The Holy Scripture

The Holy Scripture

Using Scripture in the Church

Most Christians acknowledge Scripture as the phrase of God, specially motivated or authoritative in an significant way. considerations of Biblical administration are inclined to ask the question of if a Biblical text is or is not authoritative. The assumption is that if a text is authoritative, it calls for our affirmation and obedience; if not authoritative, we can disregard it.

However, we do not really pursue this assumption in our use of Scripture. In practice, we use distinct parts of Scripture in distinct ways. Even those who assertion the whole Bible is authoritative do not acquiesce with and comply all texts in the same way. (The famous demonstration is complying Leviticus as considers same-sex relationships, but disobeying it as considers slavery).

With the most of the restructured tradition, I claim the whole Bible as authoritative; but I do not accept as true it should all be used in the identical way. The inquiry, then, is not “Is this text authoritative?”but “How should we use this authoritative text?” I will explore some of the variety of ways we do use the text. The Presbyterian Church's altering use of Scripture round gender roles, especially women's ordination, will assist as a case study.

Implications of the diverse utilises of Scripture are: (1) If we do in detail use the Bible in a variety of ways (obedience to an imperative statement being only one way utilised for only some texts), no one can legitimately state, “The Bible states this, therefore you should comply it,” without at smallest some further discussion of why that is an appropriate use of this specific text in this specific life situation. (2) concluding how to use Scripture in a granted situation engages alternative and agency. groups, preachers, and all readers of Scripture are entrusted with the proficiency to understand and apply the text as best we can in faithfulness to God and for the good of our communities. We cannot bypass our own blame for the way we use Scripture.

Tolbert: Deconstructing Biblical authority, and inspirational use of the Bible

Mary Ann Tolbert's item “A New Teaching with administration” identifies a distinction between two uses of scripture widespread to the place of worship: general hermeneutics and special hermeneutics. General hermeneutics read the Bible in alike ways to reading other very old texts. In church and academy, we read the text as literature and history as well as God's word (168-9). We are attentive to very old context and dialect issues. Most of the time we provide work general hermeneutics when reading the Bible. Special hermeneutics are different. We use special hermeneutics regarding points of controversy. We halt looking at context, differences in ancient and modern worldview, and insist on one correct reading for the text—which because the Bible is authoritative, we should comply (179-82). The knack is that doctrines of biblical authority are designed for use in special-hermeneutics situations (that is, on points of argument). We suppose the doctrines are “in force” all the time, ...