Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: Biblical Inspiration

  • Hearing God’s Voice Redux

    When I was a teenager, I lived in Georgetown, Guyana with my parents who were missionaries. (My father was the Medical Director of Davis Memorial Hospital there, and my mother taught nursing off and on.) During that time I had an opportunity to go visit Kaieteur Falls. In those days one got to the park by flying in an aging DC-3 aircraft that was incredibly noisy We landed perhaps a mile away from the falls (I forget precisely how far–it’s been a couple of years since I was a teen!), the aircraft engines were shut off, but I continued to hear this roaring sound. I thought my ears were just ringing after the long noisy flight, but it turned out to be the sound of the falls in the distance. After some walking I came on a vantage point on the side of the gorge from which I could see the falls. It’s a shear 700 ft drop with additional distance fallen over the rocks. The river comes off of the savannah, and simply falls off a cliff. The sight is awesome. Coming upon it for the first time is a spiritual experience.

    I have tried to describe it a bit in the paragraph above, but I haven’t done that well. I have tried to describe it to others, but I can see in their eyes and hear in their voice that I have failed to truly catch the feeling of that first look at this spectacular falls. It is an experience that I treasure for myself, but that I always convey in a way that is substantially less than what I feel in telling it. I would love to return to Guyana and go see the falls again, experience that again. I suspect, however, that I would still fail to convey it to others.

    I have that same problem in discussing the study of the Bible. Why do I regularly read the Bible in the morning to start my day? Well, I can tell you that my day goes better when I do–and it does. I can tell you that I believe in such activity as a spritual discipline, and I do. I can make the abstract statement that I hear God’s voice in scripture–and I do. But as many times as I’ve talked about it, even to people who are Bible students, I find that rarely does the other person’s face light up, and their words express an understanding of that feeling of spending time with God in the Bible.

    After I had been away from the Lord and the church for 12 years after graduate school, I returned to Bible study. I’d remained acquainted with the scriptures, because I didn’t want to lose my Greek and Hebrew skills. But I had read, though not read the Bible. I went back to study by reading the gospel of Mark. Now I knew what the gospel of Mark said, but as I read it again, I found an excitement, an anxiety for the next chapter. I read the book slowly over the course of Lent. It was like seeing and hearing it all again, but refreshed, as though I had never heard it before. Again, this is an experience that seems to lose incredibly in the telling.

    I took a challenge once from my students in a class. I advocate reading a text multiple times for an overview and to fix the whole picture in your mind. They were finding the passage boring on the second or third pass through. I said I would take any passage, read it through multiple times, and tell them when I ceased to get something new out of it. The chosen passage was the Sermon on the Mount, and I read it 38 times in succession over the course of two weeks. There was some new line that I underlined, or some new marginal note on every reading. I think most serious Bible students will not find that at all remarkable. They’ll realize that on pass 38 I was still only scratching the surface. But there are others whose eyes glaze over when I relate that experience, and I know that yet again, I have failed to communicate what I feel.

    Then yesterday, I dropped by Adrian’s Blog, and found a link to this article by John Piper. Now those of you who have read this blog for some time will know that I have disagreed substantially with many of Adrian’s posts, and a few times John Piper’s name has come up in a negative light over some of the same issues. But as I read that article, the words jumped out at me, and I knew that the experience Piper was describing is essentially the same is mine, but described so much more effectively. That’s the experience of reading God’s word that I keep trying to describe, yet always fail.

    When I linked to the article, I had no idea that there would be the type of controversy that there seems to be over on Adrian’s blog. I wasn’t trying to make theological points or convert those who don’t believe the Bible is inspired. I was certainly not trying to put down anyone who hears God’s voice in other ways (such as on viewing a waterfall or in prayer) or who hear God speak on other subjects. Obviously I cannot in any way speak for John Piper, whose theological positions differ substantially from mine. But I didn’t read any of those negatives into either the article or Adrian’s post.

    There are those who should hear a correction in the article. I frequently encounter people who do not have the patience to seriously study the Bible, yet will take any amount of time and effort to get a “personal word from God.” They’ll travel to conferences, stand in line for hours, seek out “prophetic ministry services,” and buy large numbers of books, but they won’t get serious about the Bible. I don’t know why, though some tell me it’s a lack of time. It’s just too hard. I would hope that such people would hear John Piper’s article as a correction. It’s not that they should seek God’s voice in many different ways, but they need to seek it at the core as well.

