Comments on: A Youth perspective

By: Nathan

Nathan — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 17:26:57 +0000

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.

By: Gerry

Gerry — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 17:16:29 +0000

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???

By: Nathan

Nathan — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 15:55:04 +0000

We need to remember that this young woman may well have had the same response thirty years ago when we talked about ordaining women.

By: Gerry

Gerry — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 12:39:38 +0000

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.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 02:27:15 +0000

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.

By: Liz

Liz — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 23:35:04 +0000

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?

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 19:51:45 +0000

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”.

By: Lila

Lila — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 19:34:03 +0000

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.