is a very important distinction there, seems to me. A foundational one.

~Rick

gruvEdude
(9/22/02 2:47 pm)
Greetings in the Name of Lord Jesus the Christ!

When we talk to God, we must first realize how worthless we are by ourselves. But with faith in the Lamb of God we can have confidence.

Now when we talk to friends, we talk like our normal selves. We should not treat God less with "Thine is the power..." Believe it or not, God knows that we aren't living in 1611 (I guess someone whom is deceived thinks omniscience isn't so capable.)

It is easier to trust the word of a friend.

From death he did rise and will come again.
Move on with him now to be ready for then.

pastorron
(9/23/02 7:46 am)
If there is no other point of agreement I defintiely agree that the Bible is to be presented in a digestable way to the culture in which we live.

I lose patience with 1611ers who believe that anything more modern is a per-version. I get tired of preachers preaching against the Beatles and hippies in the day of Papa Roach. I have made more than a few of my older congregation squirm by using illustrations from a P.O.D. concert I've seen on TV etc.

Contexutalizing isn't the issue. Faithfulness to the supernaturalness of the Bible is. To quote James White from 'The God Who Justifies' "In the simplest of terms justification (another topic no doubt) is a message based upon the authority of Scripture. Remove that authority and that message loses it's ability to command the hearts and souls of men." --Pg 37.

Jettison the authority, reduce it to allegory, metaphor or poetry and we have nothing of substance to tell the masses.

I think I'm starting to repeat myself.

Later,
Ron

RickSeelhoff
(9/23/02 9:20 am)
Man, you guys are strict! But you sure do have a point - though I'm more comfy with the good old KJV (because I grew up on it and am most familiar with it, not to mention it's the only version on my handy-dandy e-Bible), it's foreignness is off-putting to others. I don't know, though - "Yours is the power" just doesn't carry the same kick for me.

I'd like to point out, though, that the KJV-only rap is basically an appeal to authority from another angle, an attempt to give Scriptures a little extra oomph.

I don't want to reduce it, for heaven's sake, much less take away from the authority it does have, but I don't think acknowledging that Scrtipture is chock full of metaphor and simile and allegory (particularly in its poetry, parables, and narrative) could be called reductionist, neither do I think it takes anything away from its potency.

I got this from another dscussion list I participate in, and would like to return the favor:

From "How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth," by Gordon D. Fee & Douglas Stuart
Pg 189..."Perhaps the most important thing to remember in reading or interpreting the Psalms should also be the most obvious: they are poems--musical poems.

(Previously discussed was the poetry in the prophetic books of the Bible.)

Pg 189-190 "Musical poems cannot be read in the same way that an epistle or a narrative or a section of law can be read. It is intended to appeal to the emotions, to evoke feelings rather than propositional thinking, and to stimulate a response on the part of the individual that goes beyond a mere cognitive understanding of certain facts. While the Psalms contain and reflect doctrine, they are hardly repositories for doctrinal exposition.
It is dangerous to read a psalm as if it taught a system of doctrine, in the same way that it is dangerous to do this with narrative. The fact that the Psalms touch upon certain kinds of issues in their musical, poetical way does not allow one to assume that the way that they express the matter is automatically a subject for rational
debate."

"It is likewise important to remember that the vocabulary of poetry is purposefully metaphorical. Thus one must take care to look for the *intent* of the metaphor."

"It is likewise important that one not press metaphors or take them literally."

"An inability to appreciate symbolic language (metaphor and simile) and to translate into actual fact the more abstract symbolic notions of the psalm could lead a person to misapply it almost entirely."

pg 202 "Those psalms that contain verbalizations to God of anger at others are called imprecatory psalms." The book basically says that these invite us to pour out our emotions to God rather than hurt others verbally or physically. To have our anger but not to sin. (Ps 4:4, Eph 4:25-26)

Pretty cool, huh?

When I think about it, it's interesting to me how the Bible's TOC fell out - the almost purely propositional Proverbs and the philosophical Ecclesiastes is situated
sandwich-like between the poetry of the Psalms and Solomon's Song. The fact that SOS even made the canonical cut has always intrigued me. It's like, what in heaven's name is *that* doing there?