    I can’t tell you how to grab hold of the experience, but I do suggest putting in time with the scriptures, taking the time to let the words sink in, and doing so prayerfully. Pray that your mind will be opened, and your will ready to obey what God will show you. I may not be able to fully convey the experience in words, but I will testify that it’s worth it.

  • ESV Endorsements

    I’ve written a considerable amount of negative stuff, not about the ESV itself, though I do have a few complaints, but about its supporters. Thus when a friend e-mailed me a new endorsement, I thought I’d take a look at why these endorsers regard the ESV so highly. The latest endorsement is ESV: the long-awaited Palmertree endorsement. The key thing about this endorsement is that, well, there is no key thing. It’s sort of an “I waited a long time and then got comfortable with it” kind of endorsement.

    He does, however, cite three other endorsements: John Piper, Philip Ryken, and Mark Driscoll. I’ve dealt with Mark Driscoll’s comments before (more recently here), though he has revised the material a bit, but the bottom line is still the same. After reading the other two, I have to say that they have added little, so I’m not going to go over them point by point.

    There are three elements in these endorsements of the ESV:

    1. Nostalgia
    2. Theological positions
    3. The allure of literal “accuracy”

    Nostalgia

    Nostalgia was something that drove the KJV only movment for years. Now many people who might earlier have been sort of gentle KJV advocates are realizing they need some modern version, and the ESV has proven the least shocking option. I actually have little problem with someone using a Bible for reasons of nostalgia. If you understand the ESV, and you enjoy it, go ahead and use it. The same thing goes for the KJV.

    Where I have a problem with nostalgia is in churches when its used for public reading and especially outreach. Too often church people regard something as obvious, clear, enjoyable, and downright cuddly and loveable, when most of the people who come through the door find it anything but. Consider your audience when choosing a Bible translation for use in the pews.

    Theological Positions

    First, I do not mean that one must not hold any theological positions, nor do I mean a position that holds the Bible to be inspired and accurate translation to be important. I have never run into anyone who doesn’t think the Bible should be translated accurately. Disagreements are about precisely what constitutes accuracy, and how one goes about achieving it.

    What I mean here, however, is selecting a Bible based on how well your favorite texts support your favorite theological positions. If you have carefully examined the source languages, and tested how the English expression would be understood, and you then regard the expression used as the best expression of the meaning (pause for breath!)–then that’s fine. But that’s not what I see argued. People simply announce that the Bible in question, especially the ESV, supports their conclusion. How about some linguistic arguments, assuming you endorsers are capable of presenting them.

    The Allure of Literal “Accuracy”

    I put accuracy in quotes because I think this is the great failing of this entire school of Bible translating. It’s an example of the one ended telephone cord approach to meaning. In communication, there is no “accuracy” except in terms of what the receiver actually receives. You may think “propitiation” is a wonderful word, which accurately conveys the meaning of the Greek word hilasterion, but if the hearer hears “blablabla” instead, no meaning is accurately conveyed.

    Of course, ESV advocates will announce that they can explain the word propitiation, and then the congregation will understand it. Well, so can the Bible translators, by translating hilasterion into something the readers understand in the first place. You complain that those using dynamic equivalence deny the readers the chance to decide for themselves. Well, all your process does is deny them the same choice by passing it on to their pastor, who has likely determined what “propitiation” means based on his church’s doctrinal statement.

    Accurate translation has to convey meaning accurately from the source language to the reader or hearer in the receptor language. I repeat what has become nearly a mantra for me: There is no accuracy in a vacuum. It’s only accurate communication if the hearer accurately hears it.

  • Comprehending Divine Inspiration

    I’ve been discussing translation in its relationship to inspiration over the last couple of days, and I just wanted to present a couple of thoughts on how we think about inspiration, especially in practical terms. By “thinking in practical terms” I mean the way in which we apply our understanding of inspiration in our application of what we learn from inspired writings. I had my attention directed to this issue when I discussed inspiration with a friend of mine who believes in inerrancy. We expressed considerable disagreement when we defined inspiration and discussed how it worked, but in the vast majority of controversial texts, we found that our interpretations were identical.

