Evangelicals like to quote Paul’s letter to Timothy: “All Scripture is God-breathed, and profitable for teaching, correction, training in righteousness, that the man of God may be equipped for every good work.” Paul affirms that God is the author of the written text, a sine qua non of Evangelicalism. Paul also stresses the usefulness of Scripture, an equally favored Evangelical theme.
When we look closely at the Bible though, things get dicey. The Bible rarely lives up to our ordinary standards of practicality. Page after page is given over to genealogical lists of obscure people whose only role is to be a human bridge between famous ancestors and notorious descendants. A third of Exodus is nothing but verbal blueprints for building the tabernacle and the first quarter of Leviticus contains detailed regulations concerning sacrifice. Two lengthy chapters of Leviticus diagnose the varieties of skin disease that cause impurity. It seems so tedious, and even when the Bible holds our interest, it doesn’t seem very useful. Stories of plagues, exodus, and wars of utter destruction make for juicy reading, but how do they help one become virtuous? Why can’t the Bible be more relevant?
While one can mine nuggets of moral instruction from the depths of the text, the Bible’s apparent lessons are difficult, and not infrequently troubling. Abraham goes to Egypt, deceives Pharaoh about his relationship to Sarah, and leaves Egypt richer than ever. What’s the lesson—that lying pays? What moral do we draw from Moses’ killing of the Egyptian, or Joshua’s slaughter of everything that breathed at Jericho? The more we read the Bible, the clearer it becomes that the book isn’t a Hebraic Aesop’s fables.
Treating Scripture as a directory of moral lessons or compendium of moral rules assumes a constricted view of moral practice and reasoning. We don’t pursue virtue simply by applying general principles to particular situations, and true morality is never simply obedience to commandments. Practical morality requires the ability to assess situations accurately, memory of our own past patterns of action and of others’ inspiring examples, and enough moral imagination to see how a potential tragedy might become the birthplace of unforeseen comedy.
Scripture is ethical paedeia, not an ethics manual. All Scripture is practical because God breathed all of it to form people, both individuals and community. God tells stories to stock our memory with a common moral past that projects his people into the future. God’s word expands our imagination to grasp more of what’s really there and to envision what might be there in the future. The Bible is useful because it opens our eyes, and because it’s highly impractical to walk through life with our eyes closed.
Not all the morally relevant truth about the world is self-evident. We have to be told, and the Bible is there to tell us. The letter to the Hebrews tells us that life is a race run before a great cloud of witnesses, which means that those tedious genealogies are designed to inspire patience and temperance. Jesus promises that the Father gives angels charge over us lest we dash our foot against a stone, which means that the Bible’s ancient history of sudden deliverance and unexpected protection should arouse courage. Purity rules tell us that the unclean are cast out, so when the proud and cruel rise, we anticipate that they will eventually descend. Scripture thus cultivates a taste for justice.
Prudence requires a sense of timing. With its cycles and types, its first and last Adams, its first and second exodus, Scripture scans the rhythms and rhymes of history. Trained by Scripture, we can sniff the air of an epoch and think, “We’ve been here before.”
Above all, Scripture makes visible the invisible God of infinite power, compassion, generosity, and justice. In a wonderful passage in his God’s Companions: Reimagining Christian Ethics (Wiley-Blackwell, 2006), Sam Wells lists the gifts God gives for moral formation: “witness, catechesis, baptism, prayer, friendship, hospitality, admonition, penance, confession, praise, reading scripture, preaching, sharing peace, sharing food, washing feet. These are boundless gifts of God.” If we could see the world accurately, we would recognize that ours is never a scarcity of moral resources but a boundless, overwhelming excess: “God’s inexhaustible creation, limitless grace, relentless mercy, enduring purpose, fathomless love: it is just too much to contemplate, assimilate, understand.” The Bible unveils a God who gives enough and more than enough, if we will only see and receive it.
Most days, we don’t catch even the slightest glimpse of this “tidal wave of glory.” We are like the servant of Elisha who trembled at the horses of Aram until Elisha prayed that his eyes would be opened. Then, “behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.” We need an Elisha prayer to see reality as it is, and Scripture is God’s answer to that prayer.
