Category Archives: Theology

“Accusation is Not Proof”

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It’s old news now – Mark Driscoll, founding pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, tweeted about President Obama during the Inauguration.

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I’ve stared at this tweet off and on, not knowing how to respond. Not knowing if I should respond.  “Some thoughts are better left unexpressed,” I’ve told myself. “Better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt,” advice I obviously have not followed in the past.

News came to me this week, however, that made the tweet personal.  Driscoll lobbed a bomb at the President.  The pastor, along with all Americans, has a right to criticize our leaders and their policies.  It’s the American way.  No problem there.  Driscoll’s tweet though was the delivery of a spiritual slam.

“…who today will place his hands on a Bible he does not believe to take an oath to a God he likely does not know.”

Several months ago a message began circulating that “Phillip doesn’t believe the Bible.”  Like the Energizer Bunny the message keeps going and going.  I heard it again this week. I thought, “Really?”

The charge came as a result of a teaching I gave in September 2012.   I’ve listened to the audio of that teaching three times  – I never said what was said I said.

I did say this: “We can’t build our faith on the foundation of the Bible, but on the person of Jesus” (1 Corinthians 3:11; 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, 1 Corinthians 15:14)

And I said the following in response to an earlier comment from another teacher at the same seminar concerning inerrancy: “Every inerrantist I know, or have read, believes that only the original manuscripts are inerrant.  So if you base your trust in the Bible on its inerrancy then you won’t be able to trust this book (the one I’m holding in my hand), because the Bible you have right here is not the original manuscript.  And if you base your trust in the Bible on whether or not it is inerrant then you can’t trust what you have here…”

The claim is made by those who hold an inerrantist view, that the trustworthiness of the Bible stands or falls with inerrancy.  If the Bible contains any real errors it cannot be trusted.  Then there is the admission that every Bible that exists probably contains errors.  Only the original manuscripts can be considered perfectly inerrant.

So…think along with me…if the Bible’s trustworthiness is based on inerrancy- as defined as “without error” –  and only the original manuscripts – which no one has – are inerrant, then that does not bode well for the trustworthiness of the Bible we do have.

That is why I like and hold the definition of inerrancy given by John Piper – “Perfect with regard to purpose.” The Bible’s main purpose is transformation, not information (2 Timothy 3:16), and it’s unfortunate that so many people spend their time arguing over the “information” part.  The Bible is absolutely trustworthy to do what it is intended to do.

Back to the tweet.

I do not know why the President is accused by Driscoll of not believing the Bible.  I do know that in the words of Edward R. Murrow, the pioneer of television news reporting, “Accusation is not proof.”

Yeah, it’s a bit personal.

Holiness? “Love God, then do what you please.”

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Let’s continue thinking about holiness. There seems to be a conflict.  Christianity Today asks the question, “Do American Christians Need the Message of Grace or a Call to Holiness?”  What is your answer?  My answer has not always been warmly received.  I’m still trying to figure out why. Personally, grace is like ice-cream. You can’t have too much.
Maybe Paul clears up the confusion when he tells us to “put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:24)  “True holiness?”  Did you catch that?  If there is true holiness, there must be false holiness.  Maybe we’re all hung up on a holiness that is false.

False holiness is about keeping Christian rules.  
False holiness is about keeping away from bad influences.

See any problem with the above definitions of holiness?  One big one!  Jesus.  Jesus was holy.  No question about that.  Yet, Jesus broke quite a few religious rules – so many and so often that the religious leaders put him to death. Maybe Christianity is not about keeping the rules.

Keeping away from bad influences? Jesus kind of messes with that one as well. “A friend of sinners” (Matthew 11:19), Jesus was called.  He hung out with and even ate with people who were “bad influences.” The Gospel writers didn’t say that Jesus tolerated sinners, or that he made an allowance for them to be in his gathering.  It doesn’t say that he tract-bombed them and then ran. No, the writers tell us that he was a friend of sinners.  He went to their houses, talked with them over wine (not grape juice).

For those who follow a false holiness, holiness requires them to keep away from certain people. For Jesus, holiness compelled him to reach out to those same people.

So, no one lived a holier life than Jesus, yet he broke religious rules and the irreligious considered him to be their friend.

False holiness is controlling my sin.   Borrowing the term from Dallas Willard, holiness is all about “sin management.”   In this view of holiness, the gospel is little more than a list of good behaviors. Christianity is about being good and making sure other people are good.  We focus on our behavior and even more so at times, other’s behaviors.  Result? We turn into guilt-ridden, judgmental, list-makers.  And the sins keep popping up like “Whack-a-mole.”

There’s a better way.  True holiness.  Think about this until next time:  What was the first sin about?  A broken rule or a broken relationship?  Did God really care about a piece of fruit? When Adam and Eve broke the rule they were demonstrating that they didn’t trust God.  They doubted God’s love and goodness.

St. Augustine once said, “Love God, then do what you please.” Paul puts it like this: “For when we place our faith in Christ Jesus, there is no benefit in being circumcised or being uncircumcised (Fill in your own rule here).  What is important is faith expressing itself in love.” Galatians 5:6

“Faith (dependence on Jesus), expressing itself in love.”   Now, that’s true holiness.