    This is the similar to the conclusion I have come to about translation, though I would say that one’s beliefs about inspiration are of almost no value as a predictor of that person’s translation philosophy, while they are a predictor to some extent of how one will carry out interpretation. They are, however, less accurate of a predictor than I would imagine had I not done a little informal testing.

    I think the problem here is with the way in which we talk about inspiration. We do so in an extremely God-centered (source centered) way. Now being God-centered is not a bad thing, but in this case it can be misleading. I would suggest that while our theories of inspiration center around God and what he can and does do, our processes and principles of interpretation generally center around us as human beings and what we can do. This shouldn’t be surprising, considering the amount of effort that must go into understanding any message, especially the message of scripture.

    No matter how accurately we believe God gave the message, in practical terms the issue is much more how accurately we can understand it. Let’s say that 2% of the message of the New Testament is lost by copyists. I think that number is fairly high, because that is closer to the percentage of the text that is in dispute. But even if that is the case, I suspect that if we compare interpretations, we will see that a much higher percentage must be lost by somebody in the process of interpretation.

    I think this extends to the great divide between types of revelation, even the big one between general and special revelation. The question is not in the accuracy of the content, but rather in what is to be conveyed, and how well we are capable of understanding it. I would presume God would write his character quite perfectly in nature (though we have the ever-present question of the fall), and yet that may be the hardest message to interpret. Some people prefer the immediate revelation of modern prophets or of dreams and visions. I too believe that God is as capable of speaking today as ever, and as likely to do so, but in that case we have the additional burden of deciding on the authenticity of the message, and we still need to interpret what we hear, especially if it is a vision or dream.

    This is one of the reasons I opposed the doctrine of inerrancy. It seems to be a way of guarding the barn door after the cattle have departed. Interpretation has gone in a thousand directions while some are arguing that the message was absolutely correct at the starting point. In addition, somehow it’s OK for us to lose part of the source in the process of copying–something acknowledged when inerrancy is postulated solely of the conveniently missing autographs–and yet if one supposes that instead something got altered on the way from God to the prophet, all revelation must immediately fall apart.

    Revelation is of value when I comprehend and apply it, and assertions of its validity apart from adding the line “and you can understand it” seem pointless to me. I think that is part of the point of the wisdom literature in the Bible. It’s God’s message, but you have to think about it and comprehend it. Who you are, and how you have exercised your mind will make a difference.

    No matter whether you are listening to a new idea, a message someone claims to have received directly from God, or the interpretation of a passage of scripture, your individual mind, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, is the final filter to separate sense from nonsense. Even the firmest believer in the detailed accuracy of the text of scripture will realize that many interpreations of that scripture are nonsense.

  • Translation and Inspiration

    In posting recently on translation I’ve noticed that many people connect one’s idea of inspiration with one’s approach to translation. The assumption seems to be that a person who believes in some form of verbal inspiration, especially verbal plenary inspiration, will necessarily favor a formal, word-by-word, or literal translaltion. Of these terms I prefer formal, in that the most literal translations do not manage a word-by-word equivalence, but rather account for the grammatical form and structure of the source language in the form and structure of the text in the receptor language as far as possible.

    My own involvement in these debates sometimes tends to foster that very viewpoint. I have a non-verbal view of inspiration, in that I believe God inspires messengers with messages through various experiences, which may include a verbally dictated component, rather than dictating words. In Ezekiel 1, for example, my understanding is that God presented Ezekiel with a vision and Ezekiel searched for the words with which to present what he had seen, accounting for the slightly confused nature of the text. Because of my view of inspiration, one might assume that I would support a theory of translation that is message based rather than individual word based.

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  • The Impossibility of Verbal Plenary Translation

    I have heard many good things about Mars Hill Church in Seattle, despite some theological disagreements (with whom do I not have such disagreements?) so I was disappointed to receive the following via e-mail from a friend: Theological reasons for why Mars Hill preaches out of the ESV.

    This isn’t intended as an attack on the ESV. I put the slogan “the best Bible version is one you read.” If you find your Bible reading life lighting up when you read the ESV, then by all means use it for reading and study. If the carefully gender accurate language of such versions as the NRSV grates on your nerves, then by all means use it, but admit that it’s because of your language tastes, and not because of theology. If you’re reading the ESV because you think it is theologically more correct, or because it more accurately and clearly conveys the message of scripture to the populace in general, then I urge you to think again.