I've heard it said that Scriptures are not transparent, that their resolution happens *outside* the text, in the hearers/readers. Narrative and poetry and parable are literary vehicles designed to invite audience participation and engagement. That's why there's a Talmud. And so many dang commentaries of various and sundry stripes.
So many books. I think it's good to recognize that so much of what we read works more like a mirror than a magnifying glass. All that ink - it works like a very elaborate Rorschach Blot test. Or a very large and very intricate Koan.

Sometimes I look at all the books and wonder; is all that a compensation for the absence of the Spirit? Or does it intimate the Spirit's unvaunted yet still ubiquitous co-operative activity amongst us, indicative of all the hatching going on as the Spirit continues to brood over the face of the deep?

But to your point that if we "remove that authority and that message loses it's ability to command the hearts and souls of men"...

I don't think it ever had or ever meant to have the authority to command the hearts and souls or men in the first place. That's my point. Paul said, "if there had been a law given which could have given life, then righteousness should have been by the law." God commanded, Let there be light! and there was light. God commanded, Be ye holy as I am holy! And there wasn't. But what the Law could not do (due to our weakness) God did by sending us His Son. We have a sure word, for sure, but even more sure we have real blood on the ground outside the gates of Jerusalem and an empty tomb. We believe the testimonies of the witnesses - the testimonies of the witnesses are believeable and authoritive enough without taking the words out of their mouths and attributing them soley and supernaturally to the Voice of God. All that does in the ears of the peanut gallery is add a level of incredulity to the testimony. It doesn't make it more believable. On the contrary it makes it less. Ask anyone. The first order of business is not to convince the hearer that Scripture has godlike attributes any more than the first order of business for the early church was to get a Gentile up to speed by converting him to Judaism. The written testimony can stand on its own - just preach the message. The authority of the Bible is way not the point. The Bible points to Jesus. We're like frisky little puppies who lick the finger that points to the Stick.

It doesn't say God so loved the world he gave us a Bible. It doesn't say the Bible is the way, the truth, and the life. It doesn't say no one comes to the Father but by believing the Bible is dictated word for word and should be read literally cover to cover. It says "Jesus".

Jesus saves. Not the Bible. Faith in Christ, not faith in the supernaturalness of Scripture. The Author, not the Book. That distinction doesn't reduce Scripture's authoritiveness nor its potence, but rather recognizes its proper place. It gives place to the potency of the Spirit. It is the Spirit who authorizes, not the letter.

Faith comes by hearing the word of God, but it's God in Christ who inspires saving faith. Not the words, the Word.

Near as I can tell, anyway.

~Rick

RickSeelhoff
(9/23/02 9:35 am)
Isn't it enough that the written record is *reliable*?

Why does it have to be authoritive? What will "authority" buy us? Think about it. It's an unspeakable treasure already, as it is. Isn't it? It's like telling Marylin Monroe she needs to wear makeup. Gah!

michaeltoy
(9/23/02 10:06 am)

Scene 4: in Shoney's, at the counter, Michael & Ron are drinking coffee and eating pie,

Ron - Contexutalizing isn't the issue. Faithfulness to the supernaturalness of the Bible is.

Michael - Now that is something I can agree on. [ takes a bite of pie ] But we probably don't agree ..., oh this is perfect, ... as long as we each get to define 'supernaturalness' then your statement works as a doctrinal compromise between Evangelicals and Whatever-I-ams

Ron - [ gesturing with his fork ] You are still trying to wiggle out from under the authority of scripture. Jettison the authority, reduce it to allegory, metaphor or poetry and we have nothing of substance to tell the masses.

Michael - [ looks at his plate and shakes his head ] I have as much fervor for the importance of the Bible as you do, and my fervor insists that I let the parts of the Bible that are poetry be understood as poetry and the parts that are metaphor need to be understood as metaphor. Faithful theology demands understanding the genre of each piece of the Bible and using that knowledge as part of the hermeneutical process.

[ Ron watches as the waitress refills his cup ]

Ron - OK, I'll buy that, but what is to stop you from deciding that the whole New Testament is an allegory, or that David is just a mythic king, or that some scripture that interferes with your version of truth is just a poetic utterance?

