An Example of The Usefulness of Context

If you have not read my last post, this post will probably make less sense. In a way, this fact goes to prove the point of the thought I have been promoting in the last post and in this one. Statements often do not stand on their own. There is a purpose for them being said. When we pull them out of context, we lose something of their purpose.

Let's consider the biblical statement: "An eye for an eye..." (Lev 24:20; Deut 19:21), which does indeed show up elsewhere in the ANE literature (Hammurabi's Code--A law of the King of Babylon).* Many secularists will point to the Bible as an outdated and outmoded way of life. They would suggest that this idea is cruel and uncivilized. They would further point to the New Testament, and Christ's command to turn the other cheek (Matt 5:38-42). Here it seems that Christ is contradicting the Old Testament command. This would prove to them that even within the tradition, people begin to disagree with the old ways.

Without context, we would have to say that disagreement is a real possibility. Let's pull these two statements out of their books and their historical context, and read them side by side.

Leviticus 24:20

....fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he has caused disfigurement of a man, so shall it be done to him.

Matthew 5:38-42

You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away.

Not only does it seem that these two ideas are mutually exclusive, Christ seems to be challenging the OT idea of an "eye for an eye." Is this the case, or will the context give us a clue as to what is going on?

How do we understand this? Just prior to Christ seemingly contradicting the OT, He says of Himself: "I did not come to destroy [the law], but to fulfill." (Matthew 5:17). How can this be so, if what He does throughout the rest of the sermon is mention an OT idea and then change it?

We need some context.

The statement "an eye for an eye" does not stand alone in the OT as some sort of timeless rule. Instead, it is a guideline for an ANE people who need direction. The laws given in the Pentateuch are to set Israel apart as different from the rest of the ANE. So, what was the common form of discipline in the ANE? Commonly the punishment was disproportionately severe. Someone who stole a cheap piece of stale bread could have his life taken. Israel was restrained from such action. The phrase an "eye for an eye" is analogous to "let the punishment fit the crime," or "no cruel or unusual punishment" in our day. Therefore, it is quite the opposite of what the secularist would assume. It is not a heartless or harsh punishment, but a loosening of the harshness from the old ways. It was a step in the right direction. A step that Christ continues forward in His own day to reveal the real nature of the Father.

In other words, the idea of an "eye for an eye" is more than just a rule to follow, but carries with it an idea: "Be more merciful than you would be otherwise." Is this not the point Christ is making in Matt 5. He is saying to the crowd: "You are following rules, but it is the principle that matters. It is not, 'I have to gouge out your eye for justice to be served.' Instead, it is 'In light of God's message of grace I have to show the guilty a measure of mercy that I would not otherwise show." So, he takes the statement, "An eye for an eye," to its logical next step. In other words, He fulfills the (yet to be fulfilled) law: Not only should we be so merciful to give an equal punishment; we need to go the extra mile. Christ was telling the people to turn from blindly following the law out of legalistic ritual and to get to the core of the law.

So, it is with the rest of the Sermon on the Mount. Christ mentions a law of the OT and then extracts the principle that the people had forgotten in their legalism.

Historical context is key.

* While some might want to suggest that Israel was simply mirroring the Babylonians, this would be a very uneducated statement considering that much of Israelite Scripture is very intent upon removing the Israelite way of life away from the rest of the ANE. However, it cannot be denied that Hammurabi's Code does state "an eye for an eye" and that this was written down before the Pentateuch. While this does not prove that the Babylonians came up with this rule first, it does offer the possibility. In the end, what is more significant is not the fact that the statement is made in two ANE cultures, but how each culture received and understood such an idea. For the Babylonians, the idea was quite literal, and without nuance. But, before the legalism of Christ's time came to such an extreme, the Hebrew people actually understood the nuance of God's order, which, as this article argues, is mercy. We need simply to look at Hebrew Targums on the passage to see that they spent a lot of effort extracting the proper nuance, even at times suggesting that literalism is not crucial, but that perhaps a fine that fit the crime could be a suitable substitute. 

