Holy Joys Podcast
A discussion of theology and ministry practice, all for a holy, happy church. A ministry of holyjoys.org.
Holy Joys Podcast
Interpreting Scripture in Community (Repost)
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Johnathan Arnold and David Fry discuss how the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers relates to our interpretation of Scripture, as well as related doctrines such as inerrancy, the clarity/perspicuity of Scripture, and the illumination of the Holy Spirit.
But Lord keep me humble enough to make the corrections where I need to, but also to avoid the sort of dogmatic preaching, the tones and the statements that are not in keeping with his word, that our opinion and not based on the text of Scripture. Because I think that's where authority can be abused the most, is not through what we say, but the tone in which we say it.
SPEAKER_01You're listening to the Holy Joys Podcast, co-hosted by Jonathan Arnold and Dr. David Fry. Visit us at holyjoys.org and stay tuned for weekly discussions of theology and ministry practice all for a holy, happy church.
SPEAKER_00So last time we talked about the priesthood of all believers, and we want to have a series of discussions on restoration from sin, how that relates to restoring one another if a believer sins in the local church. But our discussion led us to this really important issue of interpretation of scripture and how the priesthood of all believers, if we understand it in its ecclesial context, it's something we exercise as a community. It shouldn't lead us to think that we can interpret scripture in isolation from one another either. And I think that's one common way in which I uh I see people acting as little popes. Um they they read the Bible, they say, Well, I have the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit, you know, illuminates me because of illumination. Uh, he told me this. And it's kind of like if you question my interpretation, uh, then you're really questioning God and his authority. And of course, the Bible's plain, so as long as I have the Holy Spirit, you know, I can understand it kind of thing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I've encountered two ditches that need to be avoided. Uh, one is the notion that uh any person, regardless even of their faith, can take God's word in isolation and understand it as well as anyone else. The other ditch is that you have to understand Greek and Hebrew in order to really understand what God is saying, that God's word is very obscure. Well, that's you know, so the tension is, you know, the the what's called the perpiscuity of scripture, the clarity of scripture versus the obscurity of scripture. Uh the fact that we uh that it is accessible, but also requires the help of the Holy Spirit. Right. So there's this there is this tension. And uh I think right now the church world is more plagued by the the notion that everybody's opinion is equal, that we're all the we have as many interpreters as there are uh as many interpretations as there are interpreters, and they're all equally valid. And so I'll even hear people say things like, Well, that's your truth. Sorry, I mean, this comes from believers, right? I mean, these are coming from church people. That that's your that's your truth. Well, no, I believe I believe that truth just is truth. It's not just truth for me. Now, if you mean that's your perspective of the truth, that's different, all right? But but we don't each get to have just our own truth. And so there is a crisis of interpretation, and I don't know what all contributes to that, but it has put pastors in quite a predicament. Um, I so I had uh recently I have really good listeners in in our congregation here, and they they respond. In fact, our whole small group ministry is built around responding to the Sunday morning sermon. Uh so I get I get critiqued intentionally every week, which is great because it keeps me on my toes. But but uh one um leader in the church, uh I was preaching, I think, I think I was preaching on heaven, I don't recall exactly now, but I was drawing from several sources without citing sources, which I don't normally do in a sermon, right? You know, I'll footnote them in my notes, but I don't usually say this came from this guy or this came from this source. And so he was questioning something, and he's like, was that your like was that your opinion? Or what what were you you know saying there? And I was like, Well, I that is the best of my understanding of the passage in light of, and then I gave him the early church fathers and then some of the medieval fathers that I had drawn from for that. And to make the point, I don't interpret scripture in isolation. I read when I read commentaries, when I read the early church fathers, I'm I'm reading scripture along with them. And I'm listening, even though they're dead and gone, I'm reading it with them because they're right here with me through their texts, so that I can make sure that my understanding is somewhere in the ballpark of what Christians, other Christians, uh have believed as well.
