The year was 1991 and I entered my second year of Greek class gloating from the straight A’s from the year before. I was quickly confronted by the chart (yep, this is the actual chart that I have kept all these years . . . ) above and immediately began changing my understanding of how the Bible should be viewed and considered.
Keep in mind that I spent the three previous years to seminary consuming the bible messages of John Macarthur because I fell in love with this idea of understanding what God had to “say” in his good book. For some reason that is probably obvious to some of you, I was drawn by the definitive nature of his teaching. Too bad I had to wait three years to figure out that this definitive teaching style depended on a certain understanding of the bible that I now reject.
Each morning our dear professor (and I mean that . . . he was an earnest and kind scholar . . . I liked him) Dr. Clint Arnold would ask us to give our interpretive understandings of the passages we had translated into the wee hours the night before.He would reply after most (not all) offerings with something like this: “Yes, I could see it working that way. You make a good case for that translation”.At the time I was utterly disappointed that there were so many interpretive options because I assumed that studying the original languages would simply be an exercise of scientific decoding into perfect clarity. Wrong.
Looking back I realize that this was the beginning of freedom for me. Standing outside the good book like a scientist and extracting exact meanings was and is an illusion. The good book deserves more respect than an approach that allows a man to attain some high plain of certainty when in actuality it is a book of faith and should be approached with said faith and humility.
Oh, and my brother died that year. Which allowed me to also experience the occasional genius touches of grace from a few kind students and professors and the ridiculously confusing immediate stoic response from the vast majority: “oh, was he a Christian”?
el mol
4 responses so far ↓
tyler // March 26, 2008 at 9:16 pm |
please keep doing this series.
Blogbarger // March 27, 2008 at 7:27 am |
Great post. I’ve been thinking about this same subject. Excited to exchange more ideas on this. Right on, my soul brother.
cAPSLOCK // March 28, 2008 at 1:10 am |
I was talking to a friend today about this verse where Jesus puts the scriptures where they belong in regards to Himself.
John 5:39-40
You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
As to the question they asked about your brother.. heh. Well… I think human beings have to have something simple to hold on to. A formula. An action.. if they DO it then they are redeemed. They needed to know if your brother said the magic words. Funny thing is this is Anti-Christ in my humble opinion.
I love that Sampson (I am not drawing a parallel between him and your brother.. but between him and the ‘unsaved’) made it into Hebrews in the middle of that list that could have been titled “The Badasses of the Faith”. I mean Sampson was kind of a disaster. A womanizer who eventually had to commit suicide as his last act on Earth.
I wonder if he was saved…
crystal // March 28, 2008 at 9:48 am |
1991? i was a sophomore in high school. just saying.
“oh, was he a christian?” — rude.
“The good book deserves more respect than an approach that allows a man to attain some high plain of certainty when in actuality it is a book of faith and should be approached with said faith and humility.” — amen.
p.s. you and cheryl need to come to portland, soon. i’m not yelling, i’m just saying.