How does one use the Bible well?
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Then there are the sins of the systematic theologians. No sound doctrine can henceforth stand.
If not a book, maybe there is a single chapter the liberal theologian will put up as being inerrant.
Or if I read your comment as you don’t want anything to do with a book after the ‘inerrantists’ have written their commentaries on it, that strikes me as kind of… what’s the word… trivial.
People have been misreading the Bible for thousands of years.
I’m super curious though in the context of this conversation, given all that has been said about how we have to accept errors in the Bible as believers, does this seriously mean that every book in the Bible has errors. This is a very serious charge.
That would be to not read my actual comment, but to pretend I’ve written something I didn’t write. It’s the commentary so produced that I have little use for. The Bible itself isn’t any the worse for wear just because people misrepresent it. My interest in learning from it still stands.
There may be more than one game being played? You did say games, plural.
I’m sorry to be misreading your comments. I felt as if you were arguing against me asking the question to begin with.
Also, I wanted to clear up any misunderstanding here:
My point is that we, evangelicals, are often guilty of the same Pharisaical neglect.
How so? Where do you see Jesus or Paul or any of the apostles teaching that the kingdom is getting more restrictive than before instead of less?
Sheep and goats, wheat and tares? You’ve read?
Oh yeah! Have you? Did any of them get taken by surprise about which category they were in? Hint … all of them were surprised. So while that parable shows a stark division, it also showcases our inability to rightly judge everything about ourselves, much less others. That’s why the tares are left among the wheat … It’s gonna take God who alone sees all the way into the heart to really sort that all out properly. And again - if one imagines that some people or groups are nothing but valuable grain (no tares to be found at all in their hearts), and other people or groups are entirely tares (no chilld of God there at all - just ‘storm trooper fodder’ to advance the plot) - then all this view shows is that one has been unable to take in the main message of Romans much less the gospels. They got excited after reading Romans 1, and refused to heed what Romans 2 went on to say about all that. They got excited about Jesus affirming Moses, but refused to consider how Jesus also went beyond Moses and showcased the ultimate futility of the letter. They let damnation (especially of others) loom so large in their view that they forgot that the gospel is about salvation.
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Mervin, I am seriously confused by your comments. I felt massively judged by your original reply to my question about what books in the Bible might be free from error.
And seeing you referring to Romans here, also leads me to think that you find that it is free from error.
I try (too often unsuccessfully) not to judge others at all, precisely because I take Romans 2 seriously. When I condemn others, I condemn myself. Why would I preoccupy myself with trying to put modern adjudication of “technical truth” in judgment over the Bible when I want to instead be busy seeing what Christ has to say to me (often through that very Bible) instead? I mean … if “inerrancy” (according to ??? modern inclinations of science or historical/journalistic standards of men) is to be king here, then just dispense with the Bible and make use of these ??? (whatever higher standards) you already have that for you stand above the Bible. Now - you will get me wrong here, because again, you hear nothing but judgment in those words, and it sounds like I’m condemning anybody that doesn’t elevate the Bible above all. But I’m not. Christ is above the Bible. Without His spirit all the “correct” (even inerrant or whatever) Bible reading any of us do is for naught. So yes - there is definitely something (Someone, rather) who is above the Bible, and is in fact pointed to from those very pages.
I guess part of my exasperation showing through here is this: if my own human eyes are already fallible and faulty - and I will inevitably end up misusing the letter of the law (both old and new) to my own advantage, then I’ve got much bigger fish that need frying than fretting over how technically consistent or correct (according to whose standard?) the content of those words were before they entered into our little finite space. (The fundamentalist retorts that he expects it to be true according to God’s standard - in which case - if he has access to that level of insight, then he is admitting he has no need for the printed page, because why would he need to lean on that if he’s already got God?) And as I noted earlier, it wouldn’t matter how pristine any fresh water was to begin with - by the time it’s come down all my own dirty pipes to my tap, - of course it’s going to have our own cultural pollution by that point. I just have to trust that because of where it came from, it still contains the essential germ of what God wants me to hear, and even then - God will still have to open my ears to actually receive it.
So in the end, I know God (as revealed by and shown to us in Christ) will meet me where I’m at - which is in a place of brokenness, wrongness, and fallibility - not in some imaginary space of infallible or “inerrant” understandings. God’s outreach to us was already obliged to enter into a language and society to engage us with what we “know” from those culture-bound perspectives, so … us worrying about whether or not we are getting the complete, unvarnished, “inerrant” truth by the time it’s made its way through all our messy humanity and into our hearts is about like a kindergartner worrying about whether or not his teacher’s words are revealing the entire truth about math and numbers, instead of just trusting that the teacher knows what the student needs for now - just to learn to count, and that any other needed understandings will all be made availble in good time. It’s a posture of trust. The Teacher’s got this.
If you’re feeling judged by all this, then just consider it your own conscience speaking to you. I try to only judge myself, and even that judgment (even if favorable) would not acquit me - in the end, best to just trust to God’s final judgment, and God’s grace and love that is also just as inexorable.
Having only recently become a shameless new fan-boy of Rich Mullins, I commend to you these lyrics for his song “We Are Not as Strong as We Think We Are.” Beautifully sung by him here.
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Errors? Perhaps we need to define error? It might depend on the knowledge of the day. Or the culture. Or just the interpretation or understanding.
Richard
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It’s a sincere question. I get there are numerous alleged and some very strong candidates for actual errors in the Bible. But for the liberal theologian who still identifies as a Christian, are there any books or chapters that you are confident in saying are free from error?
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Ecclesiastes, most of the prophets. I mean, Paul wrote what he believed, who am I to claim error?
I really do not think it helps to approach scripture from this angle
Richard
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What I’m beginning to see, and I think it’s helpful, is how a question like this might expose a critical-deconstructive spirit that can find errors, but is unable to make a determinative statement of truth.
Edit: This post was hidden because several people flagged it, I’ve reread it and find nothing offensive. Spirits like this do exist, and for someone who identifies as a Christian and cannot point to single book or chapter in the Bible that is without error, in a conversation about errors, then that may be something you want to look at more closely. I’m not directing this as an accusation at Richard, he identified several books he believes to be true, but I was responding to his view that he does not find this approach to the Bible helpful.
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Well either God overrides the human author’s free will or he did not.If he did you have to explain why God forgot who he baptized (Paul) and if it didn’t then the Bible is a product, or fallen, sinful humans.
Pick your poison. The latter is Ken Spark’s position.
Why? So the goalposts can be moved?
The Bible serves the purpose for which God intends it. Without the Holy Spirit it is just wood pulp, wood pulp to be led out into battle against other wood pulp.
And I think the part about dashing infants on rocks and slaughtering all the killing men and “used” women but keeping virgin girls for yourselves is inerrant. Prove me wrong then we can talk hermeneutics.
This goes back to Sproul’s point about the difference between infallible and inerrant authors.
It’s a serious question what Paul did and did not get wrong.
Or if there is a single book or chapter in the Bible that is free from error. And it strikes me as monumentally disingenuous to find errors, but then to be unable to say what is not in error or that it is all wrong. I could be wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time. But I’m not always wrong.