in recent threads I have noticed some people tossing around scripture quotes to prove arguments and sometimes hardly anything else. I got in some cases the idea that the application of scripture is lead by a certain basic thought, and scripture is used to back this up.
It has been stated several times that the scripture was infalibe. So based on the infability of scripture people argumented with scripture quotes to back up their thoughts.
Now I wonder in which way people here believe that scripture is infallible. I wonder which kind of application of scripture people here consider right, and which kind they consider wrong.
What is the position of scripture? What is the position of exegesis? What is the position of hermeneutics for people in this form?
I want to start out giving my thoughts, mabe I add to it or make things clearer in following posts. I find that I cannot make my thoughts clear in first times, but I try to get to the point
I do have my problems ith speaking of the scripture as being infallible. After all, scripture is a thing, a book, not alive, not doing anything on its own. How can scripture than be more infallible than an orange or a hammer?
One might say: An orange does not contain thoughts, scripture does, and those thoughts can be wrong or right. So in this way scripture can be more infallible than a hammer. A hammer contains no thoughts.
I am still not convinced, as the thoughts are not in the text we read, but the text constitutes those thoughts in our brains. Maybe it's not even the text alone but also other things that we have experienced etc. Like in the morning I have read about big companies firing workers and raising managment payments at the same time, so this causes certain thoughts when reading about the rich having a hard time getting into heaven etc.
A text itself does not do anything, it does not contain anything, it does not tell anything on its own. Take a text in a foreign language you don't know. It will tel you nothing. Or will it? Maybe you get some thoughts looking at the strange signs and symbols of a strange language, completely unrelated to the text itself but at the same time they were started by you looking at the text...
What I want to say is that I think you always need somebody alive to have thoughts, a nonliving thing does not think and cannot contain thoughts. A dead thing can not even make thoughts for others, it is always somebody living who has thoughts and makes thoughts, produces them, based on things we see, hear, read, smell, remember, whatever.
So this is also true for the bible, if we can say that the bible is a dead thing. I do think that the bible is dead. It is not infallible, as a dead thing does not fit into categories as fallibility or infallibility. The bible is not God, because God consists of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and those are alive. Bible is not human, and not animal, not even plant. Not alive.
Everything we get from the bible is what we get from it by reading it ourselves, so all action comes either from us (as we are alive) or from somebody else, also alive, like the Holy Spirit, or simply somebody who explains things to us or tells us how he or she sees it. This person can him- or herself be guided by the Hoy Spirit. Or possibly aso by Satan, who knows...?
So I read the bible mysef, wehn I read it, and I tend not to think of it as a set of rules, because wide parts of the bible are not rules, but stories told. There are letters, there are arguments of every kind in scripture. Some things are said without being in the focus, others are in focus. I try to find out what the author of a biblical text wanted to say by writing it, or what a redactor wanted to say, as many biblical texts are the result of a redaction that changed the original ideas of different authors, for example the story of the great flood compared to the epic of Gilgamesh...
Reading the bibe and getting ideas about what authors and redactors might have said alone brings me nothing. This is only exegesis. It is important to what extent and for what I use the findings of bible lecture, so to say: What is my target. Aso the question what do I presume before, like what I wrote above...
I can find myself hermeneutics, there are various on the market, even when you reduce your search to theology or even prtestant theology.
But I still think, this is not enough: I myself cannot get anything infallible out of the bible, as whatever I get from it is what I made of it, as stated above. And I am falible, so whatever I get out of the bible myself is fallible, and this is true for every other person, however pious he or she might be, for nobody can get rid of his or her carnal mind.
It is my strong believe, that we need necessaryly the Holy Spirit to get anything good from the bible. If we try to get something from it without the Holy Spirit we can only get false thoughts in the end. And we cannot control the Holy Spirit, as the Holy Spirit is God and God cannot be and will not be controlled by men.
This is why I am doubtful about quoting scripture in postings. I do so myself, and I wonder hwo much of it is good. I think it can ony be okay if there was some personal revelation about that passage, so we are only repeating what God told us personally through this piece of scripture.
So I read my scripture and hope for the Lord to open it to me. At some pieces He did, with most He didn't, and many are connected with passages where He spoke to me.
