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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 9/8/2005 7:56 AM (GMT -6) |   | Selah-
I think Mephi believes that the Bible contains SOME divine truth and some error, that SOME of it's inspired and SOME of it isn't. What about Paul (2Tim)? He was just wrong. Close, but wrong. At best I suppose Paul could be understood as saying all of scripture across the board is inspired in the sense that each of its books contains some truth for the journey, not that every word of each book is equally inspired or even true.
Any of the authors can be wrong...wrong wrong wrong. And we decide. WE decide for ourselves based on philosophy, science, our own history, archeology, whatever, which parts can be right and which parts are wrong.
I was reading something interesting in Hebrews. Anyone who comes to God must a) believe that God exists, and b) must believe that God rewards those who diligently seek him. Look at that ya'll. I mean think about it. Before the Bible is accepted or any of its truths held to be inspired, a person has already concluded ON GROUNDS OTHER THAN THE BIBLE'S ASSUMING IT that God exists AND God rewards those who seek him. Check that out. So the author of Hebrews is actually confirming the need for and truth of philosophical arguments for God's existence AND a rudimentary theodicy apart from the Bible.
What's that mean? I have no idea.
Tom
Tom
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 9/8/2005 8:08 AM (GMT -6) | | Selah:
No? So if scripture isn't false or a sham, contains holy truth, and is God breathed, then it's just up to each one of us to decide which parts are the true, holy and God breathed parts and which are not? I sure don't want that job. I thought ALL scriptue was God breathed - do you believe ALL of it is God breathed Mephi? (2 Timothy 3:16)
To say that all scripture is inspired and useful for "teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness" is not the same thing as saying that each and every line of scripture is a true, divine edict that must be followed. All may not be taken atomistically, but the whole of the divine story, as inspired by God. Even DOC says something like this when we get to the Psalmist talking about dashing babies heads against stones, remember?
Besides look at some context...NIV
2 Tim 3
1But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.
6They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, 7always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth. 8Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these men oppose the truth—men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. 9But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.
10You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, 11persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. 12In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15and how from infancy you have known the holy scriptures,which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
The whole intent, Selah, is to remain faithful to the knowledge of God in Jesus, the Christ among swirling false teachings. Remember, Paul is the one who argued FROM THE scriptURES that Jesus was indeed the Christ...even as he talked about how the law, good as it is, has been superceded (but not eliminated) by faith in Christ. In my view, Paul is telling Timothy that his knowledge of scripture gives him all he needs to presevere in wisdom regarding his salvation in Christ...and he's saying that God has set up scripture that way.
This is NOT the same thing as the fundies and conservative evangelicals try to say with that one scriptural passage. To say that "all scripture" is God-breathed is NOT directly leading to any doctrine of inerrancy.
Your assumption seems to be that certain passages that may not be literally true, given what we know about the world now were in no way inspired by God when God's servants wrote what they wrote. On what basis would you say that? What assumptions lie under that belief?
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Selah:
Aw Mephi, ALL I'm saying is that most of the time (especially online) it seems as though it's pretty important for you to PROVE that the "author" of the "text" could have been wrong on this or that. It seems so important to you, in fact, that you go as far as to try to argue others into accepting your view. Why is that? Why spent time trying to erode yours or our confident trust in scripture? That's what I don't get.
First of all, the vast majority of the time, all I'm doing here is processing out my own thoughts in a passionate way...throwing up theological ideas to either float or be shot down. I'm not trying to derail anyone's faith. If I were an atheist or unbeliever, I wouldn't waste my time doing that. I'd just be indifferent to the whole thing.
Second, I've been very consistent. Since the very beginning here. It's very important to me that whatever beliefs I believe are 1) internally coherent and consistent and 2) somewhat jive with what we reasonably know about the world. It's also very important to me that we acknowledge AMBIGUITY where it must be acknowledged...without relying on some all-too-soon-pulled "mystery card." I don't disagree with the idea of mystery, because we WILL deal with the incomprehensible, for different reasons. However, it frankly irks the HELL out of me when people make something look simple or even irrelevant when it's implications are really complex and meaningful as hell...OR when someone takes something fairly simple and straightforward and tries virtual plausibility-stretching techniques to bring more complexity while not acknowledging that THAT'S what they are doing. Unfortunately, there is a lot of BOTH in theologizing in general.
Give you an example. The bibliological issue of Paul's likely belief in a historical 7 day creation story with literal Adam and Eve and it's conflict with certain current evangelical options for God's creative activity (ie theistic evolution, progressive creationism, day-age, etc) has ALWAYS been there. It's been the friggin elephant in the room that just doesn't get talked about that much, at least not popularly. I just talk about it, lay it out there, and let chips fall where they may.
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Selah:
For my part, you will never convince me (no matter how smart you are!) that your finite mind can reason and decide on its own whether a biblical author was right about a certain passage or not.
If there is absolutely NO POSSIBLE EVIDENCE that would be able to spur you to question the veracity of a biblical author in ANY case, then what meaning does it have to say that you believe a biblica author is telling the truth?
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Selah:
If I chose to doubt a biblical author's ability to discern truth, surely I would have MORE doubt about my own ability to decide where that biblical author was mistaken and where they got it right. I guess I don't understand how you avoid that issue
WHY is this the case? Seriously. WHAT assumptions do you have that make you give MUCH MORE credibility to the biblical authors than your ability to critically evaluate their claims?
