I have found that vague notions about the Spirit's role in guiding you toward truth translates into an excuse for undisciplined and inaccurate Bible study. If you feel the Spirit showed you a special meaning in a verse, you go with it. You excuse the need to use hermeneutical skills or check your conclusion in a community of better-trained Bible users. And why not? Isn't it just me + Holy Spirit = all I need to discern the truth?
What is the role of the Holy Spirit in personal Bible interpretation? Yep, I'm going there. This question consistently pops up when I teach students how to interpret the Bible. Somewhere between analyzing the literary context and historical context of Bible passages, students wonder if all this work is necessary. Won’t the Spirit just guide me into all truth?
I have found that vague notions about the Spirit's role in guiding you toward truth translates into an excuse for undisciplined and inaccurate Bible study. If you feel the Spirit showed you a special meaning in a verse, you go with it. You excuse the need to use hermeneutical skills or check your conclusion in a community of better-trained Bible users. And why not? Isn't it just me + Holy Spirit = all I need to discern the truth?
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Church division does not have a single all-encompassing "cause." Events in a complex system rarely do. The notable correlation between increased personal Bible reading and new denominations does not imply singular causation. The mathematical formula in my first article (my preferred meaning + the Bible = 34,000 denominations) and the provocative claim “Personal Bible reading destroys the church” are designed to draw your attention to the role of private Bible interpretation in the rapid division of Protestant churches. They do not tell the whole story. Multiple historical, social, political, and personal reasons split churches. For example, the Renaissance encouraged questioning authority and the Reformation tracks that trend in the church. However, promoting personal Bible reading (without training) and the independent discovery of God’s truth (outside of community and well-trained teachers) has contributed to the creation of 34,000 denominations in the last 500 years. With a Bible in hand, Christians can justify reasons for dividing as "biblical." Opinions, causes, or revolts can slap a verse in their language on their hobby horse and ride it down whatever road they want. Individuals and groups, even with the best of intentions, create new “biblical” truth by mixing their culture, experience, hermeneutical incompetency, prior indoctrination, politics, personal preferences, etc. And who can blame them for standing up for what they believe? If you think you’ve figured out “what the Bible really says” about God, shouldn’t you follow your conscience like Luther and form a more “biblical” church? Would Jesus promote personal Bible reading? You probably never thought to ask yourself that question. Protestant Christians assume getting a Bible into everyone’s hand is a good thing. Christian donors pump hundreds of millions into Bible translation and distribution every year. With that money Biblica, Wycliffe, and The Seed Company crank out translations in new languages. Scripture Union promotes Bible reading plans. Faith Comes By Hearing and YouVersion build out robust apps with audio Bibles. GoTandem even texts daily Bible verses selected for your season in life. I wonder: Is all this cash and energy well spent? History says “no.” I do have an axe to grind. I have been disillusioned. I have gone behind the curtain of Christian publishing. What I found explains why reading popular Christian books rarely helps you learn how to study the Bible correctly or understand Jesus. I submitted my book proposal for Reenacting the Way (of Jesus) to multiple Christian publishers. I had been told the prowess of your publishing company determined your status as an author. If you wanted to get your message out, find a big publisher to market it well. I knew my chances of landing a book contract were slim. Most Christian publishers are profit-seeking companies just like non-Christian publishing companies. They want authors who will sell thousands of books, preferably on pre-order. Since I don't speak to 100,000+ people annually via conference tours, church web broadcasts or radio programs, I don't have a big audience ready to buy books. So publishing my book runs a high risk for any company's bottom line. That's business. It makes sense. What doesn't make sense is the rejection letter I received from Moody Publishers. Extracting universal truths from the Bible causes us to miss so much meaning. Yes, I said that (or wrote it). It happens all the time. If you haven't read it yet, Reenacting the Way (of Jesus) unwraps the missed messages. Jesus' healing miracles, feeding the 5,000 and calming a storm lose their meaning when we reduce them to proofs of divinity. The same happens when we chase the future relevance of the book of Revelation. We miss Jesus' personalized message for a first century audience. Please stop doing this. Flattening the Bible's first meaning loosens the anchor that holds its meaning from floating down the river of your imagination. So let's talk swords. Early in Revelation, Jesus introduces himself as “the One who has the sharp two-edged sword” who “will make war with the sword of My mouth” (Revelation 2:12, 16). What's up with Jesus flaunting his sword? Biblical Message in Aronofsky's new NOAH movie: The end of the world is just the beginning1/14/2014 I have spent 2 blogs evaluating how accurately Aronofsky portrays the historical context and biblical message of Noah's flood. I've been tough on him. His film locations don't reflect the geography of Mesopotamia. His environmental warning about climate change doesn't put the biblical critique of human violence front and center with a statement about God's faithfulness. That being said, he chose the perfect subtitle: "the end of the world... is just the beginning."