“Bible-minded” “Christ-like”

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“Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.” Mark Twain

The latest “facts” from the Barna organization were released January 23 under the title, “America’s Most and Least Bible-Minded Cities.” Coming in at #1 is Knoxville, Tennessee, the home of the Lady Vols, with 52% of the population being “Bible-minded.”  Coming in last is Providence, Rhode Island with 9% being “Bible-minded.”  How ironic that a town named “Providence” is last in this category.  Roger Williams can’t be happy with this.  The town where I live, Springfield, Missouri, is in the top ten at #6 with 49% being “Bible-minded.”

As always, I have questions:

How do they reach these rankings?  What are the criteria? What does “Bible-minded” really mean?  Why didn’t they ask me?  For the past seven years the Barna people surveyed through phone and online interviews 42,855 adults.  The organization defines “Bible-minded” as having read the Bible within the last seven days and strongly believe that the Bible is accurate in all it teaches.  Apparently they just asked people how often they read their Bibles.  That’s like asking people how often they exercise. Do our answers reflect what we actually do or what we should do?  How honest are the answers?

And what about the “accurate in all it teaches” line? What if a survey taker loves the Bible, values it as God-breathed, not only reads it but works hard at understanding it and applying it to life, yet sees Genesis 1 not as “accurate” history but as “accurate” poetry Tim Keller or who sees Jonah as “accurate” story but not “accurate” history C.S. Lewis?  Would they be considered “Bible-minded” or not?

Here are some take-aways for me:

* Thinking biblically is more than reading or even memorizing a lot of Scripture.  It is learning to think critically and practically about the Bible.  It’s about trying to understand the Bible in its original intent, its contexts, and its relevance to us today.  It’s about combining all of these things in both personal application and community encouragement.

* The Barna people say that the rankings “reflect an overall openness or resistance to the Bible.”  That means that in my home town of Springfield, 51% of the residents are closed or resistant to the Bible.  Hmmm.  Being that Springfield is in the “Bible belt” maybe Christ-followers here need a little fashion advice on how to wear the “belt.” I know I’m “fashion challenged.”

* While I want to be “bible-minded” I want to be “Christ-like” even more. 1 John 2:6  Maybe the better question is, “Do I look like Jesus?”

* “I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot more as they get older; then it dawned on me – they’re cramming for their final exam.” George Carlin

That hits home.  It’s good for all of us to read the Bible a lot more.  The Bible tells the truth about the Truth and leads us to Him.

This I believe…

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Another song from my Sunday School days went like this:

“I may never march in the infantry, ride in the cavalry, shoot the artillery.
I may never fly o’er the enemy, but I’M IN THE LORD’S ARMY!”

The song was always accompanied by lots of stomping on our part.  It felt like we were stomping on anyone who didn’t agree with us.   I’ve seen a lot of spiritual stompers.  I’ve been one myself.  Maybe still am at times.  I’m sure I’ve got some boots close by.

There’s a lot of stomping going on around the topic of the Bible.  I was in college and seminary during the Scripture wars.  Harold Lindsell picked a fight with plenty when he wrote Battle For the Bible. The book pitted a bunch of evangelicals against one another.   Some of the casualties of the war included godly, Christ-honoring, Bible-believing professors under whom I sat.

Back up the church bus!  How can they be casualties of Bible wars if they are Bible-believers?  Great question.  For spiritual stompers it’s not a matter of believing the Bible but a matter of believing certain things about the Bible. “You may be a Christ-follower, you may seek to let Christ express Himself through you, but if you don’t believe as I do about the Bible…” then stomp, stomp, stomp.  For instance:

Inerrancy – the belief that the Bible contains no mistakes.  The thinking goes like this: “God is perfect.  The Bible is God’s Word. Therefore the Bible is perfect.”  “Jesus, the living Word is sinless, so it is assumed that the written Word is sinless.”  (Does anyone see the danger in that thinking?) Back to Lindsell’s book: He says, “…the Bible is not a textbook on chemistry, astronomy, philosophy, or medicine…when it speaks on matters having to do with these or any other subjects, the Bible does not lie to us.  It does not contain any errors of any kind.”

Then we run into statements in the Bible that aren’t perfect.  I hate it when that happens.  Take this example: Mark 6:8, speaking of Jesus sending out His disciples, says, “He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff…”  The same account in Luke 9:3 and Matthew 10:10 has Jesus saying, “Take nothing for your journey, no staff..”  So, who got it right? Mark or Matthew and Luke?  Did Jesus tell his disciples to bring staffs or not?

This freaks some people out.   “All Scripture is God-breathed…” after all.  That means the Bible is always right.  It is, in fact, impossible for the Bible to be wrong about anything.  If it’s wrong about anything, well, it may be wrong about everything.  Yikes! Then what do we do?

So what does it mean to “believe the Bible,” “confess it’s true” when we are well aware that certain “facts” don’t fit?