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  • Pat Robertson and the Meaning of Prophetic

    One of the dividing lines in Christian churches today is over the gifts of the Holy Spirit. While speaking in tongues gets most of the attention, the gift of prophecy is a close second. In terms of its potential to tear a church apart, it comes out ahead of tongues, I think. Currently there seem to be two major approaches. First, there are those who refuse to allow anything like prophecy, seeing safety in simple denial, while on the other hand we have many churches in which just about anyone who claims to speak words from God is at least tolerated.

    There is also a strong tendency not to want to say anything in opposition to anyone specific who claims to be a prophet, often under the idea that one should, like David, never speak against God’s anointed. The difficulty here is that one has to question the precise type of anointing and calling of someone who peddles nonsense as the word of God.

    Let me clarify quickly what I mean here by prophetic. There is a general popular sense of “prophetic” as a message that predicts the future. On the other hand, there is a religious or spiritual sense of prophetic that deals with correction and challenge to a group of people. A “prophetic voice” might call a community to greater social action, for example. The Biblical prophetic movement combined aspects of both. I would suggest, in fact, that you will find little or no prediction in Biblical prophecy that is intended simply to satisfy curiosity or to provide information about the future as its purpose. Rather, when a prophet speaks of the future he does so to challenge the community or individual to some form of action, or to rebuke or correct.

    Both of these aspects are tied together by the affirmation of the prophet that he speaks for God, and by the acceptance of the audience that he does so. Prophets did face rejection, but only rarely was this rejection based on the assumption that the prophet was false. The sense in which I’m using the word “prophetic” prophetic here includes those three elements: challenge or rebuke, prediction or promise, and an affirmation of divine guidance or content.

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  • Bible Study, Community, and Agendas

    I have written previously about community and Biblical inspiration and more recently about fear that pushes people away from studying the Bible for themselves. So how about a note on some of the dangers of Bible study?

    My attention was called to this topic by this post on Thinking Christian, in which the basis for anti-semitism in the gospels and Paul’s writings is discussed and to some extent despatched. There were two passages in that post that set me to thinking just a bit. The first is:

    None of these verses suggest that the whole Jewish nation is responsible for Jesus’ death and none of them promote the idea that Jews should be persecuted. Dowling is clutching at straws here and reading into the text what he clearly wants to see. The texts are so clear, in fact, one wonders whether he has actually studied them with a sceptical view! [emphasis in original]

    And this is the second:

    Although Dowling’s argument is completely flawed, it is true to say that the Bible has been used by those who wish to promote persecution of the Jews. But this is not the fault of the Bible. It is the result of distorted readings of the text. Unfortunately, ‘the history of the church is about as long as the history of anti-Semitism—if not in the overt acts of Christians, certainly in their guilty silence.’ (Wilson 1984) So the Christian Church has certainly been guilty of perpetuating anti-Semitism by commission or omission. But the actions of the Church must not be equated with the teachings of Scripture.

    Now don’t come to any conclusions about Steve Parker’s material without reading it completely. But what interests me here is that he says that it is very clear, even emphatically clear that these texts do not support putting the blame for the death of Jesus on the Jewish people as a whole, and do not support persecution on that basis, and yet, as he acknowledges in the second quote, these texts and others have been used in precisely that way.

    So what happened on the way from the first to the second? Generally, some very bad Biblical interpretation, and more specifically application has taken place. The reason for this is that the Bible has been given to us not in a neat, systematic fashion designed to give you direct answers for your moment by moment decisions. Instead, it is presented in people’s experience of God in a range of situations over an extended period of time.

    We are always in danger of misapplying scripture simply because we have our own agendas, and we tend to read what we think should be there. I’m always fascinated in my own reading to look at my previous marginal notes and underlining. Different aspects of a passage strike me at different times. There’s no problem with this. We’re human and we can’t keep our attention on everything at every moment. But our human nature also gets us to focus on how the Bible might apply to someone else, or on those aspects that support what we want to do. We can even believe that we are being quite scriptural because we have a Bible verse to quote for every occasion. We might even have reduced it to a simple reference.

