Authorship & Authority of Scripture

Several years ago when I was a young and dumb pastoral intern, I got into a debate with the pastor I was working with.  One afternoon over coffee I made a passing comment about how we don’t know for sure who wrote the Pentateuch, that is, the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy).  A few days later, the pastor called me up asking me to join him for coffee again; he wanted to follow up on that comment.

I would consider this pastor to hold to a rather fundamentalist view of Scripture.  If I was smart, I never would have made the comment in the first place…I just wasn’t thinking about the face that he probably felt quite differently from myself.

So we sat down, and he began, “I’m concerned about your view of Scripture.  The other day you said that we don’t know who wrote the Pentateuch.  The problem is that Jesus states very clearly that Moses wrote those books.  Not to mention, that by rejecting known authorship, you’re rejecting the authority of Scripture.  Authorship was a key factor in determining which books were inspired and which were not.”

Before I go on, here’s a little history for you – the real history of the Bible, not the DaVinci Code’s version.  In the early 4th-century, Emperor Constantine called together a council for the purpose of laying out the official understanding of the Christian Church.  There’s good reason for doing this: Constantine just declared Christianity to be the official state religion of the Roman Empire (largely a political move) and there needed to be a certain amount of consensus on some of the more difficult issues.  At the time there were a number of groups running around claiming to be the true church, and so things needed to be worked out.  Despite the opinions of some, there is overwhelming evidence that the council did not decided to consider Jesus God at that point and determine which books were to be excluded based on the council member’s own male-dominated, power-hungry opinions.  Rather, the council merely acted to affirm the most widely accepted beliefs present at that time.  Many of their decisions have since become the “essentials of the faith” – those points of doctrine that a Christian absolutely must hold to in order to be considered a Christian.

With regards to closing the Canon (a fancy word for the 66 books of the Christian Bible), one factor among many used to determine divine inspiration was authorship of the book under consideration.  However, this point of criteria applies primarily to the New Testament books and is only one of several tests used.  The it worked was rather simple: if a book was generally agreed to have been authored by an Apostle (there were a few dissenters), than it was considered authoritative and inspired.  For the Christian Old Testament, the books included are those long recognized (going back at least several hundred years) by Jews as divinely inspired.

This is all background information.  The point I was attempting to make to my pastor-mentor is that the Bible does not get its authority from the people who wrote it…the Bible’s authority comes from the truth contained within its pages; truth that has long been recognized as “God-breathed” by Christians all the way back to the early 2nd-century.  My pastor was unable to handle this distinction.  For him, the authority was necessarily tied to who wrote the books.  In other words, as I understand his position, if one could prove that Moses did not in fact write the Pentateuch, then the authority of the words contained within those 5 books came into question.

I can’t help but to ask, “WHY?” Why does that have to be the case? Why can’t the Bible be authoritative despite who wrote it?  Isn’t God capable of working through whoever He chooses?  Haven’t people been led to the Lord through those who personally rejected the message they preached for their own gain?  Doesn’t God’s sovereignty stand for anything anymore?

As I’m sure you can tell by this point, I don’t put a whole lot of weight on the authorship argument.  I just feel that if you’re going to be serious about the nature of Scripture, then you’ll admit that the Bible’s authority for our lives is inherent within its pages…no other criteria is necessary.

Filed under: Bible Study, Ministry, Theology

Thoughts on Church Leadership #6

This post is significantly more practical than my others on this topic. I recently came across a website called churchrelevance.com. For the most part it’s nothing more than a blog with incredibly practical tips for ministry and church life. The link below is a post dealing with church websites. I thought this was worth putting up here for the simple reason that many churches simply do not understand what goes into a good church website. There are way too many congregations who need a checklist like the one included on this link. Check it out…I hope it’s helpful.

Church Website Site Assessment Tool

Filed under: Church, Church Planting, Evangelism, Leadership, Ministry

Christianity and Homosexuality

This post is inspired bya conversation I had with my wife the other day…

My wife works directly with at least three gays. At another location in town, there is at least one other whom we (my wife and I) have significant contact with. I have several friends who are either gay or bi-sexual. Living in Oregon for some time, I have had a tremendous amount of contact with the LGBT community – sometimes by choice, but usually because our paths just happen to cross. My wife works for a company that – in my experience – has a rather high number of gay employees – it’s just the nature of the company. I tend to spend a lot of time at various locations of this company. We are currently living in an area that is not very hospitable to the gay community…that really bothers us.