This is why I hardly back up my words on here with scripture (this and being lazy searching and not knowing so much of it by heart as others do).
Taking some scripture that gets in my line of thoughts can be supporting what I think, but also be meant in a different way. Without revelation from God, how can I know? So if I cannot know, how can I bring it forth here on the forums?
So I rather want to speak of what I was told by the Lord, or maybe what I think I was told. I want to speak about what I experienced in the Spirit, and I am also looking for people sharing their thoughts with me. Because there is something I have not spoke about yet:
What if we are mislead, how can we know?
Actually know, like knowing 2+2=4 we can never do (if you guys know the movie Matrix you know the thought that we can not know anything for sure).
But we are all followers of Christ, and we are told to be in contact, to meet for service and help one another, have love for one another. So we also speak about our personal revelations, and if there are others with the same revelation this is a hint, or if there are some who have a revelation that tells us differently. And finally there is always scripture to be read by us, waiting for further revelation, for furtherly being touched by Him. He will correct us if we go wrong one way or another. And our sisters and brothers can give us hints, hopefully without condemning (as this does only drive poeple further apart from one another, and this is a result ony Satan can like, that people are far away from one another).
So what do you guys think about scripture not being arguments for debate, but content to be spoken about? About the Holy Spirit not being the researched object of discussion (and thus a to-be-controlled-by-men-object) but being a sought but uncontrollable base for ourselves.
Tell me about your thoughts, and God bless you all.
The words God speaks are spirit, right. But are those words He speaks the words contained in the bible? The words God speaks are as I understand it words in a certain situation to a certain person. They're something dynamic. But the words in the bible are static, they do not change, do not respond to our problems today but give us an insight to what God said back then.
I'm really not sure what you're saying now...but the bible is infallible, and we are supposed to study it to search out the truth. That doesn't mean we get it all after one read-trough of the bible. It's a lifetime of dedication and humility...learning how to develop a teachable, yet steadfast spirit/character. And I do not believe God would send us a revelation about some truth that would disagree with what we see in the bible without showing us the truth from the bible first. God is not an author of confusion.
2 Tim. 3:12 Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
13But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.
14But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them;
15And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
16All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
17That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
I know that some churches teach that we are not able to understand the scriptures, but I believe we have to try. It's our attitude, character, and faith that are the deciding factors in our salvation, not our "prefect" knowledge of the scriptures. It's not that we need to get everything right...but I believe we have to be trying! And it sounds like your are...so I'm confused about what point you're trying to get across.
The verses 15 and 16 of 2 Tim 3 are central, I think. And yes, it speaks about the holy scriptures (V15 Plural!) and scripture, in Greek it uses two different words: Grammata and Graphe. I am not sure about the difference here and why Pau used those two different words.
Grammata is the one that is used in V15, Hieros Grammata=holy scriptures, grammatikos is the Greek word for the scribes by the way, so Grammata seem to be the scriptures that were considered holy in the time of Jesus and NT authors. Graphe seems to me just any thing written. Because if the bible texts were meant, why not use grammata? So it would translate as: Every written text is inspired by God and...
That would be really awkward. That would mean every book was inspired by God, which we can hardly stand as being true. One could also understand the Greek word for "and" as "also" (it means both) and translate: Every written text which is inspired by God is also useful to teach etc...
Another possibility is as traditional English bibles translate: All scripture is inspired by God....
Checking some other old German translations I found: Every written text (of the OT), because it is inspired by God, is also useful...
So this leaves many interpretations and I am well aware that people might say that I just do not want to see the truth, especially if one only knows the traditional English translations. The ost used bible translation here in Germany uses: Every scripture which is inspired by God, so this might explain a bit why I want to look at the whole thing a bit closer. As said, this bible passage is central for my problem: What is the bible? I still think the bible is not God, so it is not infallible, because only God is infallible, and who is infallible is God. Infallability is in my thought a sign of perfection, and only God is perfect because everything else has fallen.
I agree with you that we are to study the bible and search out the truth, this is what I want to do. This is why I bring up the issue here. But the bible won't tell us the truth, the Holy Spirit will use the bible to show us the truth, that is what I think. And you are right about studying the bible being a lifetime dedication and humility. I absolutely agree.