[ Ron doctors his coffee while Michael pushes his cup forward to get refilled ]

Michael - Let the scholars do their work. I don't get to decide what is poetry, unless there is disagreement among scholars, then I have to pick who I listen to, which is the same as deciding what is true for myself.

[ Michael takes a sip of the coffee, makes a pained face, and reaches for the cream ]

... This is coffee, powerful stuff.

Can I borrow your Bible? [ Ron hands his Bible over to Michael, who flips through it, to the New Testament ] Let me show you a verse I've been stewing on, which I just realized might be useful in this discussion ...

... Here it is, Paul, writing to the Roman Christians, people who had no Bible, ( Romans 15:14 ) "I myself am convinced, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to instruct one another." How did they get that way, without a Bible? All they had was the Old Testament, of which Paul says .. [ Michael flips back a few pages ] Romans 7, I won't read it all, but Paul is saying that law is what brought awareness of sin, it didn't bring goodness. ... I think it starts here [ Michael flips backwards another handful of pages ] ( Romans 1:8 ) " First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world."

I propose it was this faith which made them complete in knowledge, full of godness, competent to intruct one another. Just as [ Flipping forward again ... ] (Romans 4:3) "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness"

[ Looks at Ron, who's attention has drifted to the last bites of his pie. ]

Sorry, I was preaching there, wasn't I?

Ron - Yes, a little. [ Takes the Bible back ]

Michael - Sorry, I just wanted you to see that even as a Bible based believer, you should know that you have a message of power and hope, a thing of substance, that is not the Bible.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Out of gas, apologies to Ron if I put words, pie, or coffee in his mouth if they didn't belong there.

-Michael Toy
Edited by: michaeltoy at: 9/23/02 12:10:59 pm

RickSeelhoff
(9/23/02 10:35 am)

wutchutawkinbout, Willis!

Think I'll take a cue from you, Michael. Your narratiive style is much more easily entreatable than my turgid prose, I see now.

So... could you lend me a buck for a cup of that coffee that looks like you could float a nickel on it?

~Rick

RickSeelhoff
(9/23/02 1:02 pm)
Rick [looking around sheepishly to see if anyone noticed he put his mouth in frenetic motion before he put his right brain in gear, again!]: Um... I have a question?

Ron: Shoot Zeke, the air's full of pigeons!

Rick [much relieved]: Sorry I was so curt in blurting out so dismissively that "More authority?! What will that buy us?" spiel. But while the way it was presented is probably without merit, I think the underlying issue is not. So here's my question:

What's your objective?

Pardon my bluntness, but it's what happens when I lose my wordy cover. I'm wonder if it wouldn't it be better if we got that out on the table before we get into exploring ways of getting there? What do you think?

~Rick [pursing his lips for a blessed moment]

baruch
(9/24/02 4:42 am)
revised Scene: Shoney's

Enter: Baruch who notices an empty seat near where two rather rag-tag looking individuals look like they're engaged in a lively discussion. It's a bit noisy, to be sure, but it's the only empty seat in the whole place. One of them, wearing T-shirt and shorts looks annoyingly laid back, has a mouth full of words, pie and coffee that don't belong there, probably put there by his friend, who has just downed the last bit of coffee in his cup and is about to push his cup forward to get a refill. It looks like good coffee. Baruch grabs the attention of the waitress first, and says: "Gimme what he has, straight, no milk, no sugar."

Ron - ... OK, I'll buy that, but what is to stop you from deciding that the whole New Testament is an allegory, or that David is just a mythic king, or that some scripture that interferes with your version of truth is just a poetic utterance?

[ Ron doctors his coffee while Michael pushes his cup forward to get refilled ]

Michael - Let the scholars do their work. I don't get to decide what is poetry, unless there is disagreement among scholars, then I have to pick who I listen to, which is the same as deciding what is true for myself.

[ Michael takes a sip of the coffee, makes a pained face, and reaches for the cream ]

[Baruch's coffee also arrives]

Michael: ... This is coffee, powerful stuff.

Baruch: I don't know. I've had stronger.

Michael: Can I borrow your Bible? [ Ron hands his Bible over to Michael, who flips through it, to the New Testament ] Let me show you a verse I've been stewing on, which I just realized might be useful in this discussion ...