SPEAKER_00So let's let's start with unpacking a few of the doctrines that you've mentioned. I mentioned uh illumination of the Holy Spirit, and you mentioned clarity of scripture. So I recently um wrote an article on the clarity of scripture and how it relates to this very issue. I think all of these issues are kind of tangled up. Um, and then and then I think that'll lead us to some clarity on the priesthood of all believers, on how that relates to this. So clarity, clarity of scripture does not mean that everything is clear. It doesn't mean that everything is equally clear. It means that the matters of first importance are clear so that an ordinary believer can read the Bible, they can understand the big story of salvation, that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of it, and that if they put their faith in him, they can have their sins forgiven, and all things that are necessary for salvation in the Christian life are sufficiently clear. However, there's lots of things that aren't clear.
SPEAKER_02Um let me add something to that. So, what what we call the perpiscuity of scripture or the clarity of scripture is based on a teaching of scripture, several teachings of scripture, but one of those is that revelation of God is also and first clear through nature, through general revelation. So one of the reasons that special revelation can be clear is because it presupposes that much of what is revealed in special revelation has already been generally revealed through nature itself.
SPEAKER_00Interesting.
SPEAKER_02So I think that's just a an important um just kind of to set up the the context for that doctrine of the clarity of scripture.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so general revelation establishes um you know that there is a God that we've all there's a sense of like things I ought to do and ought not to do. So there's a sense of moral accountability to that God. Special revelation now introduces the answer that uh yes, indeed, I have sinned against God, uh, and Jesus Christ is the way, the way to be right with God or reconcile with him. Um so yeah, good, good. Um, so then that there's this establishes uh the doctrine of the clarity of scripture, the the clarity of the gospel, so that uh you know any any church structure or authority um cannot cannot um how do I want to say this? Uh they can't claim special privilege. Yeah, right, right. Yes, as though they are the only ones who understand the gospel and have the true gospel, right? Because the gospel is clearly revealed in scripture. Um, but when it comes to so many things in scripture, as Peter Peter says, you know, in Paul's writings, there are many things which are hard to understand. Okay, so we we're united around the matters of first importance, which are clear in scripture, those are summarized in the great Christian creeds. But now, how do we as a church navigate the many other things in Scripture that are less clear? And I think part of it is recognizing that there's not a problem with God's revelation, but that we all have been affected by sin. There are noetic effects of sin, there's effects of sins on our mind. There's the fact that as human beings, we're finite, we're limited, we're limited to certain cultural contexts, we're prone to read scripture through our biases, through our experiences. And this is why as a community we so desperately need one another. We need one another's varying perspectives. But among the community, not all people are equally intelligent or educated or informed, and so not everybody's perspective is equally valid. Pastors are those who have been recognized among the community as having a special character and intelligence and ability. I mean, able to teach the qualification for an elder indicates aptitude, intelligence, and ability. Martin Lloyd Jones says, we must emphasize intelligence. You've got to have a certain level of intelligence and ability to expound the word faithfully, to obey Paul's commands, you know, in the pastoral epistles. And so as the community as a whole interpret scripture together, they ought to be highly respecting and revering those among them who've been recognized as having a special character in leading them and thinking about these things. That doesn't mean that the pastor has unquestioned absolute authority to interpret and say, you know, once, but it does mean that that the community ought to be a learning community overseen by pastor theologians who are equipped and tested and tried and proven to have expertise, if we want to put it that way, in expounding the word.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So there are there are increasing levels of clarity through that, right? So it's one thing for me to read scripture, say devotionally each morning, and and to gain everything that I can personally from it. But then it's another when I'm reading it with someone else, whether it's an early church father or someone who is actually in my presence, and we're reading it together and reflecting on it. Because uh we do have you know the promise that that of Christ's special presence, right, in community, when we are in communion, that increases that ought to increase the clarity with which we understand scripture and it ought to increase the probability of our interpretation. And this is where we need to distinguish between what we're talking about in this doctrine of scripture, uh, between the interpretation and the text itself. So we, you know, I affirm the inerrancy of the text, I don't affirm the inerrancy of my interpretation, right? And I although I do know some people who would, and and uh they would uh affirm their own inerrancy of interpretation, but uh but that's an important distinction. We're talking about the interpretation, so we're not talking about that there is uncertainty in the text. If there's any uncertainty, which there is, it's in our interpretation