I am not sure about God sending us a revelation or not about the truth without showing us the truth from the bible first. There are stories from people in hardly reached countries who had visions of Jesus before ever reading a word of the bible.
But I think the bible will be the instance to proof revelations. But the revelations also proo our understanding of the bible.
As said, the Jews read the bible and thought of the Messiah as a wordly king. The Messiah that came was different from what they had expected, but still it was the same scripture and the true Messiah.
God is certainly not an author of confusion, but He is also not bound by the thought of men. And we cannot ever say that we really understood a verse of the bible unless God has revealed its meaning to us. That is my point, because I see people speaking like they knew exacty what God wants from us. Of course, we all have our ideas what God wants from us, but can we condemn somebody whose views about this differ a bit from our own? How much difference is bearable? How much of the truth can we get from the bible in order have a base where all (or at least many) of those who consider themselves Christians can have fellowship on?
I've been told many times I was not a true Christian because I did not agree with dogma X or Y, like the dogma of the infallible bible. I do have a problem with it because for me this is idolatrousness. I don't say that you who believe in that way are idolatrousers, because I see your faith, but I for myself cannot bear before God to worship the bibe, a book in my view, and not alive and not God. I want to worship God alone, call Him alone infallible, and seek shelter in Him alone.
Maybe this differation is not important to any f you, because you have a different way of looking at things. Most of you live in the USA which has a completely different culture in terms of religion an faith. We focus on different points in our faith. We hardly ever speak about the rapture here but I read about it often in US texts or forums here on the internet.
So I do focus on the role of scripture between men and God, between creation an creator, and I do believe it belongs to the creation side. So I do not worship it, I do not call it infallible and make a big difference between the word of God that is Christ and the word(s) of God in the bible. The bible contains truth, right, and it is a great book to study, and after all, we have to read and study it in order to control our walk with God to not go astray on the path with Him. But the bible alone is nothing without the Holy Spirit, because it is His tool to reach us, to talk to us, to make us understand the gospel.
I believe like you, Mark, that we have to try to understand the scripture, but even if we understand scripture completely (leave aside the question if we are able to or not) we still will not have understood God completely, because God is so much bigger than anything we can imagine, God has no boundaries. But the scripture has, it starts with the book of Genesis and it ends with the revelation of John. It has beginning and end, we can count the pages of a printed bible, all that. But Go has no such boundaries, He has neither beginning nor end.
So my point I am trying to get across is: What do you think about my way of looking at the bible? Would this be still considered Christian on your side of the Atlantic Ocean (or your country, congregation, your own personal heart if you are here in Europe)? This might seem like a question that aims at being accepted by the peope rather than being accepte by God, but it is not. I believe in the one church, and I want to see where the seperations in the body of Christ are, and where we can agree though we use different words to express things or even think in different categories. I seek to have fellowship with other Christians of all kind of denominations, I seek to learn, to undertsand. And as we are all part of the boy of Christ, as we are all bearing the Holy Spirit being Christians, I want to ask you about mistakes in my thought, in my faith. We don't have to agree in every point, but my wish is that we can accept each other as parts of His one body. That is my point, that is why I put this up.
If you read carefully what I wrote you will find that I did not say any other.
Go changed the culture of ancient times by the message of the gospel, though this ancient culture is still visible on text surface in the bible.
But there are still different cultures (and I think God's plan is not to have only one for it seems to me He likes diversity).
You guys across the ocean care alot about rapture and tribuation, while we in Europe care more about other things. We use different ways to speak about things, different paths of thought, different categories that you cannot compare with one another, but still it is the same message transported. But it is not on the surface, as the surface depends on the culture, and if you change culture and stick to surface you get things wrong, don't oyu think? Ever been abroad? Ever wondered why people abroad do things differently and think differently? That's what I mean.
I understand cultural differences without God, but these differences should not change our approach, the differences are simply man's idea, the will of God is that man be one with him no body where their body resides.
Just a thought to encourage you always refer to thoughts, do you realize you do not commune with God with your mind and reasoning faculties.
