Standing Under the Scriptures
March 30, 2008

Dear Fellow Voyagers,

Our readings for this week are,

1 Peter 1.3-9:  The passage speaks of what Christ’s resurrection means for us as his followers.

John 20.19-31:  Jesus, in resurrection appearances, commissions his followers (sending them out into the world as he was sent to Israel, according to Tom Wright) and speaks of the blessedness of those to whom it is given to believe without having seen.

Last Sunday, Easter Day, we had no class.  There were readings for the services, but since I did not get to discuss them with you, I would not know what to say about them (I really can’t think on my own).  But I might on this occasion add to past discussions of the rationale for our class: not only how we go about studying the Scriptures but why.

Regarding why, we have spoken of various reasons.  Among them are the basis of Anglicanism (and other Christian traditions too) in the Scriptures, not to the exclusion of tradition and reason but still having primacy over them.  Therefore, if we take our Anglicanism, and Christianity, seriously, we ought to be familiar and indeed imbued with the Scriptures.  Nor is this just a matter of obligation.  For as I have said, speaking out of my own experience, only if we are imbued with them, to the point that images from them arise spontaneously in our minds in the situations which we encounter, will we have an adequate basis for meeting the challenges and crises with which we are inevitably confronted.  Beyond that, it is in their light that we can see other things as they truly are.    To be sure, other things have contributions to make: philosophy, literature, films even.  But apart from the Scriptures we cannot sort out what is valid from what is invalid in them.  One thinks here of the dictum of C.S. Lewis (no relation): I believe in God/the risen Christ as I believe in the sun, not only because I see it but because in its light I see everything else.

But after obligation and utility comes what may be the best reason of all.  This is that the Scriptures are inherently attractive.  To put it somewhat theologically, God, who has revealed himself in them, has also implanted in us the desire to know them.  They may take some getting into.  It took me more than a decade, in part I think because the King James Version, which with its virtues has serious drawbacks, was the only English translation available at the time.  But once one has got in, one can desire only to continue.  I have spoken of my daily reading in the original Greek and/or Hebrew for the last 45 years as my main qualification for leading our class.  I have so read not out of duty but because I wanted to; I cannot imagine doing otherwise.

Coming now to the how of our study of the Scriptures, we have spoken of approaching them not with answers but with questions, bearing in mind that while there are indeed final answers in them, we can only approximate these answers.  We have spoken also of the need to lay aside our presuppositions and look only at what is actually there.  To be sure, our presuppositions are not easily laid aside, since as with the culture around us we are largely unconscious of them.  Still we ought to do so as far as we can.  And I have been insistent that our critical faculties are not to be suppressed but instead employed to the full.

Perhaps the foregoing can be summed up by saying that we are to be intellectually rigorous in our approach to the Scriptures, no less rigorous than in the natural sciences (physics, chemistry, and the like), which are based on principles not unlike the above.  But, you may ask, is this not to reduce our biblical enterprise to the level of the natural sciences?  I think not, because of a further principle that needs to be taken into account, one featured by my mentor and friend Alister McGrath.  This is that the methods of a particular science (including theology) need be determined by and to accord with its subject matter (for theology this is revelation).  In my Foreign Service career, for example, there was need for great intellectual rigor.  What happens when such rigor is lacking is what we see today in a certain Middle Eastern country.   But in foreign affairs, laboratory conditions such as would permit precise testing of hypotheses are not available, nor is there often time for exhaustive examination of the data.  For crises are constantly bursting in.  These limitations do not however excuse one from coming up with the best conclusions possible, in terms of the national interest.  Similar limitations apply to the study of the Scriptures.  For the most part the texts themselves are the only data we have, and they leave many questions that we might want to ask unanswered.  But this does not invalidate our enterprise.  For our conclusions, provided we have rigorously and truly opened ourselves to the Scriptures, will not only light up our path and ourselves.  They will also be pleasing in God’s sight.

Faithfully, Fr. Ted