Peter J. Leithart is on the pastoral staff of Trinity Reformed Church in Moscow, Idaho, and Senior Fellow of Theology and Literature at New St. Andrews College. His most recent book is Athanasius (Baker Academic).
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Comments:
When I hear Evangelicals say that in fact the Bible is the word of God I always want to put the following to them. The Bible may be, as you say, the word of God, but what you possess of the Bible is an interpretation of its meaning. To whom does that interpretation belong? Is it yours or is it God's? If it is yours, then to what extent can you vouch for the authoritativeness of your interpretation?
The notion that the Bible circumscribes all of God's communications with mankind for all future time is not an idea that arises from the explicit teachings of the New Testament or from the actual life of the Church that is described in the Bible. Some of the epistles refer to other epistles which were not preserved. There are years of teaching in Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth and Rome that are nowhere recorded in the New Testament, to say nothing of the testimonies of apostles in Alexandria and Susa and Persepolis. There is no passage in the gospels or epistles which claim to be the definitive and complete compilation of all teachings for all time. The one verse that is twisted to that end comes in Revelation, where a warninig against a man modifycing the words of the book (i.e. revelation) is distorted into referring to a complete New Testament which did not exist as a body until 250 years later. It is especially irioonic that this passage should be cited for this purpose, since Revelation barely made it onto the list of canonical books in the 4th Century, and Martin Luther was still dubious about its authority a thousand years later. If the Church had left it off the list, and made it merely another Apocryphal book, there would have been no statement in the canon that even implied a ban on new scripture.
This is not to say that any document that walks in the door can be hailed as scripture. But it admits that, since God is the author of the Bible, God has the option, should He choose to exercise it, to send an added volume, or perhaps point modern man to another Gospel or Epistle which was composed in the First Century but has been lost to mankind since then.
We are well aware that ancient books have surfaced in modern times, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, lost for 2,000 years in clay jars in caves in Qumran, and the Nag Hammadi books, a cache apparently buried since the early Christian era. And then there are other works which have been discovered in obscure monasteries. No one can legitimately say that it is impossible for a new discovery of this kind to reveal a text which proves to be an ancient document, and which adds consistent insight into the meaning of Christianity as believed and practiced by the first Christians.
For example, among the body of Christ's teachings are those which he gave to the apostles during the 40 days after his resurrection. Surely they were not just a rehash of what he had already taught them. Now that they had witnessed the resurrection, they were ready to understand things in a new way. Is it not possible that one of the apostles, perhaps Matthew the former publican, would have made a record of the teachings, a record that might turn up someday, which can be carbon-14-dated to the First Century, and has other indicia of authenticity? And could not the Church, as it did in the 4th Century, decide to accept the document as canonical, as scripture?
The purpose of the Scripture is to bring glory to God by sanctifying His people. Following the written instructions in the OT was a pathway to prosperity (Deut. 30:9-10); failure to follow them was a pathway to destruction (Deut. 28:58-59). The foundation of daily life and worship was the written Scriptures (Joshua 1:8; Nehemiah 8:18). God’s people were to keep the written Scriptures alive in their daily lives by not letting them depart from their lips (Joshua 1:8). God’s people were not to “turn to the right or to the left” from Scriptures, but were to follow them explicitly (Joshua 23:6).
And more importantly, Jesus affirmed every pen stroke of these Scriptures (Matt. 5:18). Jesus put His authority behind even the smallest letter of these written Scriptures. So it is Jesus’ instruction to follow the written commands so clearly outlined in the OT Scriptures. It is Jesus who commands constant meditation on the written Word. It is Jesus who forbids any deviation from them. You will look in vain for any similar support for a mass, celibate priesthood, etc.
And Patricksarsfield shows a decidedly non-Apostolic bent when he writes that the church decided to “write down some of its lessons”. The Apostle Peter didn’t believe that nor did the Apostle Paul. Peter wrote that Paul’s writings were the “wisdom of God” not church teachings (2 Peter 3:15). Paul told the Thessalonians that what they received from him was not “church teaching” but “the word of God…” (1 Thess. 2:13). That’s why the “deposit of faith” is not the Catholic church but the faithful exposition of the written Scriptures. That is why the Holy Spirit inspired the Apostle Paul to write, “Do not go beyond what is written” (1 Corinthians 4:6).
If God needed a ‘church’ to spread His truth, the apostles surely didn’t know about it.