However, do not let me deny that even Hammurabi's Code is a much more humane idea than the rules and ways of still other ANE societies. Hammurabi's Code is indeed praised as being a more humane look at punishment. Thus, that the Hebrews might have been given this truth first through another people does not threaten that it is indeed God's truth as well. As is often stated, all truth is God's truth. 

History as Theology:

When we want to find foundation for our theology, it seems natural for us to turn to platitudes, those verses of Scripture that are repeatable and unhindered by outdated Bible names and context, simply timeless ideas. However, these statements, on their own, lose a lot of their power. They are bantered about as pithy solutions to deep and varied issues until they are seen as too worn or insufficient for all the applications for which they are used.

Moral ideas need foundation themselves, lest their import is assumed to come from the feeling the comment produces, which holds no real power at all, not at least lasting power. Let me see if I can give a practical example of what I mean. The statement: “You should probably think really hard before breaking the law again,” is a perfectly profitable statement, but on its own, it does not move one to take it too seriously. Especially if all we can think back to is a possible traffic violation. Big whoop.

On the other hand, if you are standing in front of a judge who is just about ready to throw the book at you and is giving you one last chance before incarceration, it carries much more weight. It is the same statement, but it is given real world application and import. Context is key. With this truth in mind, we must try to reconstruct in our mind why our favorite memory verses are said in the first place. They are, almost, if not always said as response to some real historical event or fact.

“God is love,” is a beautiful idea, but it has, when taken on its own, led to less than helpful views of God as a sentimental being, never willing to discipline, sort of like the God of Rob Bell’s, Love Wins. The terms “God” and “love” do not stand on their own as timeless ideas. No, the writers of the Bible are always using their terms in the context of their Hebraic understanding, which is defined by the OT. When we then think of the statement, “God is Love,” we get a rich understanding of just what this means. It means that Yahweh, the personal God of Israel, the Lord Most High, the One God that exists without equal is Holy-love, a love that is expressed of a superior to an inferior to bring restoration and healing without transgressing justice.  Lovey-dovey flies out the window when we see this God for who He is.

We do not learn about the definitions of our terms from other moral platitudes given elsewhere. That would just move the problem back a step. No, we learn who God is and what His love is like by reading about God through story, real story, but story nonetheless. We know God demands justice, because we see him, in our minds eye, demand justice through the literature of the OT. We know that He is merciful as well for the same reason.

So, we read the OT, and we muster through the stories, and we think that just because we know how the story plays out that we know the Scripture, but if we do not ask “Why,” why is this story told, what is the author trying to teach, we do not learn much at all. Knowing the story is the first step. It is foundational. The various lesson that we learn of God and man do not jump right off the page some times (often times), but after we know the stories and we come across what seems to be a nice moral statement, the light bulb goes off. “Ah, he did not just make that up; he got that from (this or that) story.” God acts in real space and time to reveal His self and His plan for us.

God uses unrepeatable history as a solid foundation to demonstrate who He is and what He cares about. He then becomes the measuring stick for humanity, and by comparison, we see the depths of our need for Him. The Bible’s history then stands as the foundation for its lessons. Many think that once we get the “timeless” lesson, we can then discard the story itself, but that is a huge mistake. Without the history the lessons become disassociated platitudes that come to mean whatever they make us feel. We end up in square one again.   

The Abrahamic Covenant:

This article is an example of how a historical understanding of the Bible helps us further develop our theology:

When modern scholarship got underway, critical thinkers began to look at the various historical evidences and determined that the idea of covenant did not exist until well after the time of Abraham. It was thus determined that the Pentateuch’s reference to covenant before Moses, who lived in a time when the world was certainly using covenants, was anachronistic, a literary tool to help the primary audience understand what was going on. Therefore, it was assumed that any covenantal references seen with creation, Adam, Noah, or Abraham must be a way of telling the reader that God had an agreement with these entities much like the reader would have understood covenant, but no real covenant was made.

The idea of anachronism in Scripture is not particularly threatening to Biblical inerrancy and faith. For example, the city of Dan is referred to as Dan in the Genesis account (11:28, 31), but according to the Bible itself, Dan was not called Dan at the time. It was Laish until it was renamed in the Judges Era. This simply indicates an updating so that the reader understands what the author is talking about in more “modern” terms. Remember the ancients considered themselves as moderns and those before them ancients. They too benefited from the study of history, and often helped their reader to understand outdated terms.

