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Starting
with history, that one is pretty basic. What is history but literally where the
world was at a particular time and place and its outcome. Of course, this could branch out into several
subcategories that could become a lot more complex, but I think that keeping
this concept simple and relative to those you are trying to teach is fairly important. It’s fairly important because we are a people
that have not only evolved in one fashion or another but have developed
patterns of philosophy, arts and intellectual thought. We can’t ignore our moments of failure or our
moments of flourishing as a people of faith.
The Scriptures quite literally in themselves, we have to keep the lens
of thinking through history unfettered by bias or agenda.
Keeping
the lens of history clear has been the most challenging for us today thanks to
the death work of politics layering its bias upon worldly culture and the
culture of the church. What is not progress
for the post-modern church to understand and uphold the sovereignty of the
Scriptures is incorporating a typological layer of personal political context
to the actual history of a particular era of Christian writings. We have seen
this rob and mangle the Scriptures’ efficacy to teach the power of Christ’s
truth being mutuality, Agape Love, compassion, spiritual formation and
selflessness. A good example of this is
thinking of the concept of slavery. The
American culture and for the most part, most of the known world has
conscientiously fought and eradicated enslavement out of the tier of society. Of course, we have still had problems today
with sex trafficking, indenturement and related evils in areas of the world,
but we, for the most part, do not accept slavery as a valid aspect of life as
former cultures once did. If anything,
America has condemned this and does not say that the inerrant Word of God wants
us to keep slavery for that is frankly absurd for us today.
The
“punishing parent” image of the Old Testament God is another historical note
for us to keep in consideration. There
are many a fundamentalist preacher out there that uses the legalistic
viewpoints from the Old Testament to inadvertently weaken the power of Christ’s
eternally freeing Grace. During that
time in the history of the Jewish culture, the Pharisees were perhaps being
fundamentalist about this viewpoint of God claiming absolute obedience to the
Law and YHWH’s consequences to our departure. They were a tribal, nomadic
people. They were a patriarchal culture,
period. Where we are today, not only in
our realm of the world but as a post-modern people of faith… The Gospel truth becomes clearer in one
sense, when we think of mutuality. What
does this mean specifically? Jesus taught about acceptance as agape love, He
never used the word, tolerance.
Tolerance is an Old Natured word… But we have subjected our own
self-righteous political lens of agenda over and above the radical Gospel note
of Jesus’ call to acceptance.
Perhaps
one of the most disturbing things I have heard to date was at a convocation
claiming that we need to find new ways to make Christ’s Gospel “relevant” again
for our pastoral leaders and congregations…
How can the radical timeless Gospel of Christ ever become
irrelevant?! That’s ridiculous. Agape Love is one the eternal truths that
shines ever brightly in many instances throughout the Scriptures, even in the
Old Testament. Would it be fair to say
that manna in the wilderness was an act of agape love, grace for the Israelites? As we know in the New Testament, St. Paul
always challenged us to think about God’s work in, with and through us. Some of these challenges were hard to hear:
“19Now we know
that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that
every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world may be held accountable to
God. 20For “no human being will be justified in his sight” by deeds
prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. 21But
now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is
attested by the law and the prophets, 22the righteousness of God
through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction,
23since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 24they
are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in
Christ Jesus, 25whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by
his blood, effective through faith.”
Romans 3:19-25
“We
all fall short of the glory of God…” is the humble description of simul justus
et peccator (we are simultaneously saint and sinner)! I have come to teach this as we are both
aspiring saint and wanton sinner… The
problem of the will has also truly become our problem today of interpreting the
Scriptures as well. How can willful creatures
of God ever understand or have moments of covenantal, unconditional divinely
based love for their neighbor yet alone reflect that enough through a
mustard-seed of personal faith? We can
only have moments of this kind of love, this is very much a truth to our human
condition. Why would anyone think or
challenge this Biblical truth to be irrelevant for us today? The death work of politics as an added hermeneutic
or lens to understanding the historic Jesus, the era of His ministry on earth
and our post-modern agenda centered around the self has caused this.
In
regard to mutuality as a Biblical truth revealed in the Scriptures, we have
seen and experienced many areas of conflicted thoughts to what the sovereign
Word genuinely says. This is, as
mentioned earlier, a problem with not keeping the lens of history clear and
separate from our typological input and bias but keeping the context of the
authors of the Scriptures clear as a lens as well. I recently debated someone who challenged me
in saying since I believe Jesus had women disciples and treated all people more
or less, equally… that I was “revising” God’s truth for women to be submissive
to men. When I countered the
conversation by saying that God is wanting us to be submissive and obedient to
Him alone. I was told that the Word is absolute,
and everything is literal and to be followed…
So how then for example, would you teach the story of the Samaritan
Woman then? How would you teach the
story of Lydia in the Book of Acts and so on and so forth?
The
moment we align ourselves to eliminate studying God’s Word through the
unfettered lens of history, context of the author and the Biblical truth of the
Gospel; we’re going to be in trouble, period.
The Beatitudes of Christ are more or less the New commandments stemming
from the Lord’s call to us to incorporate agape love as our New Natured
self. Agape love is an altruistic love
that shows no judgment but compassion as well as it is profoundly inclusive of
both saint and sinner… Biblically sovereign
throughout the Gospel is God’s call to us to turn our hearts’ will obediently
to His. This is truly what God continues
to call us beyond the Scriptures to do is to submit to His will. As His servant Paul tells us:
“6For
while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7Indeed,
rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person
someone might actually dare to die. 8But God proves his love for us
in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. 9Much more
surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved
through him from the wrath of God. 10For if while we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely,
having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.” Romans 5:6-10
“5For
if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be
united with him in a resurrection like his. 6We know that our old
self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we
might no longer be enslaved to sin. 7For whoever has died is freed
from sin. 8But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will
also live with him. 9We know that Christ, being raised from the
dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10The
death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to
God. 11So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to
God in Christ Jesus.” Romans 6:5-11
These
are two amazing passages from Paul’s letter to the Romans that not only take us
through the reason why we are to be obedient to the call of Christ but how God
is to continue working through our lives in the way we reap our New Nature
lives. The genuine authority to God’s Word is the New life contained, exampled
and previewed by Christ. Christ never
abdicated slavery yet alone endorsed an exclusive Gospel. This is what we have done when we look
through our own vertical lens to interpreting the Scriptures. What the vertical means is a fundamentalist
lens of God and us alone with considering the horizontal. The horizontal as you can imagine one making
is the shape of the cross. With our arms
and hands stretched outward thinking about the world, thinking about the gift
of Christ; we are encompassing the world in our prayerful reach. What a
beautiful thought!
Hermeneutics
when faithfully and truthfully implemented in either exegesis for preaching or
teaching/ leading Biblical study will adhere to the sovereign integrity of the
Living Word. We are to be stewards to
the integrity of the Scriptures. Just like
being stewards of the environment, we are to be stewards to keeping the
environment of Biblical study free from the death works of the ego, politics and
despair. I will close this article with
two Scriptures, one used in the LBW’s Call to Confession and the other, a
timeless truth:
“8If
we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9If
we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and
cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1
John 1:8-9
“7Remember
your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of
their way of life, and imitate their faith. 8Jesus Christ is the
same yesterday and today and forever. 9Do not be carried away by all
kinds of strange teachings; for it is well for the heart to be strengthened by
grace…” Hebrews 13:7-9
Be
a faithful steward of the Word, if not for yourself, for the little part of the
world that you live in that truly needs it the most—
Reverend
Nicole A.M. Collins
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