Recently, a co-worker ask my wife what it was that I was in school for. When she replied that I was in seminary with plans to become an ordained minister, he was taken aback. He asked, “So you’re pretty conservative then?”

Filed under: Bible Study, Christian Living, Christianity, Evangelism, Ministry

“Brothers and sisters in Christ…” and Irresistible Grace

I’ve been thinking about my last post.  It occurred to me that my statements say something about my theology of worship.  I’m sure there are those who would read what I wrote and accuse me of having a very man-centered view of worship.  But in my defense, I do believe the primary objective of the worship service is to bring glory to God.  I do not advocate a worship experience that is entirely emotional and sensory.  Although emotions and senses are things given to us by God and therefore should not be left out altogether.

I think about the worship service as an event in which the pastor guides/leads the congregation to a “place” where they can commune with, experience, and bring glory to God.  The more people who are involved, the more glory being ascribed to the Father – of course He doesn’t need it, but He has commanded us to do so.

My criticism of this introduction is mainly concerned with excluding some people who can and should otherwise be included.  Coming into and experiencing God’s presence is a powerful thing.  And in good Reformed fashion, we lack the ability to resist God’s grace when it is revealed to us – as Calvin said, God’s grace is irresistible.

Filed under: Christianity, Church, Evangelism, Leadership, Ministry, Preaching, Theology, Worship

“Brothers and sisters in Christ…”

I know I’m setting myself up for getting a lot of slack for this one…but oh well, what the hey, eh?

In many CRC congregations for the past 50 years (or so it seems – but it may be longer or shorter…afterall, I’m only 27) preachers have begun their sermons with the line, “Brothers and sister in our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Allow me – if you will – to digress for a bit…

I have problems with beginning a sermon like this.  On one hand, it is a very welcoming and inviting way to begin a sermon.  But on the other hand, it’s also very exclusive and – in some cases – offensive.  There are certain assumptions that underlie the use of this phrase that I think the CRC needs to break away from.

First, this phrase assumes that everyone sitting in the pews is saved.  That simply is not true.  The church is full of people who don’t possess that personal relationship with Christ that is so necessary for salvation.  There was a time in which this assumption could be made…but not today.  Like many who hold membership in a denomination (Presbyterian, Methodist, DOC, etc.) the CRC is the church home to a large number of people who were raised in the church, went to a Christian school, Christian college, married a Christian, and continue to this day to be a part of the Christian church.  The problem is that for some of these members, going to church is just something they do…it’s part of their weekly routine.  They’ve never experienced a moment in which they gave up control of their life and turned everything over God.  They’ve never made a conscious decision to follow Christ.  And when push comes to shove, they will probably abandon their faith althogether because things just got too hard.

Second, in the case that you do have a visiting attender (that is, someone who is seeking, interested, unsure, or just wants to know more about Christianity) this phrase in inaccurate.  Suddenly what you’re really saying is “This part of the service is for our regular attenders.  So if you’re not usually here, you don’t need to pay attention to what I’m about to say – it’s not important for you.”  In which case, I gotta’ ask: When did the Word become irrelevant for certain people and applicable to only a few?  Scripture contains a powerful message for the nations, one that everyone needs/must hear.  Scripture is something that we should be taking extremely seriously.  We need to be careful that we don’t downplay the importance of God’s Word in our preaching.

Third, If by some chance you’re preaching in a church that you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that every single person present is saved and there isn’t one single visitor there (I pray to God that such a church doesn’t actually exist), then these words work to reinforce the current situation.  At this point, these words become a leadership issue.  If the congregation hears the pastor re-affirming every week their current situation, the congregation will never see a reason/point to reaching out and sharing their faith.  They might reason that if the pastor isn’t changing his “tune,” why should we?

The major point I’m trying to make here is that as church leaders/preachers, the words we use send a powerful message.  If our desire is to see our congregations become more effective at reaching the lost, then we need to think long and hard about everything “little” thing we do and the message it communicates to others.

Filed under: Church, Church Planting, Evangelism, Leadership, Ministry, Preaching, Sermon