As I’ve been preparing, I’ve been keeping this (intimidating) quote in mind:

…sermons are supposed to be “audible sacraments.” They are not simply for the conveying of information, though that is important in a world increasingly ignorant of some of the most basic biblical and theological information. They are not simply for exhortation, still less for entertainment. They are supposed to be one of the moments in regular Christian living when heaven and earth meet. Speaker and hearers alike are called to be people in whom, by the work of the Spirit, God’s word is once again audible to the heart as well as to the ears. Preaching is one key way in which God’s personal authority, vested in scripture and operative through the work of the Spirit, is played out in the life of the church.  N. T. Wright, Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today (p. 139).

The truth is that preaching still makes me nervous.

Every. Single. Week.

Over the years that nervousness has changed, though. Gone are the intense “I think I’m about to throw up” nerves that were my constant companion over my first decade of preaching. In their place now are more subtle, yet still present, butterflies in my stomach (still, ever single weekend). I kind of wish that they would just go away!

But what I don’t wish would go away, and what I actually hope keeps increasing over time, is my sense of awe (and the associated spiritual and emotional fear) that comes as I realize just how miraculous the moment of preaching really can be. My hope and prayer every Sunday is to let God’s word shine through in the moments when I’m speaking. I know I don’t always do that, but that is my desire and it’s a desire that arises from my own experience: God’s word, his voice to me, changed my life forever. I desire that for anyone who happens to gather on a Sunday when I’m preaching and I promise to keep being nervous as I stand in awe at the fact that God has give me the opportunity to share.

While I can’t bring heaven and earth together I do know God can as he speaks to us through scripture and as we open our hearts to be receptive to his voice.

Wherever you are and whatever your role as you gather for worship this week, let’s be receptive together!

Wright is careful in his examination of this question. For him
respecting the authority of scripture is not about saying “Well, we
just believe the bible and so we must of course be respecting it’s authority.” A
statement like this is too easy because a person might possibly
believe the bible in any number of ways, many of which might actually
fail to respect it’s structure (which is key for him) or do injustice to its core message, let alone honor
what the phrase “the authority of scripture” is really shorthand for.

What does that phrase make you think of? What does it mean to you when you think
about honoring the authority of scripture? As you think about your
response, consider what I read when I first began studying this
subject on my own as a new Christian, 25 years ago. The bottom line of
that research endeavor can be summed up in this equation:

No errors (scientific + theological + historical) + trustworthy
manuscripts = authoritative scripture

In other words, I learned that one could trust the bible – that the
bible was authoritative in the Christian’s life – because the copies
we had accurately represented the original documents and because the
original documents were without error of any kind.

That worked for me for a few years but eventually came crumbling down.
For starters, our copies aren’t perfect.  Just go to your bible and
read the last chapter of Mark and you’ll see that there is a debate as
to which copies to use for the end of his gospel. Beyond this, pick up
a Greek New Testament like the NA27, look at the associated apparatus, and you’ll see that there are
(mostly) minor manuscript alternatives (i.e. textual variants) on every page.
Upon discovering such things I no longer had confidence that our
copies were perfect. As a result, there began an erosion of the authority of the
bible in my mind about 20 years ago. In retrospect, this wasn’t because something authoritative was altogether absent, rather, it was that I was looking for authority in the wrong place.

There was, of course, a way forward for me or I wouldn’t be a pastor now. The solution came to me slowly, over the
course of a few years, and once it did I would never think of
scripture in the same way, let alone ever be the same person.

What happened? To summarize a long story, I transitioned from faith in the bible (e.g., “I can trust the bible because some equation holds”) to faith in God.
To put it more precisely, I came to believe that the Lord was able to
speak to his people through his scripture even if the bible we had in hand wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t the bible that spoke, it was Him, through the bible!

As I would read in Wright’s book 20+ years later,

…the phrase ‘the authority of scripture’ can make Christian sense only if it is shorthand for ‘the authority of the triune God, exercised somehow through scripture… All authority is from God… scripture itself points away from itself and to the fact that final and true authority belongs to God. (p. 21)

What this means to Wright, and how it worked out in actuality in my life, is that we must see

the role of scripture not simply as being to provide true information about, or even an accurate running commentary upon, the work of God in salvation and new creation, but as taking part within that ongoing purpose… Scripture is a means of God’s action in and through us – which will include, but go far beyond, the mere conveying of information… God is continually revealing himself… (p. 27)

Here’s the point of all this: God speaks! Notice the tense there. He speaks today. It strikes me that the equation on which I relied two decades ago was an attempt to prove that God once spoke (notice the tense!) and that we had a reliable record of that. I have no such need to prove that God spoke yesterday (though I do, without question, believe that he did) because God speaks to me through his word today! As he speaks to me through scripture, he nurtures my growth, challenges my bent heart and mind, convicts me of my need for Christ, and comforts me with his undeniable love.

I’ve got some more thoughts on this topic, but that will suffice for now. In my next post I’ll be highlighting Wright’s thoughts on how to read this bible through which God speaks to us today.