On the other hand, critical scholars have become too comfortable to relocate every reference to an idea that they only have later evidence for to the realm of anachronism. For example, it was believed for a long time that Abraham did not have camels as the Genesis account says he does, because the only evidence we had at the time was for a later domestication of camels, but newer evidence shows that there is indeed reason to believe that Abraham could have had domesticated camels.

Moreover, while the earliest covenants with Adam (perhaps creation) Noah and the like do not have tremendous theological implications if the writer was simply trying to convey a message that God is faithful and made some sort of promise, the Abrahamic covenant has bearing throughout the Bible and carries with it much theological import. If it did not happen as the Bible reports, if it was not an actual historic event, then all our talk about God keeping His covenant becomes strained.

There are a few things that could be said at this point. First, who is to say that God himself did not create the idea of covenant and every other ANE form is a reflection or remnant from the first covenants between God and man? On the other hand, the assumption that ANE political covenants, as seems to be reflected in form of the covenant cut with Abraham, is not at all harmed by the thought that such covenants were human inventions. All the more, this is a testimony that God meets us where we are. He comes to us in forms we can understand. Thus, if the practice of covenant existed at least in one primitive form or another at the time of Abraham, it would make complete sense that God would use such social norms to begin His social interactions with Abraham. In other words, He would be coming to Abraham in forms that Abraham would understand (and He would redefine those terms to teach about Himself, and He indeed does so with covenant. While it looks like other ANE forms, its deepest understandings are far from that of the ANE For the ANE, the actual ritual was more important than the ethical obligations, but to God, the covenant ritual—sacrifice—is subordinate to the heart of the matter, the ethical reasons to sacrifice).

Again, however, some critical scholars were claiming that such secular covenantal understandings did not exist in Abraham’s time. If we read the account of the covenant between God and Abraham, Abraham seems to know exactly what to do with the animal sacrifice for the covenant without much instruction. The Bible leads us to think that Abraham knew what was going on. He was in fact asking for a covenant with God. So, how did he know about covenant if it did not exist? The scholar once claimed that the story is full of anachronism. It was just literary fiction meant to teach a lesson. But, the Bible is important, mainly because it is historical. If it is not historical, God’s promises have no real eternal impact as the Bible suggests they do.

But, time has a way of making us look foolish. We should not be too dogmatic to write off Biblical claims just because our limited understanding of the ancient times do not line up with what the Bible claims (this author would much rather believe the Bible, but that could be considered bias….oh well). In fact, new evidence shows that a neighboring group, the Hittites, were using covenant at the time of Abraham, and Abraham, being a very well to do man, would more than likely know of such practices.

The particular covenantal form of the Hittites was a suzerainty covenant. This would be a covenant made between two kings of varying influence. The greater king, known as the suzerain, would be seeking to expand his empire by making agreements with lesser kings, known as vassals, who were looking to be protected. The suzerain could require tribute from the vassal, and the vassal could ask for protection of the suzerain from any other invading peoples. In order to establish this relationship, a covenant would be made. Covenants over time develop very complex forms and ideas, but at this time, the early suzerainty covenant is pretty straightforward:

The greater king would take his seat above the vassal. The vassal would split animals in two. Then, the vassal would walk between the bloody sacrifices. This act was symbolic of the vassal saying to the greater king, “If I break my covenantal obligations, may I be split in two like these animals. While the Abrahamic covenant is lacking some similarities with the Hittite covenant form, the real similarities that do exist show us some surprising things that Abraham would have known and would have been in awe of.

Look at the scene in Genesis 15 now with an ancient understanding of covenant. The High King is supposed to watch the weaker place himself under the oath unto death. Abraham would have thought that He was to be the one to promise His loyalty to God. He would be the one saying, “I promise to pay tribute for your protection and blessing.” But what happens? Abraham watches the smoking pot and the flaming torch, which represent YHWH pass through the sacrifice. In other words, God is saying, “If I be a liar, may I be like these animals.” Wow! God willingly stoops down and submits Himself, at least in this instance, to the needs of Abraham. He is a serving God, and He does not see His power as something to be exploited, but as something to bless us with. God is saying that He is willing to die for His promise. The amazing thing is that He does, when Christ hangs on the cross for us. 