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Selah:
The inconsistent part, IMO, comes when you humbly and passionately preach from scripture AS IF scripture is really true and alive and even vital for us to understand and apply in our own lives. It is precisely because you preach humbly and passionately that I sense that when you are yielded to your own auto-pilot and your Lord... deep down you still believe scripture has innate authority and IS truly God's word.
1) Just like Doc, I hold to scripture ultimately from my experience of and belief in the Risen Jesus. It's authority comes from this christocentric position.
2) There are MANY propositional claims in the Bible that I do believe are true...no least among them is the idea of the Reign of God and how that plays out in the lives of individual believers and the community of believers. As Tom already wonderfully alluded, if we were just to go off the stuff in the Bible that we CLEARLY understand about the Reign of God, and never tried to be "novel" and tickle ears with "fresh words" and new information, we'd still have enough solid spiritual, ethical, and moral content to transform hearts and lives.
3) It is possible to preach a biblical story AS a story...and God, by his Spirit, still works through that wonderfully. I was thinking about when Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil preached a powerful sermon from the book of Esther. Now, most scholars will tell you that it's VERY unlikely that the events of Esther were actually historical. It's a story. But the way she preached from that story touched hearts and minds in a demonstrably powerful way...and the Spirit was all OVER that place. See what I'm saying?
Let's go this route. I may not personally believe in a literal Adam and Eve...but I can still teach little young people using Genesis and other scriptural works that we believe God has created all human beings to have a spirit nature...a spiritual nature which longs to get connected with God's Spirit for empowerment and fellowship. Heh. 
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To all heresy-hunters and general lames...
"I'm connected nationwide, but from the South...
Respect game, and keep my name outcha mouth!"
--adapted from T.I. From P$C's "I'm a King"
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selah
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1210
| Posted 9/8/2005 10:43 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
Selah-
I think Mephi believes that the Bible contains SOME divine truth and some error, that SOME of it's inspired and SOME of it isn't. What about Paul (2Tim)? He was just wrong. Close, but wrong. At best I suppose Paul could be understood as saying all of scripture across the board is inspired in the sense that each of its books contains some truth for the journey, not that every word of each book is equally inspired or even true.
Any of the authors can be wrong...wrong wrong wrong. And we decide. WE decide for ourselves based on philosophy, science, our own history, archeology, whatever, which parts can be right and which parts are wrong.
selah:
yep. Let me show you how deep that slippery slope is.... check it out:
Tom:
I was reading something interesting in Hebrews. Anyone who comes to God must a) believe that God exists, and b) must believe that God rewards those who diligently seek him. Look at that ya'll.
selah:
BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ already you are quoting the bible to instruct us on how to believe about God. Delete. I SAY the "author" of that particular "text" was wrong wrong wrong!! Can't cite it. Can't use it. What did that guy know anyway??? Maybe, just maybe the idea of "believing God exists" was a culturally relative thing that everyone in that day would have surely believed...and God's "reward" is referring to the act of allowing us to live under his glorious power and wrath!
Tom:
What's that mean? I have no idea.
selah:
yes you do.
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Starkman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 9/8/2005 5:32 PM (GMT -6) | | If there is the hand of God behind the compilation of scripture, than it it is a special book. Defining its specialness, however, is what's in question.
If certain things are not historically, archeologically or astronomically correct, the issue, I think, is that we are not dealing with modern western thinking (Hey, Scott, where you been?). I cannot help but see this in the differences between Gen 1 and 2. The author's point isn't to prove anything; it's to say something about the one, true God. The author's use of "history" is for theological purposes, the real details being quite out of reach of our knowledge (we simply don't have the information about what really happened). But the issue is still not "Well, it's either all true or none of it is." That's kind of like bringing a baseball (modern western thinking) into a football game (ANE thinking) and deciding that since the ball isn't fit for the game, the entire concept of football, then, must be tossed out. Rather, learn the game of football a bit better to see why a baseball doesn't work in the game.
scripture is special in many ways (and it's not the point of my post to get into those peculiarities), and, apparently, it has the hand of God upon it; some in the content itself, some in the compiliation and some more directly of the hand of humanity. Just like a sermon should have the Spirit behind it ("Do not worry about what you will say; I will give you words that no man can countest"), exactly how to define this peculiarity, along with the specialness of scripture, is to first say that God is there. He is near; He is not far away. God was near when scripture was being composed and compiled, despite how many authors there were, despite ANE thinking, despite lack of historical, archeological and astronomical exactness. I think we know this MORE in the subjective, as it witnesses to our spirits, than in any discipline's presentation. That's not to say that other religions and their experiences cannot be said to have similar experiences. What worshipers of other religions cannot say, however, is that the clarity of death being conquered by a risen savior is substantial in their religious writings. This isn't even the motif of any other major world religion besides Christianity. Our faith does, in fact, stand or fall on one, true, historical event: the resurrection of Jesus the Christ. Nothing more and nothing less. Here is where the Bible is most special; in God's care and concern to have left us with record of what constitutes the reason for our hope.
Starkman
My teacher used to say that whenever he read Scripture, he would always ask the question, "What does this have to say about the character of God?" Working off his thinking, as I read Scripture, I have come to ask, "What does this have to say about the heart and passion of God's desire for relationship for us?Post Edited (Starkman) : 9/8/2005 5:35:36 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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