CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH IN THE 21st CENTURY

In the opening paragraph of a message he preached on May 9, 1915, John Henry Jowett said to his congregation in the First Avenue Presbyterian church in New York City

THERE are seasons in life when everything seems to be shaking. Old landmarks are crumbling. Venerable foundations are upheaved in a night, and are scattered abroad as dust. Guiding buoys snap their moorings, and go drifting down the channel. Institutions which promised to outlast the hills collapse like a stricken tent. Assumptions in which everybody trusted burst like air-balloons. Everything seems to lose its base, and trembles in uncertainty and confusion.

If that were true in 1915 it is even truer on 2015.  The world has changed in the last hundred years, is changing even as I write and you read, and will change again in what will appear to be a twinkling of an eye.  What is it they say? Time stops for no one. 

In a world system where words like, "shaking, crumbling, upheaved, collapse," are descriptive of the everyday and ordinary and where it is not unusual at all to see "Guiding buoys snap their moorings, and go drifting down the channel," the Holy Bible is not spared the trauma.  In the preface to the American Edition of his book, Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today, N. T. Wright says,

In the last generation we have seen the Bible used and abused, debated, dumped, vilified, vindicated, torn up by scholars, stuck back together again by other scholars, preached from, preached against, placed on a pedestal, trampled underfoot, and generally treated the way professional tennis players treat the ball.  The more you want to win a point, the harder you hit the poor thing." (HarperOne, 2005, 2011, ix)

Strange at it may seem, somehow, I feel comforted by Wright's quote.  I live in a world where all the things he mentioned about how the Bible is treated are on the table for every conversation about the Bible.  Consequently, I live conflicted; conflicted about how to contend for the faith when the authority off the book I call, the Book of God, is constantly called into question.  The comfort I feel with Wright's words is rooted in the fact that at least, real or imagined, I'm not losing my mind.  Apparently, the stress and strain and struggle and hostility and anger and rage and all the other emotions in the mix of dealing with the Bible, are normal operating conditions in the early days of the twenty-first century.

In the Church of the Nazarene, of which I am a part, we have sixteen articles of faith.  The fourth of the Articles is entitled, "The Holy Scriptures."  The article reads,

We believe in the plenary [i.e., "complete, entire, full," (my insert)] inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, by which we understand the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments, given by divine inspiration, inerrantly revealing the will of God concerning us in all things necessary to our salvation, so that whatever is not contained therein is not to be enjoined as an article of faith.

I join with our church's position and conclude that we have a very high view of Scripture.  Everything we need to know that is necessary to our salvation is contained in Scripture.  John Wesley, the founder of Methodism and one of the key voices in our heritage wrote of himself that he was "homo unius libri, a man of one book."  With Wesley, we believe that though God speaks through tradition, nature, and reason, there is something unique and set apart in Scripture.  Wesley wrote,

I am a creature of a day, passing through life as an arrow through the air. I am a spirit come from God, and returning to God: Just hovering over the great gulf; till, a few moments hence, I am no more seen; I drop into an unchangeable eternity! I want to know one thing, - the way to heaven; how to land safe on that happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach the way: For this very end he came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price, give me the book of God! I have it: Here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be homo unius libri. Here then I am, far from the busy ways of men. I sit down alone: Only God is here. In his presence I open, I read his book; for this end, to find the way to heaven. Is there a doubt concerning the meaning of what I read? Does anything appear dark or intricate? I lift up my heart to the Father of Lights: - "Lord, is it not thy word, 'If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God?' Thou 'givest liberally, and upbraidest not.' Thou hast said; 'If any be willing to do thy will, he shall know.' I am willing to do, let me know, thy will." I then search after and consider parallel passages of Scripture, "comparing spiritual things with spiritual." I meditate thereon with all the attention and earnestness of which my mind is capable. If any doubt still remains, I consult those who are experienced in the things of God; and then the writings whereby, being dead, they yet speak. And what I thus learn, that I teach.

