The Acts story is a great story for lots of topics, including a sermon on Scripture. Of course, the sermon can only be so long, so stuff gets left out -- in this instance, the role of the Holy Spirit in interpreting Scripture did not make the sermon, although it is an important aspect of how we interpret Scripture.
I added for the Sanctuary service the little bit about the Reformation's emphasis on reading the Bible in the vernacular (native language). It seemed so obvious, except it did not occur to me until after I had preached the sermon in the Chapel.
Someone noted that I didn't need the sermon, all we needed to do was sing the hymn after the sermon and say the Affirmation of Faith, which covered the topic very well. That, of course, is the goal -- to have the different elements complement each other.
There is still a lot more that could be said on the Bible in the Presbyterian tradition, but I'll have to cover that at a later time.
“Do I Have
to Believe in the Bible” Sept. 22, 2013; FPC, Troy
Introduction:
This is a continuation of the series I began
the week before the Bicentennial that will address a few topics in the category
of "What Presbyterians Believe."
Let me
begin by assuring everyone that Presbyterians do believe in the Bible and that
we believe in the authority of Scripture. But, what that means for
Presbyterians (and, of course, I can't speak for all Presbyterians) is
different, I suspect, than what it means for some other Christian traditions.
Move 1: We read the whole Bible (or at least we ought to).
Move 1: We read the whole Bible (or at least we ought to).
a.
Begin with reading the Bible.
1. It does not matter how
much authority we bestow on Scripture if we never read it.
2. hallmark of the
Reformation was the belief that people should hear the Bible read and be able
to read it in their own language.
3. Baptism – Beginner’s
Bible
4. 1st Grade –
study Bible
5. Read the Bible in a
year;
6. Cannot learn from it
if we do not read it.
7. Al Pitsenbarger – read
through the Bible twice at his wife’s bedside.
b.
We read the whole Bible.
1. We cannot pick and
choose which parts of the Bible to accept or not accept (well, we probably do)
2. “All Christians
are bowdlerizers. When we come to something we cannot or will not accept, we
skip over it, hoping to find something we are happy to hold on to in the next
chapter, the next verse, the next page, the next Evangelist” Reading Jesus:
A Writer's Encounter with the Gospels, Mary Gordon, (xvii)
2.
“If you believe what you
like in the gospels, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the gospel you
believe, but yourself.” St. Augustine
3.
We're stuck, or challenged, or corrected by the entire Bible.
4.
Study may lead us to decide that how the early church understood
a text, or how the Reformers interpreted a text is different than how we might
interpret a text in our context, but it does not mean we can throw out the
parts of the Bible we do not like.
c.
Part of our task is to
invite the different biblical texts to interpret each other.
1. Not lifting up one
text as the final answer over and against all other texts, but letting the texts
speak to each other.
2. "He [Tom Boomershine, the founder of the
Network of Bible Storytellers] said he was becoming more and more convinced
that we can't tell stories in isolation – especially violent stories. So we
can't tell about David killing Goliath (I Samuel 17), he said, without also
telling the story of God not allowing David to build the temple because he was
a violent man (1 Kings 5).” Why Did
Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road, Brian McLaren (194)
3. There are people who do not like what Paul
writes about how women should behave in church.
But, when we read those texts in conversation with the passage we read
from Galatians today about how in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, we might
understand Paul differently.
We read the whole Bible.
Move
2: In the Presbyterian tradition, we look
beyond a literal interpretation Scripture.
a. N. T. Wright tells a legend about
“Karl Barth. On being asked by a woman whether the serpent in Genesis actually
spoke, he replied, 'Madam, it doesn't matter whether the serpent spoke. What
matters is what the serpent said.'” Simply
Christian, N. T. Wright (184).
1.
Authority of Scripture does not rest in every word being interpreted literally.
2. The authority rests in the God revealed in
those words.
3.
Genesis – we read the first two chapters and discover that God is the author of
all creation; nothing exists outside of God’s purview.
4.
We also read about how God breaths life into humans – our very existence
connects us with God.
5. We then know the truth that God created all
things and that God is intimately connected with us.
6.