The Bible is a Story...And So is Your Life.

Cookie Monster Bible Study

I am going to do something a bit different today and take a break from the in-depth blog articles. Instead, I want to offer you a video on how to do Bible study in light of how Cookie Monster eats his cookies... Enjoy

Theological Perspectives and Starting Points

Part One: New Perspectives

Now that you have read my first blog, in which I simply jump straight in, I want to back up for a moment and share why I am taking the approach I am. The reason I did not open with a sort of introduction of sorts is because I assume that you might not have understood what I was trying to say, but now that I have given an example, perhaps what I say now will ring more true.

I suspect that the contents of the previous post were not exactly what many of you were expecting when I announced that I would be giving practical advice on studying theology. I suspect that what many persons were assuming I was going to undertake was a project of telling you how to read and study the Bible, and, to a certain extent, I did and will continue to talk about such things. Again, how I talked about Bible study when I did indeed talk about it was probably not what many of you are used to hearing on such topics, but I hope it was helpful, nonetheless.

I am taking a bit of a different tact, not because I wish to be different for the sake of being different, but because I wish to perhaps fill in some gaps that are often left untouched. Since this is introductory, we won’t be filing them all, of course, but hopefully by tapping into areas less considered some of you might find a renewed interest by seeing it does not have to always be the same stuff.

I can remember thinking in seminary, “Why didn’t anyone every teach me this in church?” Unfortunately for us church goers, there is a general assumption amongst the leadership camps that lay people do not want to here in-depth ideas of “Christian education,” a phrase that, because of this assumption, has almost become almost oxymoronic, because, unless you attend a seminary, you might not have the opportunity to learn what these institutions would consider a proper “Christian education”, which is a downfall of the church. The church should be teaching most (if not all) these ideas too. Perhaps not at the same rate, but teaching them nonetheless. Unless I am reading the writing on the wall incorrectly, this assumption is what is leading the church into deeper and deeper malaise.

First of all, I do believe that, while there might exist many in the church that are just there to fill in their weekly checklist, to get their “gold star” for attendance, so to speak, there are others in the church that are there to be truly fed. I hope that you have been led to this blog site because you are such a person. Again, unfortunately for you, pastors often allow the malaise of others to ruin it for the whole group. Instead of real theological pursuit, many leaders assume that their duty is to do the work for you. It is hard to blame them. Pastors are often very mistreated and underappreciated for their attempts to make real eternal impacts in a community, and eventually just give the people what they assume they want, which is a heart-warming sermon on Sundays and otherwise to be left alone. Perhaps now it is the layman’s job to prove his or her want to study in order to renew the pastor’s first love. Perhaps we can minister to our ministers by asking them to share their sheer wealth of knowledge.

This is why I have chosen a bit of a different approach, an approach to teach things that are often unsaid. So, some of what you might assume I mean when I say “theological study,” might perhaps be challenged by this blog. I hope so. For example, as I think I made clear in the last post, and I will reiterate here and especially in my next post, “doing theology” and doing “bible study,” while intrinsically related—if you consider yourself an apostolic Christian—are not exactly one and the same.  This is true on various levels.

First, Bible Study, as done by some (and here I am talking about those who more than likely do not consider themselves Christian, not at least in the orthodox sense) does nothing to form their worldview. Some simply read for informational purposes. What these liberal scholars and students extract from their research they might call “Biblical Theology,” but what they mean by this terminology is that it is the beliefs of the ancient cultures or writers included in the text. It has no real bearing on the scholar’s own epistemology or way of living.