When one has a high view of Scripture in an age like ours, how and where do we take our stand for the faith?  Let me repeat the words N. T. Wright:

In the last generation we have seen the Bible used and abused, debated, dumped, vilified, vindicated, torn up by scholars, stuck back together again by other scholars, preached from, preached against, placed on a pedestal, trampled underfoot, and generally treated the way professional tennis players treat the ball.  The more you want to win a point, the harder you hit the poor thing."

Dr. Wright speaks of how the early church searched the Hebrew Scriptures in an "effort to understand what the living God had accomplished through Jesus, and in their eagerness to reorder their life appropriately" (Scripture and the Authority of God, HarperOne, 2011, p. 1).  His words have gotten me to thinking about what it actually takes to embrace something so fully that people would actually be motivated so as to take the action necessary to "reorder their life appropriately."

Reordering our lives is a great challenge; perhaps the greatest challenge we face.  It takes a great deal of un-learning, disconnecting, and jettisoning old ways of being so as to reorder. 

I appreciate a prayer of Ray Stedman, from back in 1986, and prayed at the close of a lengthy series of messages from the book of Isaiah. He prayed

Thank you, Father, for this honest and searching book. How beautifully it describes the program of history, much of which still lies unfulfilled before us; yet how marvelously we see you there, and begin to understand the majesty and the mercy of your Being. Help us to adjust our lives accordingly, to come humbly and contritely before you to obtain the mercy we so desperately need. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

This might just be a prayer for all of us, in all situations.  I'm particularly moved by the request, "Help us to adjust our lives accordingly, to come humbly and contritely before you to obtain the mercy we so desperately need."

I'm not sure we deal too well with the idea of "reordering our lives," or pursuing what it might mean to "adjust our lives accordingly."  I fear that for many of us, we've settled into our worldview and go about our days in a reckless abandon to defend what we know, who we are, and where we're going.

My journey these days are right through the muddle of the discussion created by what to do with the Bible, how to read it, how to take it as our authority. It is a day of debate so strongly engaged in that when it is over, if it will ever be over, there will be bleeding bodies everywhere.  Why?  Because if one chooses to engage in the debate or to drive down a stake at some particular theology of the Bible, there will be a hundred others, who see it differently, standing in the arena of public debate, engaged to take down anyone who thinks differently then they. 

It seems to me that everyone who would dare speak for God ought to have a humble heart and spirit.  After all, if the Bible really is the Word of God, it won't ultimately and finally be written off, denied, or destroyed. God will find a way to speak His Word into the human situation.  Isaiah 55:8-11 has God saying

“…My thoughts are not your thoughts,Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord.“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,So are My ways higher than your waysAnd My thoughts than your thoughts.“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,And do not return there without watering the earthAnd making it bear and sprout,And furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater;So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth;It will not return to Me empty,Without accomplishing what I desire,And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. (NASB)

God's Word is God's Word whether or not we know how to receive it.  2 Peter 1: 16-21 helps us, too, when it shares the following:

For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to Him by the Majestic Glory, “This is My beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased”— and we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.
So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.  But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. (NASB)

Into the sixteenth year of the 21^st century I would hope that the Holy Spirit could draw to the Father's heart and speak to us in such a way that it could be said of us as N.T. Wright said of the early church and its "effort to understand what the living God has accomplished through Jesus, and in their eagerness to reorder their life appropriately."

As we seek to study, meditate, and reorder our lives appropriately, it might be good to reach back into history a bit and hear the counsel Origin (184-253 AD) offered in terms of the study of God's Word.  He writes,

Let us ask the Lord to broaden our ideas, make them clearer and bring them nearer to the truth, that we may understand the other things too that he has revealed to his prophets.  May we study the Holy Spirit's writing under the guidance of the Spirit himself and compare one spiritual interpretation with another, so that our explanation of the texts may be worthy of God and the Holy Spirit, who inspired them.  May we do this through Christ Jesus, our Lord, to whom glory and power belong and will belong through all the ages.  Amen.

Then Origin prayed,

Lord, inspire us to read your Scriptures and to meditate upon them day and night. We beg you to give us real understanding of what we need, that we in turn may put its precepts into practice. Yet, we know that understanding and good intentions are worthless, unless rooted in your graceful love. So we ask that the words of Scripture may also be not just signs on a page, but channels of grace into our hearts.    Amen.