Darren Aronofsky's graphic comic book Noe turns a biblical man of faith into a heroic warrior in an evil world. He fights superhuman beasts, struggles to understand nighttime visions and seeks to do the right thing in a corrupt world. He is a healer, a desperate father and a defender of innocent animals. Why does it matter? Aronofsky has said his new movie Noah is partially based on the comic book. It's not meant to be a plain rendering of the Bible story--which is probably a good decision for a moviemaker since Genesis 6-9 has no dialogue between human characters! Is the movie biblical? The movie will be critiqued for its faithfulness to the biblical story despite Aronofsky's clear disclaimer that the film is only inspired by the biblical flood. Since Aronofsky has to fill a couple hours with dialogue and wild guesses about Noah's personality and means of hearing from God, every biblical accuracy expert will have plenty to poke at. But what elements must be in the movie to make it "biblical"? Darren Aronofsky's new movie Noah hits theaters on March 28, 2014. Early screenings question Aronofsky's decisions to create a nemesis for Noah, to throw in 6-arm angelic beasts, and to heighten Noah's environmentalist concerns. These script elements that go off-Scripture may lose traditional religious audiences. I, for one, have found the epic feel of the trailers released so far to be intriguing. Turning a Sunday School story often geared toward children into a CGI-enhanced epic with the tumultuous emotions and decisions of each character embodied by world-class actors is quite a feat. As I watched the trailers and spoke with a media company representative about the film location in Oyster Bay New York and Iceland, I had no concerns about a cheesy religious film. I'm pumped to see Aronofsky create narrative elements for his portrayal of Noah the environmentalist gladiator. My concern is the historical context. That is my speciality as a biblical historian. So I thought I'd write a few blogs on the historical context of Genesis 6-11 to share what Hebrew and Sumerian scholars have learned about the ancient flood and Tower of Babel stories. No surprise, much of what is still taught in churches and children's Bibles has been updated through recent research. I often open lectures in front of new audiences with the question: what is the most dangerous religious holiday on the Calendar? After a few misguided guesses about burning yourself with fireworks on Independence Day, I give a hint. It's in October. Without fail, someone reluctantly whispers "Halloween." They fold their arms, lean back in their seat and wait for some rant about the gouls and goblins. But that's not my point. Now I'm no fan of Halloween. Personally I start listening to Christmas music in September and wish all the costume shops would stop taking over perfectly vacant storefronts every autumn. I find no redemptive value in giving my neighbors opportunity to dress up as witches and zombies to scare my young and impressionable children into a month of nightmares. That said, Halloween is nowhere near as dangerous as the Protestant holiday on October 31, Reformation Day. The Church Divided and Always Dividing The very term "reformation" in Reformation Day can be misleading. How? Martin Luther and other reformers may have intended to reform the church. But they failed. They ended up dividing it. You’re never more confident in what you know than at age 16. At least that's the median range for intellectual arrogance I've experienced. Somewhere around that age well-adjusted people start to sense they may not have all the facts all the time. During my one year spent teaching high school Bible, I had students all over the mountain of intellectual arrogance. In my Sophomore homeroom, a few guys had planted their flag on the summit. One morning a certain young man named Cliff was assigned the devotion. Yes, I know. Assigning devotions to unwanting high school boys ain’t the recipe for spiritual insight. But that’s the way it was done. When I asked Cliff to come forward for the devotion, it was clear he hadn’t prepared a thing. I didn’t expect otherwise, but rules were rules. So he stepped to the front of the room. Cliff ruffled through the pages of a Bible he stole from a friend and stopped suddenly in the New Testament. He slapped his finger on a verse and looked up with a sly smile. He cleared his throat and read, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” He slammed the Bible closed and began walking back to his seat. He had done his duty and didn’t want to say anymore. That wasn’t going to work for me. If Cliff didn’t have anything to teach us, then I had something to teach him. “Cliff, answer me one question,” I said, stopping him in his tracks. “Since you appear to believe the meaning of John 3:16 is self-evident, what is the significance of the word ‘so’ in Jesus’ expression ‘God so loved the world’?” |
BUY the BOOKAuthorPaul Penley's training as a Bible scholar, life as a human being, and work as a philanthropic advisor overflows into this blog Top 5 BlogsCategories
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