Quote:
Originally Posted by zeek
. . . if, for example, someone tried to reason from the words of a false prophet or a genealogy or a parable in figurative language. So, if possible, it would be helpful if there were some general principle to guide when Biblical statements can be applied as factual premises and when they can't.
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This, in a nutshell, is he problem with most claims of an entirely logical, factual, and self-interpreting scripture. And what makes it such a problem is that so much of what we call theology is written as part of a narrative of real life. Even the figurative language is describing life, not defining theology.
(I am working with a sticking keyboard and if something reads funny, it may be that here is another word that has a "t" in it that did not get that t.)
Of course, there are some parts that are more direct. The giving of he law is an excellent OT example. And much of the teaching of Jesus, while not always spelled-out in a manner than can be called a comprehensive discourse on the topic, did take the vagaries of the OT law and give it a human face. Some direct statements of "do this" or "don't do that," but still not comprehensive.
Paul and the others come along and begin the job of interpreting. They take specific questions, issues, events, and walk the believer toward righteousness. Sometimes in a direct manner, but sometimes just in a picture.
So anyone who declares that the Bible is it and all we need misses that the Bible speaks differently to each of us. Not necessarily because it actually says all the things we say it does, but because it says what we interpret it to say. I am not inferring that the Bible actually says many of the things we think it says. But for my purposes, or for the purposes of the group that will hear he speaking of any particular person (elder, preacher, evangelist, etc.), the Bible says what is found in it by the one who is reading it.
That does not make the Bible without anchor. It makes our reading without anchor. It has the potential to make "me and my Bible" one of the most divisive and spiritually dangerous things for the life of any Christian. And we have seen what it does to a group of Christians who are following only one reading by one person.
The hope for all of us is that we are with people who are not simply of one mind on everything and therefore take the first thing that comes along, or defer to any one person just because of some real or perceived credentials. Instead we need the openness to speak of what we read and see. To sharpen each other. To be open to consider what another says without despising our own contribution. Through the Holy Spirit, the truth will prevail.
And do we have the willingness to be pat of such a group and never actually see all things in exactly the same way, yet be willing to say that "it seems good" to abide by a common understanding. Not saying to forget the question; or the difference of opinion. But recognize where the importance of he opinion ends and where unity begins.
The problem with most kinds of systematic theology is not that it gets things wrong and is dogmatic about it anyway. The problem is that it makes so much of it overly important and so rigid. I will confess that I believe most of what they teach at Dallas Theological Seminary, one of the bastions of Calvinist, dispensationalist theology. I have attended churches for 27 years with pastors who taught at or otherwise came from that great school. But I don't agree with them on everything. But what I disagree on isn't worth a fight.
That is the reason that I have been more considerate of the parts of Christianity that the evangelicals like to ignore. The Methodists, Lutherans, Anglicans, even RCC and EO. I believe that there are problems in varying degrees in each of these, but wonder if the wall that we put up when even considering them is not just as much an error on our part. I physically pass four other churches on my way to my meetings each time. I'm sure that there are some others just a block or so out of the way that I do not see. Baptist, Church of Christ, another Bible church, and an RCC. How do I consider them as I pass if at all)? Do I consider there error, or pray for the people that they shepherd? Do I see them as problems for the testimony of Christ, or as brothers and sisters in that testimony?