First, questions are good.  I know, we’re not supposed to ask questions.  We’re supposed to provide answers to other people’s questions.  But, sorry, I have questions.  So did Origen.  Origen was a theologian and respected Bible interpreter in the 3rd century.  He read the war accounts of Joshua and couldn’t get a handle on them. “Why would God command His people to commit genocide?” he asked.  Others have asked the same thing.  His take on it?  He concluded that the conquest stories in Joshua are allegories of how we battle the temptations we face.  How would that fly in the church today?  No matter if you agree with Origen or not, you have to love the fact that he asked questions, that he wrestled with the texts and that he tried hard to apply the Bible to his life and world.

Second,  Literal or not?    Shouldn’t we read the Bible literally?  Sounds right, doesn’t it? Right but not simple.  Here are a couple of definitions of “literal:”
1. “It happened exactly this way.”  or,
2. “What the writer intended.”
So, for example, what does it mean to read Genesis 1 literally?  If you follow the first definition, Genesis 1 is a play-by-play description of how the world was created. If you follow the second definition, it could be a God-inspired meditation on the origins of the universe attesting to the creative power of God.

Tim Keller, who believes that Genesis 1 is a poem, says this: “The way to respect the authority of the Biblical writers is to take them as they want to be taken.  Sometimes they want to be taken literally, sometimes they don’t. We must listen to them, not impose our thinking and agenda on them.”

Third, accept the Bible for what it is. Some years ago the late Adrian Rogers, one of the architects of the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention, was asked for his definition of inerrancy.  He answered: “It means the Bible is truth without mixture of error historically, philosophically, scientifically and theologically.”  While I have huge respect for Dr. Rogers, he was making claims about the Bible that the Bible doesn’t make for itself.

The Bible does not claim to be inerrant. It does claim to be true.  “The entirety of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous judgments endures forever” Psalm 119:160.  “True” does not mean “inerrant”.  The Bible is 100% true, but that doesn’t necessitate that all of it has to be 100% scientific and historical “fact.”  To require the Bible to be “factual” in the areas of history, chronology, science,  is to impose on it a 21st century mindset that distorts it.

When you’re dealing with any book, you have to know what its purpose is or you won’t understand it correctly.  The main purpose of the Bible is found here:

“And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself…And He opened their understanding that they might comprehend the Scriptures.” Luke 24:27, 44-45

The purpose of the Bible is to point us to God’s final Word: Jesus.

Let’s take off and keep off our stomping boots and put on our sandals and walk with Jesus – the Living Word.

My Hope is Built on ______________.

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The comments about my earlier blog are thoughtful, insightful and honest. How can I reply to each?!  This blogging may be tougher than I thought. I’m going to put off addressing the question of “What’s up with the Old Testament and New Testament picture of God,”  and talk a bit more about the Bible.

I’m a pastor.  A pastor’s son.  A pastor’s grand-son – on both sides of my family.  A nephew of pastors – again on both sides of the family.  I grew up in a home that not only had a Bible in every room but several Bibles in every room in every translation available. Our Bibles didn’t stay on the shelves.  Ours was a home where the Bible was read, studied, discussed and, yes, debated.

We were taught to respect the Bible, not just the message in the Bible, but the actual book.  You would never find my Bible left in the back of the car.  It could be damaged by the sun.  Each time I was given a Bible dad would show me how to “break it in” and how to apply mink oil to the leather cover.

I proudly carried my Bible against my chest, just like dad did it, as I walked into my Sunday School class.  It was in Sunday School that I learned the song, “The B-I-B-L-E. Yes, that’s the book for me.  I stand alone on the word of God.  The B-I-B-L-E”

Oh, speaking of Sunday School, I rocked the Bible drill.  “Bible Drill” was a competition to see which kid could find a called-out Bible verse the fastest.  “Attention! Present Swords! Begin.”  We’d be shaking like a thoroughbred waiting for the gate to open.  Then we’re off!  Seeing who could beat the rest of the field to Zephaniah 3:9 or whatever.

Yet. my parents taught me that while the “written word” – the Bible, was inspired, it’s primary purpose was to take me to the Living Word – Jesus (see John 1:1,18)

On Christmas, 1970, I received a Bible, titled, Reach Out, the New Testament in the Living Bible Paraphrase.  “Reach Out” was a cool phrase for kids in the 1960s and early 1970s and this New Testament was “groovy”.   Spiritually, 1970 was a big year for me.  I was 14 years old.  In the front of the Reach Out New Testament were written these words,

“To Phillip, who this year encountered the author of this book in a way that gives expression in his behavior.”  Dad & Mother, 12/24/70

Lesson?  One’s commitment to the Bible is measured by the reality of the presence of Jesus in his/her life.

C.S. Lewis was a popular author at our house.  He said, “It is Christ Himself, not the Bible who is the true Word of God.  The Bible, read in the right spirit, and with the guidance of good teachers, will bring us to Him.”

The apostle Paul was also popular at our house.   Paul did not teach that “every knee will bow and tongue confess that the Bible is the Word of God” (although I believe it is), but that “every knee will bow and tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

We may have our differences on certain views of Biblical interpretation and how to understand certain texts, but on this we can agree: Jesus is Lord.  He is the Living Word.  He clearly shows us the Father.

I learned another song in my childhood – from “big church”:
“My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.”