#15 "Biblical Authority" Post 6

I'm going to address some of your points in reverse order, beginning with your last statements about knowledge. You said...

"Finally, I find it odd that the Tree of Knowledge gets such a bad rap, when obviously it has been used in compiling such information as you have presented here. Perhaps it’s the taste of said Tree’s fruit that religion finds so nauseating."

 

You point out that I tend to utilize the very knowledge I decry. I want to again make an important distinction. Knowledge is great as a source of data. If I were to try and plug my computer's power cable into a data port, I might get frustrated. Knowledge has it's usefulness, but it is limited.

 

I'm a learner. I love to read, study, think deeply, and generally work with knowledge in a great many ways. I'm not claiming this is bad. It's just not my source of life or power. Knowledge is not bad. When my own knowledge of good and evil drives me, then self becomes my source. When my root system is God rather than self, knowledge is then useful in it's proper place.

 

Prior to this, you asked what my "relationship" is built upon, if not knowledge. Let me answer it this way. I've been married to Nancy for 16 years. During that time I've learned a lot of accurate knowledge about her and I'm learning more and more all the time. But this accumulation of data, though interesting, has been incidental to the actual experiential basis of my relationship with her. On our wedding night I didn't pull out a note pad and pen and ask "Ok babe, tell me everything." I know her and I also know about her. One is experiential and relational, the other is informational. It is the relationship that gives meaningful context to the information.

 

In a similar way, my head is crammed with lots of information about God and the Bible. I don't claim my informational understanding of God to be perfect. I'm still learning, growing, and adjusting all the time as I continue to learn and discover more. I think I have a reasonable faith, in that my faith doesn't violate my reason. But reason is not my source. I did not ascend to God by my thinking. He came to me.

 

If I had to boil it down to the real root system of my faith I would have to say it is experiential and relational. I've just heard God's voice too many times. I've seen and experienced his power too many times. I've cast out too many demons and seen too many sick people experience healing. I've spent too much time pressed to the carpet unable to move because of the holy weight of his presence. I've experienced too much miraculous provision. Rom 10:17 says that faith comes from hearing his voice. It is a result of revelation not reason. I have a life time of hearing his voice and seeing his power. I know him. I trust him. I love him because he first loved me.

 

What is the role of the Bible in all this? The Living God I've come to know is the God of scripture. He is Jesus. YHWH. The grace that has transformed me is the grace promised me in scripture. God interacts with me in and through scripture and in so many of the ways I see him acting and moving within the scriptural narrative. My life so aligns with the reality I find in scripture that Occam's Razor demands the simplest explanation for this.

 

This August I was in Israel and one day we visited Tel Megiddo. This hill exists as a hill because 27 different civilizations have been built upon it and wiped out over the centuries by war, plague, famine and the like. It's near a source of water and before the days of irrigation such sights were repeatedly built upon, and lived upon by generations. Excavation has revealed layer after layer of civilization dating back thousands of years. In 1 Kings 9 there is the account of the cities that Solomon built, one of which was Megiddo, which were used to house his many horses and chariots. I've stood at the level where they excavated down to the time of Solomon seen the multitude of troughs necessary to feed and water that many horses. I've seen the grain storage silos. It's all there, just as you'd expect if the text is accurate historically. I was fascinated. Such confirmation is plentiful. Lots of that data exists. I love it. I enjoy it. I find it confirming. But it's not why I believe.

 

It is not reading about Nancy's brown eyes that captivates me. It is gazing into them.

 

“One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. ” (Psalm 27:4, ESV)

Finally, I think if a previous epistle of Paul to the church in Corinth were discovered and authenticated, it would be of tremendous value. It would shed amazing cultural, historical, and contextual light upon the two letters we already have. But I would not add it to the canon for it would violate the criteria of catholicity. It is not a book that has been widely accepted and followed by the community of faith throughout the history of the Church.

I read lots of books that aren't the Bible though, and am tremendously helped by many of them, so this in no way diminishes the value of such a book if it were every discovered.

I really loved the Gospel of Judas. It's such an amazing example of the story of Jesus viewed through gnostic philosophical lenses. It lacks the grit and sweat of the synoptics and John, but it is so helpful in providing some context for the kinds of ideas Paul addressed in Colossians and John in his epistles. Context that is essential, for a view of things that exalts the spiritual and downgrades and separates the material is ever attempting to creep in to the way we see things, undermining not only the incarnation of Christ, but reducing the beauty and richness of everyday life out of alignment with the reality of things.

So - That's my reverse order response. My ears are ringing. ;-)

Much love,

Alan