So, today I thought I'd begin my blog with a few thoughts about the scripture and it's use in the church. First, the church is and should be responsible for "Theology" - the study of God. Scripture should then inform this study of God, but we should realize that scripture is subject to God. It is subordinate to God. Now, often we say that scripture is the word of God, and then place it over God in a relational form. What I mean is that the church's relationship with God becomes really just a relationship with words and not with the God of the Universe. So, when the church and the individual come to scripture, they must take a passive posture. It is important for us to deconstruct our presuppositions and past experiences when we read and study the words of Scripture.
In regards to this passive stance or subordination to scripture, Karl Barth says:
Subordination . . . cannot mean that we have to allow our ideas, thoughts and convictions to be supplanted, so to speak, by those of the prophets and apostles, or that we have to speak the language of Canaan instead of our own tongue. In that case we should not have subordinated ourselves to them, but at most adorned ourselves with their feathers. In that case nothing would have been done in the interpretation of their words, for we should merely have repeated them parrot-like. Subordination, if it is to be sincere, must concern the purpose and meaning indicated in the ideas, thoughts, and convictions of the prophets and apostles, that is, the testimony which . . . they wish to bear. To this testimony of their words we must subordinate ourselves—and this is the essential form of scriptural exegesis (Barth 1956: 718;).
I'll let you chew on that for a while . . .
The next thing the church and the individual needs to remember is that scripture is Christocentric. What I mean by Chistocentric is that all scripture points to Jesus Christ. He is what gives it its unity and connectedness. But we must every careful not to flatten scripture into a one dimensional story that has little to say other than Christ, Christ, and oh by the way Christ.
I believe that the community of God is responsible for the constant proclamation of the Word of God which is informed by scripture, which means we must constantly go back to our interpretation of scripture and reexamine it under a new light and new eyes. This means that the entire community must become, at some level, theologians and readers of scripture if they are going to proclaim Christ in a way that is understandable and true. This means in simple terms that we must move a past shallow parroting of scripture and proclaim a gospel that allows scripture to truly change us and those around us.
Eric |