... Here it is, Paul, writing to the Roman Christians, people who had no Bible, ( Romans 15:14 ) "I myself am convinced, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to instruct one another." How did they get that way, without a Bible? All they had was the Old Testament

Baruch: Hello, I couldn't help but overhear your conversatino. You say, ALL they had was the Old Testament? According to the rabbis of today, and the early disciples and even Jesus, the Torah was the foundation of all the rest.

Michael: What do you mean?

Baruch: They saw three levels of inspiration. The Torah was given to Moses straight from God, and it became the basis on which the Prophets were either accepted or rejected. Next in order was the Prophets, and then the "writings" including the poetic books. That's why they often referred to scripture as the "Law and the Prophets". On that whole foundation, we could say, lie the Gospels, as being the fulfillment of the earlier three, the actual narrative of Messiah's work on earth, and on top of that, the Epistles, as being the explanation and application to church life.

[RickSeelhoff, on the other side of Baruch joins in]

Rick: The rabbis! Didn't they use the King James version?

Baruch: Yes, the Pharisees did, but the Sadducees stuck to Shakespear.

[ Jonbogart, from a nearby table leans his chair back and gives his two cents worth]

Jon: But Neither Peter nor Paul refer once to the gospels. Why is that? They had never seen them. Paul wrote Galatians before the the first Gospel was written.

Baruch: True, but it was floating around in oral form. Long before the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were released, there were documents such as the Dedache, and others that had numerous quotes from Jesus' teachings. Also, there was evidently the Hebrew gospel of Matthew, on which the first three gospels were aparantly based, in part, probably a full running narrative by Matthew which was later cut down and edited. But what they considered important was the Torah. We have it all backwards from how they saw it. We usually consider the Epistles as foundational, and give a bit less importance to the Gospels, and give the least attention of all to the Torah.

Michael: But Paul says .. [ Michael flips back a few pages ] Romans 7, I won't read it all, but Paul is saying that law is what brought awareness of sin, it didn't bring goodness.

Baruch: What did Paul mean when he said "law"? The Greek Bible only has one word, that literally meant "regulation", "law" or "commandment" as we think of it, but was also the word used by translators to mean the "Torah". "Torah", in Hebrew only means "the way of God". When Paul said "law", was he referring to a set of commandments, or was he referring to the Torah as a whole? I believe he did both. When he told the Galations they were "under the law", I don't think he meant they were "students of Torah" or even "Torah observant" in the broader sense, but rather that they were in legalistic bondage to somebody's interpretation of particular commandments in the Torah.

In John 5:46,47, Jesus said, "If you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?" According to Jesus, the Torah is supposed to reveal Jesus. Therefore, if we see the Torah as the basis of all revelation, then all of scripture is supposed to reveal Him.

The trouble is, today, we rarely see Jesus in much of our throwing scripture around.

I think that what we're all trying to get at, here at Next Wave, is seeing Jesus. The Romans obviously saw Jesus in those who brought them the gospel, or was it in the Jesus narrative that they were given in whatever form they received it, or did they pick up the ability to see Jesus in the Torah that they had in their local synagogues, or did they see Jesus in one another? I think they had all of the above. What they had was a foundation, or a "sure word" or "authority" as the gentleman with the pie on his face seems to be arguing, AND a living faith, which as you say made them "full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to instruct one another". It was that environment that gave us the rest of the Gospels and Epistles, but our challenge today, is to keep that enviroment alive (or resurrect it...?) by seeing the whole picture.

Ron: You don't look Jewish ...

[Baruch is distracted by the waitress coming around for refills]

Baruch: I'll have a ham sandwitch please, and can you make the coffee any stronger?

Edited by: baruch at: 9/24/02 8:14:07 pm

baruch
(9/24/02 4:50 am)
Reply bad formatting sorry...some of the formatting got mixed up in the cut and paste of my post just now. A few of the lines got run together. Anyway way that can be fixed?

[the following day]

... there, fixed it. Thank you, Mike.