On another, more positive level, Bible study serves as a part, the most crucial and necessary part of theological study, and while we cannot do theology without reading the Bible, reading the Bible alone does not form a proper theology.  Theology is then, for many of us, asking the question, “What am I to do with all this meaningful information I have gathered from my Bible study.” “Doing theology” is sort of a next step, or, at least, continuing of the path that the Bible places us upon. This is not to say how we “do” theology is outside any biblical consideration. I believe the Bible, as we grow in our understanding of it, will form our approach to its material and how we organize said material (I plan to give a clear example of this in an upcoming post). What I am trying to say is this: Bible Study is our foundation; forming theology is our reaction to what we have studied as we apply it to our worldview and hopefully to our lives.

How we apply the revelation of Scripture to our lives is a lifelong process with many different facets and lenses by which we ask the crucial questions of life. What these lenses are, we will discuss in our next post. I am sure you want to get into it already. I haven’t given you much in the way of practical advice. So far in my last two posts I have simply said that we proper theology must be lived theology, and doing theology is a multilayered task that begins with reading the Bible.  Again, I am trying to give you ideas that you might not have considered at this point, unless you have been to seminary or read a lot about theology. In the end, we need proper perspective so that we can see clearly what we are trying to study.

Thoughts on “Doing” Theology

When wanting to grow as a Christian, we have several areas from which to choose. We can choose to be better dedicated to prayer. We can choose to be better dedicated to worship. We can choose to be better dedicated to service. Or, we can, as I think most persons wishing to “be” better Christians do, attempt to be more knowledgeable in our theology. However, this enterprise can be difficult. Where do we begin? More often than not, people become bogged down in Scripture as soon as they begin. I think our want to be more knowledgeable is a noble endeavor. We could, because of this danger of paralysis, wish to avoid deeper understanding and revert to growing in the other areas mentioned just above, but, then again, all those areas above are better practiced with deeper understanding of theology, of what God expects of us when we pray, worship, and serve.

When doing theology, orthodox Christians have, since the beginning of the church, relied on Scripture as a primary source, but why? If we are going to do good theology, the Bible gives us a firm, unchanging place to turn, but why don't Christians use any other means of doing theology, or do they? 

We have to start somewhere, and when it comes to theology, many wish to start with the Bible, and, while this might be appropriate, do we ever ask what gives the Bible the right to establish what we believe about reality? In other words, where did we start before we came to the conclusion that the Bible is the place to start? How did we decide that the Bible has something to teach? We do not simply read a piece of paper that says, “This document is true,” and automatically believe it, do we?

Moreover, while many naysayers attempt to caricature the Scripture by suggesting that it somehow makes such claims, they would be mistaken. While many a person has come to Christ because of something that they read in Scripture, was that the whole of the experience? Were the words in the Text so moving that   the would-be believer decided to stake his or her whole life on what it says? If so, what do we make of the text that says a natural man cannot understand the Spiritual on his or her own (I Corinthians 2:14). Such faith in the Bible seems to be antithetical to the claims of the Bible. Paul tells us in I Corinthians that something else must be involved in our coming to truly accept Scripture as such.

While there are certainly areas in which the Scripture hints to its own validity, it is most often not concerned with such discourse. It simply does not spend an exorbitant amount of time defending its self.  It instead most often assumes its own authority as the Word of God, and leaves it up to the reader to sort out if he or she will accept it. Put another way, the Bible grew up amongst a people who already assumed that sacred Scripture could and would be produced, so it did not spend much of its time defending the reality of such a thing as “sacred Scripture.” Do not misunderstand. I am not suggesting that the Bible is undefended, that there is no way to ask the question, "How is the Bible an authority." Unlike many people today who simply rely on certain statements of Scripture, the Bible did not find its ultimate authority in its self, but assumed another, bestowed authority.

Again, this is not to say it does not have authority, but the authority is simply more than the Bible assuring you that it is true. The Bible has a stronger hand than that.

There are various ways in which we might try and test the Scriptures in order to see if they are true. We can perhaps test the validity of its truth claims, if we know what sort of truths the Scriptures are trying to present, which seems to be a growing issue in the world of Bible reading. Asking the wrong questions of the right text is not very helpful, and there are, much to our chagrin, many areas of human curiosity that the Scriptures do not wish to explore. We will perhaps be discussing the sorts of questions that should and should not be asked throughout our discussion on the blog. At least I hope to return to this at some future time.

