Certainly, one correct theological point doesn’t guarantee the correctness of the next one. The early Christian preachers, the apostles and their disciples, guided by the Holy Spirit, have managed to correctly discribe the embodied Logos. But I don’t try to convince anyone that the apostles or their “successors” have got any automatic guarantee of infallibility.
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Exactly.
Westerners these days tend to think in patterns of exclusion, dividing things into a certain percentage of this and a certain percentage of that. One of the best lessons in thinking differently that I had was when I was a lifeguard: when there was an accident, it was considered 100% the responsibility of the person who was misbehaving thus causing the accident, but also 100% the responsibility of the lifeguard whose sector the accident occurred in. So even without regarding inspiration in incarnational terms it wasn’t hard for me to regard them as being human work as well as divine.
This was a principle that my professors of scriptural studies emphasized in different words: they insisted that while scripture is more than human literature, it is never less than that, and one professor explained to us how regarding scripture as only divine treats the audience it was meant for and moreso the writer(s) with disrespect.
I would prefer to say “theologically authoritative” since “accurate” is a modern human criterion that may give a wrong impression.
That’s not necessarily the right conclusion. I agree with several scholars that inspiration was not some mechanism operating while the writers had pen in hand but was rather guidance and preparation over the course of a lifetime, shaping those writers so that when they eventually sat down and wrote using their cosmology and the rest of their worldviews and the literary form(s) they chose then those concepts from their contexts would function to produce something authoritative that conveyed God’s message sufficiently clearly to later on receive the affirmation of the Holy Spirit speaking through all the churches.
One would be on shaky ground! I’ve known a number of Christians who weren’t happy with one or another thing that Jesus taught but who nevertheless said with the disciples, “Lord, to whom else shall we go? You have the words of eternal life!” That number includes individuals who came to Christ not because His teachings seemed attractive but because those teachings struck them as true, and only later could they honestly say “I like Him!”
Following Christ due to liking Him is what I have come to call “Jesus is my boyfriend” theology, shallow and flighty. For some that may be a phase on the way to actual discipleship, but it is not one that promotes serious growth.
I will add the ability to read the scriptures as human literature. If the written word was given to bring a message for regular people, then they had to have been written in human language as human literature; the only other option I see is to follow the Islamic heresy that says, “Believe it or we kill you!”
It’s those teachers who manage to bring forth what the text would have meant to the original audiences, to make it come alive as human literature, who are most effective in drawing others to Christ – probably because in making the scriptures look human Christ is made to look human as well.
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The only guarantee of infallibility I’ve managed to find in the scriptures is when Jesus told the disciples about the Helper:
When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you-all into all the truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will declare to you-all the things that are to come.
That wasn’t said to all believers, nor to anyone individually, but seems to be a promise to the Apostles-to-be, i.e. to the leadership of the church as a group. I think this promise was inherited by the leaders the Apostles appointed, the bishops, but only as a group, indeed only when all the successors of all the Apostles come together and prayerfully consider an issue, and once a consensus has been reached speak on that matter. I don’t think that has happened since the Council of Chalcedon in 451, and I now (after reading thousands of pages about the Council and many more about the century preceding it) regard Chalcedon as a ‘broken’ council for two reasons: first, the two sides were plainly actually in agreement on the concepts, they just has different emphases due to different heresies’ importance to them and thus favored different wording; second, because the bishops weren’t allowed to actually do their job because they were cut short by pressure from the emperor who demanded a quick decision – whereupon politics took over rather than contemplation of the scriptures and an artificial split was forced on the church.
At the very least, that promise is not to individuals, it is to properly selected and installed leaders of the church “in congress” as it used to be said, i.e. together and in agreement.
Certainly, the prophets and apostles were led by the Spirit throughout their lives. Still we know that they could commit grave moral and pastoral blunders (Galatians 2:11-14). But despite their fallibility, we read their New Testament writings - and acknowledge these writings as theologically accurate or authoritative (if you prefer the latter term).
Being captivated by the truthfullness and trustworthiness of Jesus Christ is also a subjective experience even if one fails to exactly “like” Jesus (which would mean in this context, I guess, to perceive him as a nice guy). Surely, this experience is absolutely indispensable; but it is also normal to put the main figure of the Gospels in the context of the world where we live, and to look whether he corresponds with what we can figure out about the ground of this world.
These words were said to the apostles. But whom did they represent in that scene? Did they represent, in their capacity as the first disciples, the entire community of Christian believers, the whole Church? Or did they represent, in their capacity as the first church leaders, the future “House of Bishops”? The text itself doesn’t contain an answer. Certainly, there is a tradition in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches to assume the second interpretation, just like these churches have the tradition to consider bishops the apostles’ successors - even though there is no explicit scriptural evidence that the apostles have ever transferred the fullness of their charismata and prerogatives to bishops.
In this case, the Christian Church must have lost the gift of infallibility more than fifteen centuries ago. Still it continued to exist and even to attain to the new missionary, moral, and cultural heights.
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I do not see how you can claim this. Regardless of to whom Jesus was speaking it was a revelation of how the Spirit works. Hierarchy is a human thing. Bishops? Apostles?
Elders? Pope? All human offices. God does not work that way.