Edited by: baruch at: 9/24/02 8:17:50 pm

michaeltoy
(9/24/02 9:03 am)
baruch, log in first, then view this discussion. posts that you have made will have "Edit" in the left hand column.

kriviere
(9/24/02 9:32 am)
I'm new to these post-modern arguments. (I've read some of the references to what post-modern means and have not been able to glean much except that it appears to be rejecting previously held truths, though I'm not sure what previously held truths are being rejected. The definitions of post-modern seem about as difficult to pin down as a definition for folk music.)

What I have been reading in regards to scripural authority and interpretation is John Spong and some of the Westar Institute and Jesus Seminar writings. Is anyone here familiar with any of these? Is this post-modern crowd among those who decry these sources as heretical or do people here feel there is any validity to what they say? Should this be taken into a different topic or section of this forum or can it stay here with other discussion of how to read the bible? If you need to know more about Spong, etc. in order to better respond to this question then let me know and I'll try to outline some of what they say.

-kriviere

dealingwith
(9/24/02 5:54 pm)
Folk music! Finally, somebody's talking about something I could give a @#%$ about!

baruch
(9/24/02 6:37 pm)
Kriviere's first querie, what's Postmodernism...

From what I can glean so far, it's not so much defined by what Bible doctrine one decides to reject, but breaking free of "Modern" thought.

I used to think that "modern" simply meant "right now", or "up to date". Therefore, "postmodern" ought to mean something that's not yet. However, somehow, in the last hundered years or so, "Modernism" came to mean a apecific train of thought that assumes that modern man is enlightened, and can think his/her way to all the answers in the universe, and that one day, all will be explained through science/theology/enlightened thought, and made to fit into a nice neat package. Because somebody, somewhere, saw fit to label all of that as "Modernism", probably assuming that one can't get any more up-to-date than that; the present generation, in begging to differ, saw fit to coin the word "Postmodern".

As for the second question of who's....who? Probably to early to profess ignorance on that subject just yet.

kriviere
(9/24/02 7:41 pm)
OK, so postmodernism is a rejection of modernism. But most of what I've seen discussed in this thread has been about more traditional, fundamentalist theology versus what I thought sounded something like modernism. So how is postmodernism different from just a rejection of new thoughts. That sounds like it would be comparable to a Ludite reaction if we were talking about technology. A return to the faith of our fathers rather than moving beyond the new ways of thinking. What am I missing here, because I got the sense that people were seeing the postmodern movement as moving beyond modernism, but I don't see where there is forward movement except to be proud to state what people believe and who cares what the modernists say about it.

I've heard Spong and others called Progressives. Are you familiar with this as a description? How would you distinguish it from postmoderns?

charleswear
(9/24/02 10:18 pm)
I am not signing up here to give a seminar in postmodernism, however, let me take a brief crack at it. Postmodern means "after modern". The way it is used on Next-Wave and in contemporary culture and philosophy classes is to describe how cultural and philosophical attitudes have shifted away from the rationalism of modernism.
I don't like labels like, postmodern Christian, postmodern movement, or postmodern churches because they are not really very descriptive and I don't think they are very accurate. For instance, if one uses the term postmodern movement, it assumes that postmodernism is like, for example, the Civil Rights movement in America, a group of people trying to change societal norms and behavior. It is more accurate, I think, to say postmodernism describes a cultural and philosophical shift which has occurred, in essence, while no one was looking.
If when one uses the term postmodern church, one means a church that is targeted to bring the message of Jesus to postmodern culture, then I guess that is ok.
I think a more comfortable term for me is emerging churches, that is, a different way of doing church, attempting to engage the postmodern culture and bring God to those who operate with a postmodern mindset.
I understand that I haven't attempted to define what that means, the difference for instance, between modern mindset and postmodern mindset. If you are interested, just search the next-wave web site using the term "postmodern". You will find lots of writing on that subject.
If you were to read this thread in particular, I think you would get a good example of what happens when modern mindset meets postmodern mindset....even though it is in the context of Christians discussing the use of the Bible to engage culture.
Interestingly, those who are writing more from the postmodern context have attempted to bring the creative into the discussion, with pubs, adult beverages, Shoney's and lots of pie as the setting.
[Charlie pauses to take another sip from his Diet Coke, his drink of choice since he likes to continually kid himself that he is on a diet]
"Hey guys, wait a minute, I didn't mean to clear the room." :D

[The discussion continues here...]

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