Category: Bible

Dan Dick, over at United Methodeviations has a great post up about encounters with three people who vehemently disagreed with him. There are times when I also disagree with Dan, but I really liked his response to the woman who came up to him and accused him of believing in evolution:

I[t] depends on what you mean by “believe in.”  If you think I place my faith and understanding of the universe upon the principle of evolution through natural selection, that would be wrong.  If you mean that I believe there is scientific evidence that supports evolution and that I do not find it incompatible with my Christian faith, then yes.

As you might well imagine, this did not satisfy her. It did however, satisfy me. Previously, my favorite way of addressing the issue of whether or not I believed in evolution has been the phrase: “I accept the evidence for evolution.” It’s not something I believe in, or stake my life upon, like I believe in God and try to live for Christ, but I don’t argue with the evidence, and I don’t think it threatens my faith. If evolution happened (and mountains of scientific evidence point to it happening), then evolution is simply the means by which God created the world. I’ll probably have to stick with my previous phrasing over Dan’s. I like his better, but I’m not sure I could repeat it without notes.

The whole post is very much worth the read. I’m sure I could find something to quibble over, but I’m not going to do that, not after the day he had.

Link: http://doroteos2.wordpress.com/2009/08/08/how-to-get-in-trouble-without-really-trying/

A blog titled, “Glory to God for All Things: Orthodox Christianity, Culture and Religion, Making the Journey of Faith” has the following post, prompted by a governor comparing himself to king David.

Events which receive more than their share of news coverage are not my favorite topics for blog posts. However, this past week’s revelations of yet another politician’s infidelity offered one aspect worthy of comment (or so it seems to me). That is the use of the Bible as a means for reflecting on one’s personal situation in life.

There is a long history of just such usage. The pilgrim fathers who came to America read their situation into the Bible (or the Bible into their situation) with the result that white pilgrims were seen as fulfilling the role of the Israelites in this, the Promised Land, while native Americans were cast in the role of Canaanites. Thus generations of Joshuas arose feeling Biblically justified in the genocide of America’s native population. Some of that Biblical reading continues to echo in the popular imagination to this day. It was Bad theology in the 17th century and it is bad theology today. Stated in a fundamental way: you are not a Bible character…

Then comes the reference to current events:

This past week saw a sitting governor confessing his infidelity, choosing to stay in office, and reflecting out loud to his cabinet members about the story of King David. King David was, of course, guilty of adultery (and in the Biblical account it cost him the life of his child). It is a story of great repentance and internal suffering as well as the mercy of God.

But it is not a pattern story to which individuals are invited for their own comparisons…

… You are not a Bible character – other than the one indicated in the New Testament – those who have put their faith in Christ and trusted him for their salvation. Our conversion experiences are whatever they may have been – but the Damascus Road conversion of St. Paul is not required of any but St. Paul.

The only role the Bible indicates for us to play is that of a person who has put their faith in Christ and trusts him for their salvation—this is an important point for all of us, in the fallen state in which we exist, we can twist and misuse anything, even God’s good gift of scripture. And yet I think the author of the above blog excerpts goes to far. The argument he makes justifies caution in looking for biblical parallels with our own lives, but it does not justify an absolute prohibition. To the extent that the Bible invites us to see the biblical story as our own story and to join our story with God’s story we are encouraged to make comparisons between the lives of the Bible’s “peculiar treasures” and our own. We are not biblical characters but we can be encouraged and inspired by their example. To remember the Genesis story of how Joseph overcame difficulties time and time again can inspire us to look for the good that God can bring out of our much less dire circumstances.

The primary danger lies not in looking to the bible for inspiration as to what we should do, but to looking to it for justification for what we (in our fallen state) want to do. story of David and Bathsheba serves not as an example for us to follow, but as a warning to avoid temptation in the first place and to not pile up sin upon sin in an attempt to hide an initial transgression. To the extent that we can see our story in the stories of bibilical characters, much good can come from both inspiration and dire warnings. We are not biblical characters, but we have much to learn from them.
Link: http://fatherstephen.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/you-are-not-a-bible-character/

I’ve learned to appreciate the diversity among and tension between the four canonical gospels’ accounts of Jesus’ live, death, and resurrection. But I admit that the differences used to disturb me. An important component of making my peace with the differences between the gospels was the realization that the early church recognized the differences and still chose to include all four in the New Testament canon. Luke T. Johnson provides a helpful, if somewhat scholarly, summary:

Apparently scandalized by the plurality of the Gospels, Tatian [c. 120–180, before the formation of the New Testament Canon] composed the Diatessaron (literally, “through the four”), which wove together the four [now] canonical versions into a single consistent narrative. Tatian seemed to be assuming that a single “story of Jesus” should be normative for Christians. … Tatian’s work was enormously successful in some areas for several centruies. But even in those regions, it was eventually supplanted by the four Gospels it had been intended to replace. The rejection of Tatian’s option represented the affirmation of the fourfold Gospels in all their factual diversity and disagreement. By implication, the Gospels are valued as witnesses to and interpretations of the “real Jesus” rather than as sources for the “historical Jesus.”
…
the church canonized separate literary compositions called Gospels. These texts as texts are read in the assembly as the word of God, are debated in council for the direction of the church, are used in theology for the understanding of faith. By canonizing four such versions of gospel, the church obviously also accepted them in all their diversity as normative. That is to say, their normative character is not found outside the texts and apart from their diversity, but within these texts in all their diversity.

Luke T. Johnson, The Real Jesus, 147-149.

Johnson also asserts, and I agree, that the truth of of Lord and Savior is too great to be contained in any one account. Actually, it’s too big to be completely contained in four, but four is better than one.