Part 1 -- Background All Christians agree that Jesus is our pattern, and that healthy teaching consistent with trusting and loving him provides a secondary pattern for living as well (2 Tim. 1:13). This short gracEmail series is not about that. It is about an oddity and aberration that has marked the Christian tribe into which I was born and raised, and from which home base I now serve the body of Christ at large. That particular tribe is the Churches of Christ. The peculiarity is at once a doctrine, a way of reading the Bible and an approach to "doing church." We can call it patternism. … [Read more...]
PATTERNS AND NORMS
A college Bible professor asks the difference between saying that the New Testament is 'normative' and saying that it provides a "pattern." * * * To say that the New Testament Scriptures are normative means to me that these 27 books uniquely reveal the standard by which we Christians all are called to think and to live. In that sense, this second section of the Bible -- but especially Jesus himself -- provides a pattern for each one of us to follow (1 Cor. 10:11; 11:1; Phil. 3:17; 1 Pet. 2:21). However, those who focus on the New Testament as a pattern often mean much more than that. They … [Read more...]
THE CHURCH’S PATTERN (1)
Someone recently admonished: "The New Testament provides the pattern which the true church must follow. We learn that by commands, examples and necessary inferences. The church revealed in the New Testament is the one we must imitate if we respect Bible authority." * * * Indeed, the New Testament provides the pattern for each of us as Christians, and that pattern is Jesus Christ himself (Matt. 16:24; Phil. 2:5; 1 Pet. 2:21). We may also safely follow others who follow Jesus, insofar as they do that (1 Cor. 4:16; Phil. 3:17; Heb. 13:7). However, the New Testament never suggests that it is … [Read more...]
HERMENEUTIC OR HEART?
A gracEmail reader in Singapore sends thanks for this ministry, then asks, "Is there a problem with our hermeneutic (the way we read and interpret Scripture) in the Churches of Christ?" * * * This question is far broader than Churches of Christ. The bottom line is that people in many different Christian groups tend to read the Bible as if it were a legal code to be rationalized and interpreted, instead of a revelation of the personal God who invites us to know and love him, and in that context to trust and obey him each new day (Deut. 6:4-9; Matt. 11:25-30). Little wonder that so many … [Read more...]
FAITH, NOT CERTAINTY
A Canadian preacher requests my response to an inquirer who asks how we "know with certainty and without doubt that the Bible is God's revealed and trustworthy Word." The inquirer says that he wants to believe that, and that if he could, it would launch him into "a life of faith." * * * We know almost nothing "with certainty and without doubt," and we do not normally require that standard in our daily lives. At most, we usually go with the preponderance of the evidence -- what is more reasonably likely than not -- what tilts the scales in its favor. If we could prove something "with … [Read more...]
ARE THE GOSPELS RELIABLE?
A gracEmail reader asks, "How do we know that the words ascribed to Jesus were actually his words? I have read that they were written down a century or more after his death? Was Mark even one of the original 12 disciples?" * * * The earliest Gospel was probably Mark's, which scholars generally agree was written within 30 years of Jesus' death and resurrection. Within a generation after Jesus' resurrection, the eleven Apostles (Judas had killed himself after he betrayed Jesus) and the special Apostle, Paul, carried the message about Jesus throughout the inhabited world. Eleven of these twelve … [Read more...]
ACCURACY OF GOSPELS
A university religions professor chides my quoting the Gospels with an assumption that they correctly record what Jesus actually said. "If you exclude the Bible from historical-critical scrutiny," he warns, "you will remain impervious to any historical argument and a discussion is indeed useless." * * * I certainly believe that Scripture will stand up to historical and scientific investigation, but I am not convinced that the various "criticisms" which attempt to go behind the text themselves meet the canons of rigorous science. That is particularly true when those who originally create … [Read more...]
BIBLE AND WORD OF GOD
"All my life, I have seen preachers hold up the Bible and say, 'This is the Word of God,'" writes a counselor in the Midwest. "When New Testament writers use the expression, 'the word of God,' do they not have something in mind other than the Scriptures themselves? We must not make the Bible our god, which is one form of idolatry." * * * Surely you raise a worthwhile caution, since Jesus himself warned his hearers not to allow a theoretical study of the Scriptures to distract them from recognizing the very Messiah-Savior to whom the Scriptures point (John 5:39-40). If the Old Testament … [Read more...]
PROVING THE BIBLE
A gracEmail reader asks, "How do we know that the Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit? Those who wrote the Bible say so, but how do we know? How can I convince someone who is not a Christian to believe that?" * * * The Apostle Paul says that "all Scripture is inspired by God" and is therefore "profitable," adequately equipping the Christian worker for every required task (2 Tim. 3:16-17). This word "inspired" is literally "God-breathed," which reminds us of the story of God creating Adam from dirt, then breathing life into him to become an animated man (Gen. 2:7). That is a faith statement … [Read more...]
MAKING TOO LITTLE OF THE BIBLE
Some time ago a Christian brother told me of undergoing a spiritual struggle, during which he said God told him not to open his Bible for an entire year. I expressed my concern, as respectfully as I knew how, that he had misidentified the spirit that gave him such an instruction. It is possible to make too much of the Bible, as we discussed in the previous gracEmail, but it is also possible (and perhaps far more common) to make too little of it. That mistake we also wish to avoid. Jesus Christ himself viewed with the greatest respect the Scriptures which we call the Old Testament (John … [Read more...]