We might also wish to test the validity of Scripture by seeing how well it matches with our own logic, but, no matter how educated we find ourselves to be, one preliminary class in logic proves that we, on our own, without much training, are not always very good at being logical, and, if we for a moment, simply assume there to be a higher being that is revealing Himself to us through these words in this ancient text, we must realize that there will be a learning curve.

We might also wish to see how Scripture has been used to impact the world, but, again, since humans are involved, Scripture is often mixed with other agendas to produce less than helpful events of history, and we tend to fixate on those events rather than the quite miraculous and world altering events that occur all the time from rightly practiced belief.

Again, unless we are simply studying Scripture as a purely intellectual pursuit, without the want of allowing such a study to be transformative, we must establish its authority, what gives it right to tell us to live the way it says we should. Of course, there are “theologians” out there that do not believe the Bible says anything really true about reality, truth, or a being called “God.” They are theologians in the sense that they are interested, for whatever reason, to know what a particular ancient group (or groups) of people, namely the ancient Hebrews and the Early Church Cult, thought about reality, and how they used a construct known as God to describe their ideal. But, this is not the sort of theology that means much.

While intellectual examination of Scripture might be stimulating, such reading is not the intended purpose of the Scriptures. Whatever is true about reality, the authors of Scripture obviously believed that they were speaking about a real being known as “God” and a real history revealed by the same God. Moreover, they believed they were writing with authority to tell people about how life is and how it should be. Again, the scholar might not have a problem with this. They might simply wish to say that their pursuit is meaningful even if they are not reading Scripture as the author(s) intended, because its intent is based in less than intellectual reason, according to these "theologians." Humans can be wrong, and yet, they can be very interesting indeed.

The assumptions of these thinkers brings me to my main point of this article. Unless we give the Scripture the benefit of the doubt and test it claims in the ways in which it urges us to test them, we have no right to conclude, as the liberal theologian does, that they are really not authoritative at all. In other words, one of the most important and practical ways of doing theology is by doing what has been called Experimental of Experiential Theology. I will explain this term shortly. First I must finish my thoughts on liberal theology, which has it own methodology it will suggest we should use to test Scripture.

The series of thoughts we will explore over the course of time assumes Scripture to be authoritative and transformative. The real tragedy of the liberal theologian is that he or she will not allow one's self to test the claims of Scripture as the Scripture has asked the claims to be tested. Instead, they rely on their own rationalism to inform them that there is no real reason to test the Scriptures as intended, namely by faith, and they ironically miss out on its blessings for the same reasons they accuse the authors for being wrong, human error.

These scholars have at least one thing correct: Humans can be wrong. So, as we search for reasons by which we come to affirm Scripture, our main proof cannot be based on human credibility. As we search for reasons why we believe the Scriptures to be credible, we might run into several reasons based in human authority. We might respect the authority of great thinkers, of parents, of grandparents, aunts or uncles, and so on. But, again, as the liberal theologian has pointed out (and demonstrated) humans can be wrong. Again, if Biblical authority exists, but it does not simply exist in the Bible's own words or in the humans that preach these words, where do we find its authority?

Before I discontinue this talk of “human authority,” please do not misunderstand. I do believe that humans can be quite credible, and we can rely on honest, well researched, and well-intentioned people, but, as an ultimate authority, as a primary authority, we cannot be satisfied with placing all our eggs in the human authority basket. I actually feel discouraged for those who have a worldview that only have humans as the highest authority, but I digress.

While we have discussed several ways in which we can test theology, this author will argue that perhaps the most beneficial means by which we may test the theology of Scripture is to live out of its theology. We must take a leap of faith to be fully engaged in Scripture, but so many people want the Scripture to prove itself before they have faith. What sort of faith is that? Scripture is full of divine bidding, full of invitation to join God. It is in this submission that God is best understood. This seems to be the surest way to understand for one’s self whether or not Scripture is true. This is not as simple as following the Ten Commandments or the golden rule. The bidding of Scripture is to submit to God, which, I think, reveals the real authority of Scripture, which is the question we have been asking.

