A Youth perspective
Jun 21st, 2007 by Peter
The other day, when on walkabout through Winnipeg, we got talking with a young lady by the name of Karina from the Zion Apostolic Church. We explained who we were and what we were doing in Winnipeg. We also explained what the issue was about, that there were some in our Church who wanted to introduce the blessing of same sex unions. She stopped, and was obviously taken aback, then said “How can they do that? It goes against what the Bible says”. Keep that in mind when you are assured that todays youth are now more ‘enlightened’ about such matters.
As Soren Kierkegaard said:
The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand it we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world?
Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.
That doesn’t have to be aimed at any one camp either; the Bible is a sharp double-edged sword that is not doing its work unless it ‘cuts’ all those who read it.
The allusion to Hebrews 4:12 is quite unfortunate: the “Word” of God is not the Bible, which was known in the New Testament as “the Scriptures, the Writings.” Evangelicals can so easily fall into Bibliolatry, where Jesus, the Word, is supplanted by the Bible.
Granted, but that was not really the point of the article. It’s possible for us to idolise anything. Doesn’t affect the point that as Christians, we should be letting the God-breathed words in the Bible change us, rather than trying ourselves to change the plain reading of scripture.
As Mark Twain said “It ain’t the parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand”.
I related to this! I have a wonderful Christian daughter-in-law whom I love who spoke these exact words to me when I told her my church was entertaining the idea of blessing same-sex unions. Yes, she is from a more fundamental faith than I and possibly more into Bibliolatry than Christ centred faith. But is she wrong?
Yes, Jesus is “the Word,” the embodiment of God’s love and revelation to us, God’s people, but it is through the Scriptures, the writings, the words that we are able to know and learn about Jesus. The Scriptures do not supplant Jesus - they reveal our Saviour and Redeemer to us, so that we may know him, his life, and teachings. Dependence upon the Scriptures as the means by which God has spoken to us - through prophets, poets, teachers, evangelists, and preachers - is not a form of idolatry, but the turning of God’s people to a key and essential spiritual resource. It is, of course, for that reason that the Anglican church has always
identified itself as Scripture-based.
Interesting…..Hmmmmmmmmmmm…..I’ve been looking at Hebrew 4:12 for the past four days and here it appears. I agree that Jesus is the “Word” , that is not in question, what appears to be missing in this dialogue is that Jesus is mentioned throughout the Old Testament starting very early in Genesis where the “Word hovered over the waters”……
I guess I still don’t get it……why do people seem so intent on using only that which they “want” to use when it comes to the written word and when it comes to the “Word”……I don’t see any seperation……Most Evangelicals; fundamentalists; Born Agains don’t seem to have the problems that the “Scholars” do.
We need to remember that this young woman may well have had the same response thirty years ago when we talked about ordaining women.
Nathan - The young woman responding to this and to ordination of Women is two totally different things…..Why can’t some people just get this???
I don’t think it is the same issue, so I wouldn’t be one of those people you referenced with some hostility. I only meant to say that if you picked a person on the street thirty years ago they would have said the same thing about women. The comment illustrates the point that we shouldn’t inform or support our theology by what people ’say on the street’ and that we need to go deeper on all kinds of things, of which the current debate is but a singular example.
Generally, biblical literacy across the Church, or rather illiteracy, is a huge problem, and that is a point with which I’m sure you would agree. But we also need to remember that just because someone can quote a verse or say ‘the Bible says something about that’ it doesn’t mean that they’re biblically literate.