The whole point of Paul’s words to both the Ephesians and the Corinthians was that the Spirit gives to all, although not necessarily all the same
Richard
I noticed that too from the Wikipedia article which sets Article 12 along side this helpful quote from later in the Chicago statement
So history must be treated as history, poetry as poetry, hyperbole and metaphor as hyperbole and metaphor, generalization and approximation as what they are, and so forth. Differences between literary conventions in Bible times and in ours must also be observed:
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It’s not an assumption, it rests on the fact that they were not the only believers at the time, rather they were the leaders.
The terminology that Paul uses when he speaks of ordination is taken from the Second Temple Judaism concept of handing down authority from authorized leaders to newly authorized ones – not symbolically, but actually. This involved the “leaning on of hands”, i.e. laying on hands but with significant pressure (as opposed to ‘merely’ laying on hands e.g. for healing).
Just what was conveyed can make for an interesting discussion, though it can be described as the authority to speak for Christ to the church and to Christ for the church, and to administer certain sacraments. Plainly it doesn’t extend to turning out inspired writings, though the argument there would be that the authority of the writings doesn’t come from any charism of the apostles but comes from the various churches speaking as guided by the Holy Spirit to say, “This has authority”.
Sadly, that’s the conclusion I come to – though my Roman Catholic friends dispute it!
Bishops and elders are established in scripture. Apostles as well but with no indication that the office would persist. So God does in fact “work that way”.
And you can’t just throw out the context of a passage or its grammar; to do so is to reduce any conclusion to wishful thinking.
Completely different context and content.
And temple inauguration has to be read as temple inauguration, ‘royal chronicle’ has to be read as royal chronicle. mythologized history has to be read as mythologized history . . .
All things that YECers deny.
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The Bible is not a book of verse, nor was it written in English grammar… You cannot isolate four or five references and claim this is what the Bible says.
Richard
Ps The Bishop’s Bible was a specific translation ofthe King James.
Other way around, the KJV was a slight revision of the Bishop’s Bible and was also guided by the Tyndale and Coverdale Bibles.
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Thanks for that. The point is that the English Translation is automatically coloured by the theology of the day. It is only more recent versions that claim impartiality.
Add to that the recent discussion about human influence and we are left with uncertainties. However, reading the Bible as a whole, the nature of God is not to have human hierarchy.
The priest system of Judaism was instigated by God and overturned by the ripping of the Temple curtain at the moment of Christ’s death. It is only humans who need to continue segregation and hierarchy. I, for one, hold to the Priesthood of all believers.
Richard
I would say some of the more recent versions aim for accuracy in translation. There are probably still a few of the recent that lack impartiality.
If your assumption is the Bible speaks with one voice, which sadly it doesn’t.
Perhaps that is why there is such diversity in theology and differences in denominations? I wonder how important theology is, in terms of consistency?
I have tended to think of truth a a large pie to which we have a slice rather than a fixed goal.
Richard
Good point, but I would say that all lack impartiality, as no matter what, the pre-suppositions of the translators manifest themselves. It doesn’t make them bad translations nor is it done with malicious intent, but it is inevitable. We just have to try to be aware of the potential pitfalls as we read. Much as in life that we all have prejudices and biases, and need to try to be self-aware.
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Yes, they were the leaders. But “disciple” (mathétés) is not an exclusive term, not a name only for the leaders. I don’t think it’s by mere happenstance that the apostles are consistently called “disciples” throughout the Farewell Discourse.
Certainly, there are the passages about ordination in the Pauline epistles. I’m not trying to deny the apostolicity of ordained ministries (such as bishop / elder or deacon). Yes, they existed along with the apostles and were approved and mandated by the latter - but they were the apostles’ assistants, not their successors. The New Testament bishops/elders were the leaders of local churches (Philippians 1:1, Titus 1:5,7), while the apostles’ ministry was universal in scope: James (the brother of the Lord) and the apostles presided over the Jerusalem Church, which continued to supervise all Christian communities wherever they located (cf. Galatians 2: 1-10, Acts 15:2-30). In the post-apostolic age, the local church leaders - the bishops - have naturally evolved into the highest church authority. But this evolution was not explicitly stipulated by any apostolic “charter”.
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The New Testament authors have repeatedly stated that the apostles had been directly called by Jesus Christ, whereas bishops/elders became the leaders of local churches under the apostles’ guidance.
At the same time, the apostle is very clear that divine inspiration is not confined to some particular leadership group. On the contrary, every Christian is encouraged to long for the gift of prophecy - and may really receive it (1 Corinthians 14:1, 26-31; cf. Acts 2:16-18). So, the ordained ministers are not the exclusive “mediators” between Christ and the Church but the facilitators of communal worship.
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So what? God calls people. Wasn’t Judas one of the twelve?
The church needs structure. It is placed on this earth and has to conform, or at least fit into, human society. That does not make the leaders any closer to God or of higher authority. Leading worship is a gift of the spirit like any other. Not all wish to, let alone are capable of, doing so. Teaching is not the same as indoctrination. The role is to describe and explain without drawing too may conclusions. God works primarily with the individual not the corporate.
It is only human, I guess, to insist that one is right.
Richard
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I do agree that bishops, pastors, and the other ordained ministers are not the custodians of the Spirit, the exclusive mediators of the revelation. I only wanted to emphasize that having the ordained ministers in the Church is in line with the Bible. In other words, it is not a distortion of divine will. Is it an inevitable adjustment to human nature? Surely, yes; but adjustment, per se, is not a corruption.
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