First off, sorry for taking so long to tie this up, I got distracted, it happens. Secondly if you want to see the first there parts click on them here: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three. Thirdly, I am currently reading a book called Money, Greed, and God by Jay Richards, and I will write a book review on it and after that I will begin "reviewing" another more ancient book by the name of The Gospel of St. Mark. Finally, please, please, please comment your thoughts on this. You don't have to agree with me to post and I appreciate differing view points.
So a few months ago, I read an article from the religion section of the Huffington Post which I find quite enlightening, not the Huffington Post in general, but the religion section of the Huffington Post. Anyway, I don’t remember much about the article, but I do remember that it prompted me to post something on Facebook that went something like this, “Those who open their Bibles to find answers will find the answers that THEY seek. Those who open the Bible to ask questions will find the answers that HE gives. Just ponder that for a few moments.”
What I meant by this is that when one searches for a certain topic in scripture, they can often find exactly what they want to find. If they want to find what God has to say about salvation they can find all the verses on salvation, then read each individual verse, and then pick out the verses that fit best their thinking on the issue. The result of this is that the person does find the answer that THEY were seeking. However, in finding the answers that THEY were seeking, THEY often force the Bible to conform to THEIR own view of the world and in doing so we end up with a distorted gospel.
However, when a person allows the scriptures to give then the answer that GOD desires, their view of the gospel there is likely to be distorted. In order for a person to do this they must attempt to attempt to take their worldview out of the equation. Now this can never be done completely, but it can be attempted, and in attempting to do so two things do occur. First, a person will be able to better recognize when they are distorting the scriptures with their own world view, and secondly they are more likely come out with a better understanding of scripture. But to do this, one must come at the scriptures with questions such as: what is the point of this passage? What did the author want to say? Why did he say this? Why was it important for him to say this? What aspect of God is he trying to get at? To whom was the author saying this to? Etc. The result of this is that the person ends up being formed by the scriptures in the way GOD desires us to be.
Ultimately, I feel when we attempt to reconcile all of the different creation stories to agree with one another; we fall into the trap of making the scriptures say what we want them to say and in doing so we fail to miss an opportunity for God to reshape us. Or in other words we get the answer we were seeking at the expense of getting understanding from God. On the other hand, when we allow ourselves to see that each author was to attempting to tell us about the nature of God (as creator, savior, and sovereign) and our relationship to Him and the earth, rather than how nature was created by God, we come to a better understanding of who God is and when we understand who God is we can better understand who God wants us to be.
I wish I could remember who's quoted as describing it this way, but I've heard what you're describing as letting the scriptures read us rather than us reading scripture (only).
ReplyDeleteWhat suggestions might you have for the way churches as a community can approach the scriptures to hear God's questions and answers rather than their own?
I agree with you, Bruce. It's not just regarding the stories of creation that people tend to read what they want to read. I think that's a common experience throughout our reading of scripture. Joe, your quote sounds like something a seminary prof would say... but I can't place it either.
ReplyDeleteI approach this issue very deliberately in my practice of preaching. Rather than starting with a topic or a theme or a "point" to get across, I start with a passage of scripture - not just a verse or two, but a whole bunch of them. :) And to remove myself even further from the equation, I have relied (thus far) on the lectionary to provide the passages for each week. God's word is big enough and alive enough to speak to us today without us having to approach it with preconceived notions of what it says.
Joe, I think the first step is to get back to good old expository preaching. Pastors need to dissect larger portions of scripture and show their parishioners the depth and beauty of that scripture rather than attempting to give a sermon by tying up a bunch of verses from various different books of the Bible. I think the result of expository preaching will be that pastors set a good example for their flock.
ReplyDeleteNext, I think leaders and teachers in the church need to make sure that their teaching material does not go the route of "internet scripture searching" (I'm gonna copyright that phrase) in their lesson plans. I once was at a Sunday School class where the group was studying James. After reading part of James, we were asked "so what do you think this means for us" and then the rest of the lesson consisted of us looking at different verses from other books and then asking us of what we thought of James. Sadly the lesson had no background on the book of James or the passage we were exploring. Of course I then interjected and gave the background on the passage, which really made me feel like a horse's behind since I was the new guy taking issue that there was no background. But anyway, I think by having church lessons that operate in the manner mentioned above only reinforces the "internet scripture search" method when people go home to do Bible study.
Third, maybe our leaders need to teach the church members to do a little exegesis. Exegesis doesn't only belong to the pastors, but to the parishioners as well. Therefore maybe instead of only teaching certain Biblical passages during Bible studies, our leaders need to teach on how to study the Bible as well.
Finally, I think you and I know that people in the church have more pressing issues on where their money needs to be spent than to spend it on tools for Bible study. So the last step I would take is for the church to have a library that has some of the tools to study scripture. Nothing too extensive, but working on buying a series like the New Interpreters Bible shouldn't be too far out of reach along with some other paper back commentaries, also some Intros and Dictionaries would be nice too. But make them available for teachers in the church to check out in order to help with their lesson planning. Also make the library accessible to those who do not teach. One church that I once attended actually had commentaries and dictionaries available in the sanctuary right next to the "house" bibles. Which I liked. But the tongue in cheek question for you becomes; How accountable to the church members do you and David want to be when you preach next?
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ReplyDeleteDavid,
ReplyDeleteYes, the creation is only the beginning, and possibly the most popular passage of scripture that we force to fit our world view. I just feel that those who force the creation stories to fit their view, are at danger of doing so when it comes to other passages.
That being said, I love the idea of using the lectionary. The whole purpose of the lectionary is to make sure that the main points of scripture are preached every three years and if we are preaching from the entirety of the scriptures, we are more likely to take the world view of the entire Bible instead of our own.
Oh yeah, btw. For some reason when I read Joe's quote, I read it using a thick German accent. It sounds like something Dr. Froese may have said, but that is just speculation.