of it. So we're increasing uh probability of what the text means as we expand our um our community, uh, even as Methodists, all right, we interpret with other, you know, Wesleyan Methodists, but then if we incorporate other believers from other uh traditions within the Christian Orthodox faith, we're going to have we're gonna broaden the probability of our understanding, uh especially of the core uh doctrines. Uh there are peculiar beliefs that each tradition has um on on fairly minor issues uh where we're gonna differ. Um and I think we can say that obviously the church doesn't have as much clarity on those issues, say for instance the manner in which one is baptized. Uh there's not as much clarity on that as there is uh, you know, say the um you know the the fact that we must be baptized. Sure. Yeah, yeah. Right, right. The the fact of baptism, right? So that that's a I think that's a good example of how we can uh increase uh clarity.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So you mentioned Christ's special presence in the community. That relates to the second, the second doctrine that I think we mentioned, which is illumination. So this is, I hear this all the time, you know, uh we each have the Holy Spirit and He illuminates us, but Christ promised that he would guide the church into all truth. That promise that he would guard them into all truth, that he would send the Spirit to illuminate them and reveal to them all things, is a promise that's given to the church as a whole, not to any one individual in isolation from the church. So this is why I like to talk about corporate illumination. I don't know if there's a better term to use, but I don't think we we ought to think about illumination as simply God illuminating my individual mind, although that happens, but that that primarily God illuminates the community as a whole. And part of the illuminating process is actually the the whole process of searching the scriptures together as a learning community overseen by by pastor theologians who are apt to teach, you know, uh have that have that capacity.
SPEAKER_02So someone might think, well, are we questioning the ability of scripture? Are we, you know, isn't part of the authority of scripture such that it is it it's so clear that we ought to be able to, yes, with the help of the Holy Spirit, but that we ought to be able to understand everything in it. Uh and I would say that's a confusion of of concepts here, that yes, scripture is completely author uh authoritative, but that's saying one thing. It is quite another thing to say that therefore I ought to be able to understand how its authority functions completely in my life or in the life of the church. In other words, it's a distinction between the text itself and my understanding of it. And some people have really, really had a difficult time making that, I think, fairly simple distinction. Um, and yet some people feel like that somehow that's a threat to the authority of scripture. The authority of scripture is not threatened by our lack of understanding of it. Let's be clear of that. Uh not at all. Uh so let's let's not equate authority with clarity. So let me insert one one more before we get to the priesthood. And that is the uh divine preservation of of truth. So, yes, we affirm full authority of scripture, inerrancy of scripture of the text, but that's all nice and good for the original text. But what what about what we have? And so I think it's important for us to know that although there are disagreements among Christian scholars of issues like we've just brought up, um the truth has been preserved somewhere within the body of Christ, so that God preserves the truth which he revealed. And so it's not like we are looking for something that might be lost, may have been lost in the past. Uh God pre also preserves his truth, but he has preserved it within the church and with what we would call tradition. We within the tradition of the church or the history of the interpretation of scripture. They're not all wrong. All right. Now, none of us are completely right of all of the interpretations of scripture. The truth is there somewhere. So that's why it's important for us not only to read the text, but to read it in community. We can trust, we trust the text, but we can also trust, have a slightly lower, but still have a a high level of faith in the community which gives us the text and interprets it before us. Uh there is a there is a high level of certainty within that community. Is that does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00Yes, the church is a pillar and ground of the truth, the pillar and buttress of the truth. Um, not any one member in isolation from the body, but together as a community, we are the place where the truth has been deposited. The faith was once for all delivered to the saints, that is the communion of saints, the church, and it's through the church that the Holy Spirit preserves the truth. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So and the reason this is important is because there have been moments in history, uh, one uh would be like like so John Smith, the what was he, 16th century uh kind of Baptist father of the Baptist tradition who ended up Mennonite, but he baptized himself, right? He baptized himself, and the reason was is because he said there was that that there was no longer purity in the church, that he couldn't trust the church. Well, he can't he repented of that later, all right. He did. But he had come to a point in his understanding where he thought that an essential truth had been lost, and this did not have to do with the inerrancy of scripture or the authority of scripture, it had to do with the preservation of truth. And he felt like he had found it, whereas everyone else had lost it. And I just want to say that doesn't happen because God superintends his word and the preservation of his word.