Peace.
†
Also, MacGabhann, John 1 clearly says that the Word of God is Jesus, not the texts we call the Bible. So, I would say that the point is moot.
I concur with the first two paragraphs of your post above; as you noted there is no "god-breathed table of contents" to the Bible. As to paragraphs 3 through 5, they are entirely hypothetical. If any such materials ever showed up, I would trust Holy Mother Church to give me guidance on that material as it has on the extant 27/72.
What an interesting idea. I’ve never read the genealogies in that way. I don’t think I will start thinking about them in that way, but I like having my understanding challenged and hearing about other approaches.
And I’m especially grateful for the acknowledgment that much of the Bible seems impractical. So much tedious reading and so many stories that run counter to God’s love and justice. It takes a sure hand to read the Bible correctly.
How the commenters on this article have turned Leithart’s wise cautions into an occasion for Evangelical bashing is another story. Meanwhile, other articles on the site claim that Roman Catholicism is being persecuted in this country.
Constantine goes on to make the clearly unbiblical claim that "If God needed a ‘church’ to spread His truth, the apostles surely didn’t know about it." Huh? So much for Peter's appointment of a replacement apostle or for his draconian church discipline in the Ananias and Sapphira contretemps or for the Council of Jerusalem or for Paul's council of the presbyters of Asia Minor before he left them or for all those letters to specific local churches he had planted or, above all, for the Great Commission. Indeed, Constantine has not even attempted to rebut my showing that the Great Commission was NOT a book commission, but a commission for a world wide (that is Catholic) church to go out and teach/baptize.
The idea of a self-proving encyclopedic and systematic New Testament is belied by the fact that the first post-persecution Council of the Church (Nicea I) did not choose to expend its time on hammering out the Table of Contents for the NT. As Eusebius (a participant) pointed out a dozen years later, the Church did not have an agreed upon list of inspired books as late as 337 AD. Rather, the Council hammered out the Nicene Creed, as the local church of Rome had drawn up a Creed during the persecutions. The Nicene and Apostles' Creeds are TRADITION at its finest.
A review of the NT shows it is hardly encyclopedic or systematic. Anyone who tries to claim the NT is encyclopedic and systematic needs to explain such things as the reasons for inclusion of both 2 John and 3 John. To the contrary, the NT is an agglomeration of writings drawn up for very specific purposes within the context of a church that was growing by many churchy means, not just by writing. Far from being hubristic about the purposes of Scripture, I thank God for both Scripture and Tradition, and I am so glad that God has given me a sure guide through Holy Scripture: His Holy Catholic Church.
I agree with you. How can one say that the bible is the epitome of the word, yet everyone’s interpretation is different? Especially when the bible is so easily misinterpreted.
I realize that there is an inherent importance to the bible and scripture, but one must take into consideration the ancientness of this book. Let’s take another important text document from our history- the constitution. At the time of its writing it was completely relevant, however now we must make amendments and whatnot to keep it up to date with our time. I’m not saying the same should be done for the bible, but it is important to note that times change, and so do relevant issues.
Clearly, Christ wanted a Catholic ("all nations") church institution ("make disciples ...baptize...and teach") to spread throughout the world. Although He did not specifically ask that church to write anything down, the Church in its exercise of its Teaching charge decided to write down some of its lessons. The Church has recognized some of those written teachings as canonical and we can therefore be sure that those 27 "books" of the New Testament are indeed "God-breathed." At least since St. Athanasius's list written in 365 was adopted by the Church in those North African Councils of the 390s.
As St. John the Evangelist teaches us, though, those books are not the whole story (John 21:25 ("But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. "); 2 John1:12 and 3 John 1:13-14 ("I have much to write to you, but I would rather not write with pen and ink; instead I hope to see you soon, and we will talk together face to face. ")).
What else can we rely on beyond those less than systematic writings? That Deposit of Faith (or "good treasure" of teachings) which was handed down by the Apostles. As Brother Paul instructed his suffragan Timothy in a letter that fortunately has been preserved and can be found among the writings the Church teaches are canonical and "god-inspired": "For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands....Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us....You then, my child, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus; and what you have heard from me through many witnesses entrust to faithful people who will be able to teach others as well. " (2 Tim. 1:6, 13-14; 2:1-2).