So I never got to post the notes from last weeks study on the idea that because God inspired the bible, we’re able to know what it means. Here they are:
Intro: Last week we saw that when God speaks, it can be written down. This goes for times when God literally audibly spoke and told people to write down what he said, and for the times when God indwelt people and worked in such a way that they wrote their own words, but those words were exactly what God was saying in that situation.
This week: When we say that the bible is God’s word, we also say that we can read it, know what God has to say to us, and report what he says to others. In other words, we claim to be able to understand what God says to us, and that we can help others understand too. But in our day this immediately raises some objections:
The Objections:
1. Isn’t God too big to be put in a box?
2. Aren’t there some things that are hard to understand?
3. So many different interpretations: how can we really know what the bible says?
Important to understand: this is not just a problem with the bible, but with all writing, and all communication. If you don’t think the bible can be understood, do you think written communication is possible at all?
Answers to objections:
1. Isn’t God too big to be put in a box?
Of course. But if we say we can’t understand the things he’s said, we’ve actually just put him in a box: the box that keeps him from communicating to us. (We’ve also claimed that we clearly understand something about God—that he’s not able to be understood.) Saying that we can understand the bible doesn’t put God in a box, it admits that he’s frees to communicate.
Everywhere in the bible it is assumed that God is an effective communicator. It is assumed that God speaks, and that when he wants to communicate, he is able to. What he communicates are things that we can understand, and therefore things that create obligations for us—they are things we must either believe, or things we must do—mostly, they are always both. What we say about how possible it is to understand scripture is what we say about God’s own ability to communicate.
- God expects us to obey what he tells us. In other words, his word clearly commands things that obligate us to obey. See Deuteronomy 6:1-7
- Jesus assumed the scriptures could be understood, and that they settled matters. Mark 10:4-9
- God is always able to accomplish his purpose by what he speaks: Isaiah 55:10-11
“The clarity of scripture is that quality of the biblical text that, as God’s communicative act, ensures its meaning is accessible to all who come to it in faith.” (Mark Thompson)
2. Aren’t there some things that are hard to understand?
Yes, but this doesn’t mean that we can’t understand anything. Just that not all things are as easy to understand as others. “All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor clear unto all: yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.” (Westminster Confession of Faith)
- Peter admitted that some things were hard to understand: 2 Peter 3:15-16
- Even children can understand scripture: Deut 6:7
- God tells us that the way he speaks is something we can grasp: Deut 30:11-14
- By reading and explanation, we can understand the meaning: “So they read distinctly from the book, in the Law of God; and they gave the sense, and helped them to understand the reading.” – Nehemiah 8:8, see also 2 Tim 2:7: “Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.”
3. So many different interpretations: how can we really know what the bible says?
This disagreement is exaggerated. There are a set of teachings in the bible that are not in dispute by anyone in the broad stream of Christianity:
- There is one God
- He made everything
- Humans are made in his image
- Humans fell through sin
- God sent Jesus who lived a perfect life and died in our place.
- Jesus rose from the dead.
- We must believe in Jesus for forgiveness of sin.
- Jesus is returning to rule.
These are the plainest things, the most clearly communicated things in scripture, and they are the things which must be believed in order to be saved.
“Scripture is always clear enough for us to carry out our present responsibilities before God. It is clear enough for a six-year-old to understand what God expects of him. It is also clear enough for a mature theologian to understand what God expects of him. But the clarity of Scripture, is person-relative, person-specific. Scripture is not exhaustively clear to anyone. It is not clear enough to satisfy anyone who merely wants to gain a speculative knowledge of divine things. It is, rather, morally sufficient, practically sufficient, sufficient for each person to know what God desires of him.” (John Frame)
“In one part there are whirlpools; and not in another, why then are you bent on drowning yourself in the depths?” (Chrysostom)
So, why are there any disagreements at all?
- Human deficiencies: Lack of understanding, over emphasizing one part at the expense of another, limited/different perspectives, sin. This is probably the most common reason why there are different views of scripture.
- God may have left some things in scripture less clear than others. Why would he do that? So that we’d have to focus on, and unite around, the most important things. Also, he wants us to have to help each other, and to exercise love, even in our reading of scripture. He wants us to be humble about things that are less clear, and bold about things that are most clear.
The things that God wanted us to know and believe to be saved are the clearest, most easily understood truths: see Romans 10:5-13
Conclusion: Do you want to know? John 7:17