So, back to our opening question: What gives the Bible the right to tell us about Truth? On what authority does it make its claims? As a people of the book, we might feel justified in saying, “Well, the Bible teaches…” And for us, such a claim has meaning. But, this cannot rightly be our answer when discussing the Bible’s own truth. We cannot reason that the Bible is true because the Bible says so, and if we all think hard enough, we should see that, while the Bible might have been the tool to open our eyes to Truth, it was not the reason we accepted the truth as such. It was a means of a greater authority.

The Bible is authoritative because of its being given authority by its divine author. In other words, when we read the Bible, there is something outside the Bible witnessing to our being that the Bible has authority. That witness, according to Orthodox Christianity, is the author Himself. Not only do we who call ourselves Christians feel as if God is speaking to us when we consider the validity of the Bible, the Bible itself points to God as the ultimate authority. In many ways, this is the whole intent of Scripture (not to be too monolithic about the issue). If the Bible asks us to look outside of the pages itself and to that which the pages point, namely God, then we should at least, if we are going to take the study of theology seriously, give the Scripture the benefit of the doubt and lean into His authority.

The reader might find him or her self frustrated about now. You might be saying, "You say that the Bible's authority is of God, but we only know of God through the Bible." This is not entirely true, but let's assume it is. The whole reason that you have stayed this long with me, if you are frustrated, is because you know the Bible is at least worth considering. Otherwise, you would have stopped reading by now. Why do you feel this way? Perhaps you were raised in the church and it is latent, ingrained prejudice. Perhaps. Perhaps, you were moved once, and want to see if that was simply emotion or something real. Perhaps. Whatever the reason, you are asking along with me, "Could the Bible be true?" The Bible then would respond: "Test and see." In other words, God urges us to live in Scripture in order to find Him. If you are not willing to do it His way, you will never know. In other words, when we read the Bible and ask, "Who is speaking here?" The Bible answers, "God is speaking." God says, "This is my word." We respond, "How can I be sure?" and God, through scripture, answers: "Walk with me." Have you never had such a conversation before. I think they happen all the time. We do not take strangers word on face value. We sit and listen. We apply, and we see. 

In conclusion, while we have options as to where we might start in affirming theology's place in our lives, it seems that the surest place to start is actually outside of our biggest theological source, the Bible. This is not to threaten the Bible in any way, but is to lend the utmost credence to its place in God’s great plan. It is our rulebook, not because it is a collection of human thoughts about God, but because God, the ultimate authority, has given us Scripture as our guide. But, here is the rub. While God is the authority of the Bible, He makes His appeal through the Bible. This seems to stick us back into square one with circular reasoning, that is unless we affirm that perhaps God is active in our lives. As strange and as nonacademic as it might sound, most of us find ourselves believing the Bible, not simply because grandma and grandpa, mom and dad, preacher Bob, or sister Suzie said they liked it and recommend it. Instead, we feel urging. On its own, the urging might not be enough, but once we are urged, we then begin to test the Scriptures in our own lives. This is very unappealing to many who wish for “proof before taking a leap of faith.” But the God of Scripture asks for us to walk with Him.

God is not in the business of acquiescing to our wants. While we might wish to accept the Bible’s authority if and only if it measures up to a litany of human testing, God does not allow for such. Instead, God’s invitation to live out of truth requires that we, to obtain the full experience of theology, must live in it through submission to Him. In other words, in order to truly understand the power of Truth, we must live under His authority. Through this, we not only study biblical theology, but we live out of biblical theology.  The unwilling scholar will read truth his or her whole life, and they might even test the claims in scientific or historical ways, and while much fruit might be produced (and God might speak His grace through this process), if they are unbending to allow God to touch the heart, the Truth of Scripture, the Personal and Loving Trinity, will never be experienced in a lasting way.

In short, the best way to “do” theology, is to actually “do” the bidding of theology. Experiential Theology is one of many lens by which we do theology. These lens are not mutually exclusive, but have different weights, and we must decide how we are going to approach the Scriptures with all our various means of study. We will talk of these lenses more in the next few posts. For now, I am simply arguing that the surest way to do theology so that it actually impacts your life, is to submit to theology and do what they Bible bids us do, follow God.