Is that a step-by-step manual to how the world was created – no, the science
books can handle that. But the Bible
tells us who created us and to whom we are connected.
b.
Leads us to studying the Biblical texts.
1. Acts story – Ethiopian eunuch asks a great
question – how can I know this if I do not have someone to interpret it for me.
2.
We need to study the text.
3.
Great to read the Bible by ourselves, but to really grapple with the text we
need to be in conversation with others – scholars who have studied the text;
people in our small groups; church school classes.
4.
We need others to help us interpret the texts.
5. According to
Tom Long there was an occasion a few years ago when a biblical scholar was
explaining Mark 1 to a group of teenagers. This scholar told the teens that
when Jesus was baptized, the skies did not just open up, as some older
translations said, but in the original Greek of Mark 1:10 we are told the skies
ripped open, split in an almost violent way. This was very dramatic and
forceful. "Get the point?" the scholar asked the group. "When
Jesus was baptized, the heavens that separate us from God were ripped open so
that now we can get to God. Because of Jesus we have access to God--we can get
close to him."
But there was one young man sitting in the
front row, arms crossed, making a fairly obvious display of his disinterest.
Yet suddenly he perked up and said, "That ain't what it means."
“What?" the Bible scholar said, startled. "I said that ain't what
that means," the teenager repeated. "It means that the heavens were
ripped open so that now God can get at US anytime he wants. Now nobody's
safe!"
c.
Easy way to expand our interpretation – see yourself as
different characters in the story.
1. The biblical text
offers a great example of that.
2. Remember when the
prophet Nathan goes to King David and tells him the story of the rich man who
has a huge flock, but still takes the little lamb from the poor man.
3.
David immediately sees himself as the third party to the
story who needs to rescue the poor man and punish the rich man.
4.
Then Nathan tells him that he is the rich man.
5.
The story suddenly feels a little different for King David
and the lesson he learns changes.
We Presbyterians study the text and look beyond a literal interpretation.
Move
3: Scripture reveals God’s liberating
truth.
a.
The Reformed tradition maintains that the truth of
Scripture is discovered when it reveals God's liberating truth to us (see Faith
Seeking Understanding, by Daniel Migliore, particularly his chapter on the
authority of Scripture, pp. 40-55).
1.
This does not mean that Scripture does not call us to
accountability or act as a corrective in our lives.
2.
We cannot read the prophets, for instance, and not recognize how
God calls us to change our ways.
b.
But it means that our interpretation of Scripture must reveal
God’s saving grace, or we might have it wrong.
1.
If we find that our interpretation is oppressing others
(remember how slave owners used the biblical text to support slavery);
3.
Or if our interpretation is beating others up (or leading us to
beat ourselves up), we probably need to listen again.
b.
“What I noticed at Grace-Calvary is the
same thing I notice whenever people aim to solve their conflicts with one
another by turning to the Bible: defending the dried ink marks on the page
becomes more vital than defending the neighbor. As a general rule, I would say
that human beings never behave more badly toward one another than when they
believe they are protecting God. In the words of Arun Gandhi, grandson of
Mohandas, ‘People of the Book risk putting the book above people.’” (106)
Barbara Brown Taylor
1. God does not need to be protected.
2.
God needs to be revealed as the
one who calls us to new life and new possibilities.
3.
We do not worship the words
of the Bible, but the one whom the Bible reveals
c.
I love that the encounter between Phillip and the Ethiopian
eunuch moves from interpreting the text to the waters of baptism
1.
Bible study leads to the
eunuch being baptized in his baptism being united with Christ in his death and resurrection.
2.
Studying the Bible matters because it reveals God’s saving
grace.
Conclusion: A guy I referee with
asked me if Presbyterians believed in the Bible? I responded yes, but then I
thought about it and clarified with, "By the way you ask the question, I
would guess that you might not think we Presbyterians believe in the
Bible."
“You’re right. I probably don’t.”
“You’re right. I probably don’t.”
The world understands and approaches the Bible
from a variety of vantage points.
We Presbyterians approach the Bible seeking
study God’s Word to discover the new life and saving grace God offers each of
us.
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