Six months ago I turned in and defended my personal doctrinal statement to fulfill my final requirement for graduation. This was a painful process for me and one that convinced me that I needed to spend more time examining the scriptures. I had to include a couple of things that I am not fully convinced of – things to which I can only say that I aspire to believe.
Since then I have begun considering how this institution of formal doctrinal statements relates to what we truly believe. Every church I have ever been involved with has had one. Right out of college I even encouraged my church to adopt one. I thought the litigious atmosphere in our society made it a necessity. They provide grounds on which to maintain the moral purity of a church. They are also a 4 page litmus test for whether or not I have to fellowship with you – whether or not I have to consider you credible.
The exercise of writing my own comprehensive doctrinal statement made me painfully aware of the pitfalls accompanying this institution. I believe that doctrinal statements are a valuable tool to help us communicate our understanding of theology. We should not do away with doctrinal statements, but we need to understand their limits and the pitfalls they present.

Do we really have the exact words of Jesus? Or, is what is recorded for us in the Gospels not the exact words but simply the idea or meaning of what Jesus said? These questions have raised a great deal of controversy over the years. In technical terms, this is the ipsissima verba (from Latin, meaning "same words") and ipsissima vox (meaning "same voice") debate. While virtually all liberal critics line up at the doorstep of ipsissima vox, evangelical scholars are divided. Some defend ipsissima verba (Green; Thomas "Impact" and "Historical;" Montgomery), while most have chosen to go with ipsissima vox (Blomberg 117-127; Bock; Feinberg 300-301; Osborne; Stein 221). Recently ipsissima vox has divided into two, with a broad view (ipsissima vox with extensive paraphrasing and change of emphasis) represented by Wallace and a narrow view ("ipsissima verba with translation and a very small amount of paraphrase) presented by Wilkin in reaction to Wallace.

            Before this issue can be discussed, some presuppositions must examined. The paper will examine the major presuppositions that are brought to the text of the Gospels when the words of Jesus are compared.

Here is the final installment of the paper, where I discuss how quoting and meaning interact and where I actually reach a conclusion. I think the conclusion is the weakest part of the paper, so I would be interested in any comments ya'll might have.

When scripture appears to be open to different interpretations depending upon interpreters’ presuppositions than the task at hand is no longer interpreting scripture, but arguing opinions.

The interpretation of scripture transcends what we bring to the text. Authorial intent does not change. Some discard authorial intent as an impossible standard. It may appear subjective. One may claim to find authorial intent with only a cursory examination of the text. Another believes that his speculations about the circumstances of the author establishes a better authorial intent. Neither trusts the text of the scripture they wish to interpret. Mistakes in interpretation are much easier to perpetuate in isolation. The community of faith is a guard against such misinterpretation.

How does application differ from interpretation? Or does it differ? I was certain that they did differ. I even came up with a term merging interpretation and application into “interprecation.” This clever term not only represent the blurring of the distinction between the two activities, it also reminds me of “imprecation,” something appropriately directed at one who doesn’t distinguish between application and interpretation. I enjoyed my own cleverness until I read the very helpful “Making Sense of the Old Testament, Three Crucial Questions” by Tremper Longman III. In it he states, “It may be possible to distinguish between meaning and application on a strictly theoretical level, but it is never possible to do so in practice.”

Well clever isn’t very satisfying if I’m just plain wrong so I decided to take a closer look at the differences that I thought I perceived.

The furor over the inerrancy of Scripture has been at a fever pitch for decades now. One might get the idea that it is more important to toe the line on inerrancy than it is to believe the deity of Jesus. After all, is it even possible to believe the Messiah without ascribing to The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy?

Collectively, we seem to have forgotten that faith is central to well…our faith. We each trust Scripture to varying degrees, and it is this trust of Scripture that I want to emphasize. We cannot get away from the need to trust scripture. The certainty that is claimed for Scripture is a matter of faith, but it is promoted as though it was established by the scientific method.

There are many different degrees of confidence that a person may have in Scripture. Most of these fall far short of the certainty that many have in the Scriptures, but we must first acknowledge our dependence on the testimony of others.

In my last post I wrote to establish that the Bible may be relied upon at a number of different levels. Someone may treat as simply another book, no more reliable than any of the self-help clutter on bookstore shelves. This idea did not receive a warm welcome because the Bible is truly reliable, and this sets it apart from any writing which shares the features I described.

My goal was to set the groundwork that the Bible may be externally established as an authoritative collection of writings and then to move on to describe how the Bible establishes its authority internally. Those external features prepare us to accept the authority of the Bible before we even open its pages. In this post, I will describe some principles that govern how the human authors established the authority of their writings. I will also use a passage from the Koran to contrast the basis of the Koran’s authority with that of the Bible.

When an author sits down to write he or she may write whatever they wish. The author has complete freedom on the page (or scroll). He may write his locker combination. She may write a novel. He may write a persuasive argument or she might encourage patriotism. Any given author can marshal words to serve any purpose, and no authorial purpose has ever been weightier than communicating the message of the eternal Creator to his creatures. The authors of Scripture were aware of this weight, and they wrote so that we could be confident in the message we have received.

In Scriptural Authority I described some of the superficial ways that we may consider the Bible as authoritative. In Biblical Bible Authority, I described how the authors of the Bible embedded means to verify their messages. In this post, I will describe how they built on that authority to establish the supreme authority of God’s words over all other words including their own.

Do you remember Lot?  What do you think of when you think of him?  Maybe Sodom and Gomorrah.  Maybe sodomy.  Maybe his greediness and poor judgment of choosing the fair green pastures of the big city.  Perhaps you think of his valor trying to rescue the two angels (whom he perceived at first to be only men) from the homosexual assault of the townsmen…and just as you’re thinking he really was a pretty good guy, you remember that he offered his virgin daughters up as sacrificial lambs in place of the angels.  I am guessing that most of you don’t think, “Righteous,” when you think of Lot.

In my final year of Greek in seminary I found New Testament Greek Vocabulary, an audio recording of the Greek word frequency lists. And my score on the vocabulary tests improved. Since that time I have been looking for audio of the Greek New Testament that I can bear to listen to. There has been a freely available version out for a few years, but now there is a new one on the horizon. Logos has a new Greek Audio Bible in the works, but it has a karaoke twist to it. As you listen to the text, Libronix will highlight the text of the passage.

Currently Logos is finding out if enough people are interested in a, to publish it. When I signed up to show my interest, there was only 25% of the necessary interest. Now it is up to about 75%. Head on over there, see a video of it in action reading John 3:16 and 1 John 2:1, and sign up for it too. I am eager for this to be published.