    In the particular scriptures that caught my attention here, there was probably a very simple process of misapplication. Some Christian in the early, but not too early years of the church was angry at some Jews, perhaps at the Jews, possibly because he simply couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t accept what, to him, was obviously the truth. He wants to force them to believe, and it’s only a short step from forcing people to believe to using force and killing them if they continue to refuse. He looks for justification. “Aha!” he says, “we have it right here in Matthew 27:25. They admit to being guilty of killing Jesus–killing God!”

    The text doesn’t actually have to say that. It just has to provide one little wedge of scripture for the action that our hypothetical Christian already wants to take. Very unfortunately, though the specific thought processes are hypothetical, the result is not, and many Christians used the verse in question in precisely that way.

    We can easily wonder why there isn’t some kind of footnote or parenthetical remark that God would provide saying, “Don’t take this to mean that all Jews are guilty of the death of Jesus.” That simply wasn’t the issue at the time. I know that there are scholars who believe that this passage was penned precisely with the purpose of placing the blame for the death of Jesus on the Jews rather than the Romans. But even if that was the case, the historical context was a situation in which Christians were distinguishing themselves from Judaism more and more, yet it was still closer to a family fight with many Christians also considering themselves Jews, and thus requiring great care in application in any other situation. It’s quite possible that we should say that Jesus did provide a footnote, in Matthew 5:43-48–“Love your enemies!” Even if this verse did indicate a national guilt, and even if it did allow us to regard the Jewish people as our enemies, we’d still be commanded to love, and love would surely exclude persecution.

    I have written about each of these elements before, but I think this brings them into focus:

    • Read broadly, considering all aspects of context. The counterpoint may not be right there.
    • Read in community, with accountability. There’s a place for standing for your principles no matter what, but there’s also a place for being accountable to others.
    • Drop your agenda, and let God provide you with his agenda.
    • Always look for the things that correct you rather than for the things that correct others.
    • Listen to the Holy Spirit in the present.

    As a final note, I believe that God gives us the scriptures as part of the experience of the community because he wants us to experience him in the present as a community. We might want a book of facts and detailed instructions. God wants to provide us with a guide for coming into relationship to him and experiencing him in our daily lives. The greatest antidote to hatred in our lives, I believe, is the regular experience of God’s love. When you constantly experience God’s loving presence, you will find it harder to believe that God is justifying hatred.

  • Dave Warnock on Wayne Grudem Interview

    Dave Warnock has posted an excellent set of reflections on the Wayne Grudem interview series. I strongly recommend reading it, especially some specific reflections from a Methodist perspective. While I do not use the term “evangelical” and Dave does, the problem is a difference of definition. Some of us try to hang onto words and defend them. I generally discard them as they begin to be used of things with which I do not agree.

  • Inerrancy and Liberal-Conservative Dialogue

    In a comment at , Adrian Warnock says the following:

    Dr Grudem has expressed regret for the use of the word “blasphemy”, and as far as the quote from his systematic theology goes you have to understand that his aim is explicitly to build a theology based on the assumption that the bible is inerrant – I am not too sure how you think a liberal theology would help in that aim…

    (See also Dr. Grudem’s retraction of his agreement to the use of the word blasphemy.)

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  • Idolatry and Male Representation

    The new, young associate pastor was praying, and in her prayer she referred to God as “Father-Mother God.” Silence settled over the congregation as mental gasps replaced “Amens.” The associate pastor had transgressed the unofficial line. You can represent God as vengeful or loving, gentle or angry, gracious or demanding, present or distant, but don’t you ever present God as male and female.

    I was preparing a communion service with a slightly non-traditional text. Someone reading the material brought a portion of it to me. Was I sure I wanted to use this passage? Wasn’t it feminized? My text had crossed the line. I can represent God as just about anything, but never use feminine language. The feminized language in question? ” . . . gather us under your wing as a hen gathers her chicks . . .” (Matthew 23:37; Luke 13:34).

    We constantly use images for God, mental images, yes, but images nonetheless. And there is nothing wrong with mental images, provided you don’t cast them in stone–real stone or mental stone. The Bible uses plenty of images of God, including the feminine image of divine wisdom as used in Proverbs.

    The problem comes in when you fix the images in place so that they become your picture of God instead of allowing God to constantly interact with you, shatter your images, and grow you up. As I previously commented on this:

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