Linked Together: Our Bible

A little suggested weekend reading.

Authoritative
Michael Kruger responds to the claim that “the church is the highest authority and the Bible is merely one of many tools used by the church”: Is the Church over the Bible or is the Bible over the Church?

Sufficient
Sinclair Ferguson writes:

The Scriptures do not tell us everything about everything. They provide no instruction about computer programming, or how best to organise a library, the correct way to swing a golf club, or how to play chess. They do not tell us how far away the sun is from the earth, what DNA is, how best to remove an appendix surgically, the best coffee to drink, or the name of the person we should marry.

That is not an expression of any deficiency on their part. For there is a focus and a goal to the sufficiency of the Scriptures. Everything I need to learn in order to live to the glory of God and enjoy him forever I will find in the application of Scripture.

Read the rest.

Trustworthy
Erik Raymond reviews Barry Cooper’s book Can I Really Trust the Bible?, and describes it as “an ideal book to give to someone who is asking questions about the Bible as well as a newer Christian who requires further study on the topic.” (Aaron Armstrong recommends it, too.)

I’ve put it on my wish list for the church library. We could use something accessible on the doctrine of scripture.

Dangerous
Why do some people try to “reimagine” what the Bible says? Why is it so tempting to toss the Bible? Aaron Armstrong answers this way: “Because it’s easier. The Bible is dangerous and obeying is it costly.”

Thankful Thursday

 

Here are a few things I’ve been thankful for this week.

• a bouquet of sunflowers. As I write this, there is a layer of snow on the ground and the sky is gloomy, but the bouquet of sunflowers on the coffee table brightens my life and reminds me of warmer days. 
  
  
• for a gift of homemade oatmeal raisins cookies. 
  
  
• days and evenings with family and friends. I’ve done lots of visiting this week, and there’s more to come this weekend—the weekend of Canadian Thanksgiving.
  
  
• God’s protection when I fell while carrying a basket of dirty clothes down the basement stairs. It could have been bad, but the basket and I landed softly and I wasn’t hurt at all. 
  
  
• the rest from spiritual strivings that comes through Christ.  

Also thankful today:

• Kim Shay
• Persis

What are you thankful for? Leave a comment with your thanksgiving, post your thanksgiving on your blog, or tweet it. Give me the link by email or in a comment and I’ll add your thanksgiving to the list in the post.

Theological Term of the Week

redaction criticism
The “study of the role of the redactor (editor) in the final compostion of the biblical text.”1

(Evangelical redaction criticism presupposes the supernatural nature of scripture, and is used to discover the particular emphasis of a biblical author. But more commonly, redaction criticism is done from anti-supernatural presuppositions, and used to confirm the (supposedly) human origin of scripture. Some of the linked articles under Learn More below denounce redaction criticism generally, but they do so under the assumption that all redaction criticism has anti-supernatural presuppositions.)

• From 40 Questions About Interpreting the Bible by Robert L. Plummer:

[W]hile many biblical authors had both firsthand knowledge of events (e.g., the apostle John) and oral and written sources from which to draw (e.g., Luke 1:1-4), the redactor ultimately showed his theological interests and purposes through selecting, omitting, editing, and summarizing the material for his text. (Of course, Christians assume the Holy Spirit was working through the redactors in this process.) 

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