Traveling with you,
Reed

Hebrews 1:1-2 in Greek with English interlinear from NA26

N.T. Wright is one of my favorite writers for two reasons. First, he makes me think about my faith in new and sometimes challenging ways. Second, because he exemplifies the pastor-teacher role to which I myself feel called (only he does it with a rigor and a reach that I will never be able to match). 

My recent foray into his thought has me reading a non-technical work on the bible called “Scripture and the Authority of God.” It’s a fun and rewarding read for me. Fun, because he takes the reader on a journey across centuries of biblical understanding (and misunderstanding). Rewarding, because he has helped me discover new ways to see an issue that I’ve been thinking about for a couple of decades: the continuity and discontinuity between the testaments in the bible. 

He writes… 

“{The early Christians} firmly believed that the Old Testament was, and remained, the book which God had given to his people – the covenant people who had spearheaded God’s purposes for the world and from whom the Messiah, Jesus, had come. But from the very beginning they read the ancient scriptures in a new way. This new way resulted in their recognizing that some parts of the scriptures were no longer relevant for their ongoing life – not, we must stress, because those parts were bad, or not God-given, or less inspired – but because they belonged with earlier parts of the story which had now reached it’s climax.” (p. 53)

He goes on to suggest, unsurprisingly, that this climax was found in Jesus.  The earliest Christians were therefore (because of the life, death, burial and resurrection of Christ) “quickly forced into thinking through the question of continuity and discontinuity (of the Old Testament as it related to the fledgling Christian community).” (p. 54) 

What continuities did they find? Things like “…God’s sovereign duty and promise to deal with evil; the covenant with Abraham as the framework by which God would achieve this universal aim… etc…” As for discontinuities things like “the ancient Jewish purity laws… the Temple in Jerusalem…and the sacrifices that took place there…” as well as circumcision came to the forefront (p. 55). 

He wraps up his discussion on this theme with a great illustration: “When travelers sail a vast ocean and finally arrive on the distant shore, they leave the ship behind  and continue over land, not because the ship was no good, or because their voyage had been misguided, but precisely because both ship and voyage had accomplished their purpose.” 

This illustration has it’s problems. For instance, unlike the ship, which was altogether left behind, relevant parts of the Old Testament are carried along for our journey in The Way (perhaps the illustration could be amended to say that while the ship is left behind the supplies that were held within the ship were taken along for the journey). That said, the line of thinking that this illustration represents is a great way to start to re-envision the way we are to respond to the authority of scripture in our lives.  While we accept that all scripture is inspired, what do we take along to provision our journey forward and how do we honor all of scripture while we do this? 

More thoughts on this subject to come…

Traveling with you,
Reed

There are two fundamental problems that I see people deal with in their day to day life: self-condemnation and the fear of condemnation from others (or Another). In light of these two problems, what does a verse like Psalm 34:22 offer us?

First, it offers us the joy of knowing that we can – and are – loved beyond our own faults and mistakes; our own proclivity to fail to live up to our own expectations, let alone God’s or other’s. By seeking refuge in the love of Christ, we are free of any condemnation be it from others or from somewhere deep within one’s own soul. Let that burden drop away!

Second, the truth proclaimed in this verse offers us freedom. If there is no condemnation from God (and ultimately, the Lord is the one that matters) then there is no reason to hide the truth that we have failed in some way. Instead, we are free to admit our weaknesses, brokenness, and wrongdoings because we are in the unalterable state of being loved by our God. Once we know and trust in that love, once we know that we are loveable to him even though he knows all things, we can move forward as people willing to be brutally honest when it comes to our “issues.” No need to hide when then one who knows us best loves us most. People may still struggle with us, but no matter what we’ll have his love and the lightness of spirit that comes once all things are out in the open! 

I wish the weight of this verse would be allowed to lighten the load of those I know and love! It, along with other verses like it (e.g., Romans 8:1), provide burden-lifting truth if we’ll only take it to heart. Let this comfort us all when we feel the weight of our own brokenness…and may it lighten our load.

The Spirit instructs us through the reading and exposition of the scriptures. The same Spirit who created the holy scriptures as he inspired its writers (2 Peter 1:20-21) illuminates its meaning and significance through its exposition (Romans 7:7; 1 Corinthians 2:12-14). Obviously this includes the meaning of a biblical text in its original context. Limiting his role to textual interpretation ignores two issues. First, any honest student of the scriptures quickly sees that those without the Spirit may reconstruct the literal-grammatical-historical meaning of the text just as well as those with the Spirit can. Secondly, New Testament references to “meat†and “milk†(1 Corinthians 3:1-23; Hebrews 5:11-6:12; 1 Peter 2:1-3) have less to do with the meaning of the scriptures than with their application. These suggest that illumination has more do with application than exegetical understanding. The Spirit directs our acts toward his goals of holiness and unity in community. He convicts us where we fail to live up to what we already possess. He enriches our worship according to his larger design for God’s sanctuary on the earth.

Ralston in The Spirit’s Role in Corporate Worship