SPEAKER_00Very good. And that's so that brings us back to the Reformation again. Um Roman Catholics will charge you know, her charge is like, you know, here's this Martin Luther guy, one person among the whole church who stands up and says, here I stand, you know, I'm the only one with the truth. And I would say, Yep, you're right, not gonna listen to that guy. If I didn't believe that Martin Luther was saying things that were consistent with the history of interpretation in the church. The fundamental Protestant claim is not getting back to Scripture instead of tradition. It's getting back to the true tradition, which is a consensus about how scripture is understood. Uh, it's not to use the categories that Van Hooser uses, it's not T0, tradition zero, you know, and it's not tradition two either. Two separate sources, but it's it's tradition one, where there's one faith, one deposit, and that's been preserved in tradition, uh, the consensus of the church on these these important matters in scripture. Yes, yes. So now, priesthood of all believers. So interpreting scripture is a priestly function. Priesthood of all believers, what does that mean if we're all we are all priests to God and we share as the church a priestly character? What does that mean now for how in uh scripture is interpreted and expounded in in the community of faith?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so as a pastor, and and I'll add this not to you know toot my own horn or sound you know braggadocious, but as a pastor with a PhD, this is a a continual test of my belief because it's easy, as anyone who has higher education uh has experience, it's easy to sit to say, hey, I'm the expert, you just need to trust me. You need to take my word for it because I'm the one with a PhD and you don't, you know, you may not even have a high school diploma. Okay. That's yes, that temptation is there, but I have to tell you that regularly, uh, even this week, as I have uh actually just in the last 24 hours, had a conversation and someone asked me about a particular passage. I said, I don't think that that's possible from the from the Greek construction here. Uh and so I looked and and and I I was right on that. But then as we continue to converse, I said, Well, you know what? I began to see another way of understanding the way they were wanting to apply it to their circumstance. And I said, Well, okay, I I'm I'm starting to see now, and I think we need to bring in these other scriptures here because you this scripture won't carry that weight. And so I would never have come to that if I hadn't been pushed and prodded and challenged and questioned and uh to to begin to to uh build a a better case, and and together we did this. We were coming from two different directions, you know, a a I mean it wasn't a strong disagreement, but we're coming at it from two different directions, and I began to help him understand that his point was his sentiment was valid, he just needed a better way of coming about to it through scripture, and it helped me stretch me to uh make correlations I hadn't made before. And so I strongly believe that uh I I don't especially It's especially important for me to be in conversation with people who don't have PhDs. And it's also important for me to be in conversation with people who do. I need that. And as um, I I think it was Carl Bart uh who said uh that uh it could have been John Wesley, but uh one of those Europeans uh said something about Oh no, did you really just put John Wesley in the same sense as Carl Bart? I can see I can hear both people say I can hear Wesley or Bart saying this. This might be the only thing they ever say in common, but uh is is they said, I can learn something from the man on the street. Yeah, I can learn something from the man on the street, and both of them uh had that had that spirit about them. And there's there is no one from whom I can't learn something. And I think if we have that attitude, uh that will foster an openness and will counter the built-in pride that uh so many people take in their accomplishments or in their position uh or uh in the power they have. Um it's we we need to be constantly checked of those things. And I think for for anyone who has any any level of training in uh theology, in biblical studies, uh I want to strongly urge, uh and really anyone in in who has higher education, strongly urge you to uh sit under the ministry of those who are preaching and teaching in the context where you are, and uh and be very charitable and open and affirm everything you can. Um there are unquestionably things that I would today go back and retract from from what I've said. And I in fact I hope that uh in the next 10 to 15 years, if the Lord permits, I I fully intend to write a composition of retractions of things that I would go back and listen to my sermons or look at things I've written and do what the brave you know men and women who have brought before us, you know, like Augustine and even Wesley. Wesley even did this as well. And uh and uh why? Because that it's humbling, but it checks ourselves, it checks uh our our self-understanding, it is it speaks of a self-awareness that you know I am not the final answer, and yet God has entrusted to me a responsibility of interpreting God's word for the church, for for our local congregation, and that's a great responsibility, and I'm not always going to get it right, but Lord keep me humble enough to make the corrections where I need to, but also to avoid the sort of dogmatic preaching, the tones and the the statements that are not uh in keeping with his word, that our opinion and not uh based on on his on the text of scripture. Uh, you know, God help me to to avoid those things. Because I think that's where perhaps uh authority can be abused the most, is not through what we say, but the tone in which we say it.
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