Category Archives: Inspiration of Bible

Scripture: three steps forward, two steps back?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

No thoughtful reader of the Bible will deny that there is progression and development as God’s revelation unfolds.  Sometimes, this means that the old has become redundant, in the light of the new.  The good becomes the better, and the better becomes the best.  Read the book of Hebrews if you have any doubt about this.

But this is a far cry from the teaching of Richard Rohr, who says:-

‘Scripture is a polyphonic symphony, a conversation with itself, where it plays melodies and dissonance— three steps forward, two steps back.

…

“Aha” moments that challenged beliefs about the Bible

Walking With Giants Posted on by

In 2014, Old Testament scholar Peter Enns began a series of posts in which he invited biblical scholars to share key moments when their inherited conservative view of the Bible was challenged, and subsequently modified.

Here’s the (very) distilled essence of each entry in the series:-

  1. Peter Enns – realised that Paul accepted, apparently without demur, the extra-biblical legend about a ‘moveable rock’ (1 Corinthians 10:4).
  2. John Byron – found that Jesus (or Mark) was mistaken about what 1 Samuel 21:1-9 says about David and his men eating the consecrated bread from the tabernacle.
…

2 Tim 3 – Continue in the gospel – sermon notes

Walking With Giants Posted on by

2 Timothy 3

What kind of church do we want to be?  A gospel church.  Guard the gospel, 1:14.  Suffer for the gospel, 2:3.  Now: continue in the gospel: v14 – ‘but as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of’.

Why? Because ‘there will be terrible times in the last days,’ v1.  The present age, between Christ’s first and second comings.  If Paul was thinking of some far-off future, why would he tell Timothy in v5 to ‘have nothing to do’ with certain trouble-makers? …

2 + 2 = 5?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

William Jennings Bryan is reported to have said: “I believe the whale swallowed Jonah because the Bible said it, and if the Bible said that Jonah swallowed the whale I would have believed it simply because the Bible said so.”

Much more recently Peter LaRuffa, who is on the staff of Grace Fellowship Church, Northern Kentucky, said:-

If, somewhere within the Bible, I were to find a passage that said 2+2=5, I would believe it, accept it as true and then do my best to work it out and understand it.
…

Christian scholarship needs Christian faith

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Why is it that some Christian scholars engage in what James Barr called ‘maximal conservatism’?  Why is it that, according to Peter Enns, evangelical Christians are far too ready to ‘defend’ the Bible against ‘attacks’ on its (supposed) moral uprightness, historical accuracy, and theological consistency?  Why is it that Kenton Sparks feels the need to accuse evangelical biblical scholars of giving the impression that they accept all the tools of critical scholarship while, on the other hand, blithely insisting that the use of these tools, ‘when properly used’, must uphold their own predetermined views about the Bible does, and does not, teach?…

Inspiration and incarnation

Walking With Giants Posted on by

On publication in 2005, Peter Enns’ book Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament caused quite a stir.  It led, eventually, to his departure from his post as professor at Westminster Theological Seminary.

What was the fuss all about?

The main thesis of the book is that evangelicals need to take more seriously the human aspects of Old Testament.  Enns identifies three areas for exploration.

The Old Testament and the literature of the Ancient Near East

We need, says Enns, to recognise that the literature of the Old Testament has much in common with other literature from the Ancient Near East.  …

N.T. Wright on Inspiration

Walking With Giants Posted on by

N.T. Wright’s 2005 book Scripture and the Authority of God is a mixed bag as far as I’m concerned.  I was helped by much of what was said, puzzled by what was left unsaid.

John Frame’s review of the book (in its American incarnation, entitled, The Last Word ) helped me to understand what is missing from Wright’s account.  It attempting to get ‘beyond the Bible wars’ (from the subtitle of the American edition), Wright (deliberately?) …