spontaneous and set

A kind of curious thing has been going on in my thinking lately. On the one hand those of us in Jesus are led by the Spirit. As Jesus told us, we're not to think about what to say ahead of time in the event that we face an hour of persecution. The Spirit will give us words to say then. But also, of course, we have Scripture, the word of God given to us in many words.

Add to this the witness of the church. There is no faster growing segment of the church growing than the Pentecostal, charismatic side of it. There surely are some secondary factors, but I believe the primary reason is because of the power and working of the Holy Spirit. These churches are purposefully more open to the Spirit, whatever we might say about all their doctrine and theology and practice. At the same time we see a resurgence in the church for an appreciation of liturgy. The Book of Common Prayer from which I have been taking a prayer from weekly is one prime example.

I am becoming more and more convinced that we need both. We need the freedom, spontaneity and power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. I believe in all the gifts of the Spirit for today, though how they work out in local congregations will vary. And I believe everyone in Jesus strictly speaking is a charismatic Christian already, having the gift of the Spirit, whether or not they believe in or practice any of the gifts that are more common in Pentecostal, charismatic circles. We also need every word of Scripture to be received as God's word to us. And we need the witness of the church now and through the ages. What the church has said and written does matter, even though all must be critiqued in view of God's word. But the critique itself includes not just each one of us, but the church together, necessarily, and with the help of the Spirit. We can benefit much from written prayers and liturgy, helping us to pray, even as Jesus taught his disciples and us to learn to pray -through a set prayer.

The Spirit can work powerfully through both, and the best way for us to live in Jesus is to include both the spontaneous and the set. Of course the bottom line is learning to love God and love people through following Jesus. And sharing the gospel by living it out, as well as giving a verbal witness to it. In all of this God is at work in us through Jesus as the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

We know we woefully fall short, yet to recognize and acknowledge this can help us to look to our only Redeemer, Savior and Lord: God through Jesus by the Spirit. The work begins in us and then out from us to others.

What would you like to share about this, or any thoughts?

thinking critically

If there's one thing that stands out in my mind right now, that I would like to have done better with my mind, it is the art and practice of critical thinking. We actually do something of the sort all the time, as we sift through what we think is of value and what is of lesser or no value in what we hear and see, in the world.

Critical thinking wants to hear and understand, and then critiques everything. For us in Jesus this means evaluating everything in light of God's truth revealed to us in Jesus in accordance with Scripture. This is an ongoing task as we keep working on both our understanding of this revelation from God, as well as our understanding of the world in which we live. I am reminded of John R.W. Stott's fine and helpful book, Between Two Worlds.

I should add that we need to keep being informed and formed by good theology based on Scripture and on the understanding given to the Church. Scripture is our basis, but we need to read it, and seek to understand it along with tradition, or how the Spirit has helped the Church to understand it over the centuries. And with the view of ever reforming theologically on the basis of Scripture, avoiding both the full and uncritical acceptance of tradition, and the rejection of tradition. The entire Church is united together, even though we don't live that out on many levels here, so that we must take into account the tradition which has been passed down for generations, while continuing to work on clearer and more accurate ways of understanding the truth in Jesus. But as those within the one tradition of the one Church. Of course, again, tradition is not infallible, so that we ever have to apply critical thinking, yet to depart from it is to fall into the error of departing from a primary means and agent of how the Spirit reveals God's truth in Jesus to believers.

This is just a beginning and limited sketch on this. What from your perspective might you like to share on this?

a helpful quadrilateral

I find what is called the "Wesleyan Quadrilateral" helpful in approaching Scripture and life. The quadrilateral consists of Scripture, tradition, reason and experience. John Wesley while well grounded in Scripture and in Reformed doctrine from his Anglican heritage moved beyond that in his time, anticipating what was to come in reference to a relational turn in theology and philosophy. And Wesley like Luther (I read)  emphasized the unity of the Spirit and the word/Scripture so that in God's work the two are never apart.

But to the quadrilateral. Scripture trumps all. But we never come to Scripture apart from tradition, reason and experience. Scripture stands in judgment of the others, but God also redeems them.  In this life we can't count on the latter three to be foolproof, but all three are an intrinsic part of our existence and humanity. So God is at work in all three. 

For example, tradition is important because in the church we find viable expressions of the faith, creatively different, yet bound together in what we affirm from Scripture. For me tradition is tied and related to the church and the work of God's Spirit in it. God gave us reason as a gift. Reason is submissive to revelation (general- nature/creation, and special- Scripture, Jesus), yet it is to be active, not passive. God gives us words (from Scripture) to reason through, and even calls us to reason together with him. Experience is where we live, and Scripture is given to us to help us learn how to live. The truth of Scripture and of God does us know good unless we taste of it! That again speaks of experience.

So Scripture, tradition, reason and experience I find helpful in seeking to approach and navigate life.

What do you think on this?

tradition and interpretation

In Christian Protestant circles we are familiar with the term Sola scriptura, which simply means the one source from which we draw from for our faith and practice as Christians is Scripture. Of course not all Christians agree, both Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox putting tradition in a place either almost or completely parallel with Scripture. Often in a kind of reciprocal relationship. While I believe Scripture must be our ground for faith and practice, we Protestants often little realize just how important tradition is.

Scripture itself promises that the Spirit will guide Christ's disciples into all truth. And that the church itself is the pillar and foundation of the truth. Of course Christ is the Cornerstone, the one on whom our faith is founded. The church was involved in that founding from Christ by the Spirit. The apostles and prophets receiving from God for us this faith that is ours in Jesus. And the church continues to be the entity/body in which we are to learn and grow in the Lord.

When I hear someone say tradition and interpretation don't matter; it's the Bible that is the word of God, I wince a bit. Whenever we read any of Scripture there is always a combination of interpretation and tradition occuring. Unless we're just doing so as an individual with our own interpretation. But that is not God's intention.

We can think we're reading the Bible for ourselves, and that is important. But we little realize just how much tradition and interpretation are present in our reading of it. Even in the translation of Scripture from the Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, there is invariably interpretation going on. True in the most "literal" translation, if it really is a translation. Because the translator is trying to get to the meaning of a manuscript in one language and put it in the closest parallel meaning of another language.

We all need to read the Bible, God's word for ourselves. The Spirit can help us in our own private reading if we do so prayerfully with the desire to know God more and God's will for us in Jesus. But we must not imagine that tradition either should not or does not impact us. It does. Nor should we think we're not interpreting as we read. Indeed we are. To think otherwise has resulted in people promoting errors from not reading Scripture well, and in context. And it has also resulted in unnecessary divisions among us Christians. That is not to say there aren't divisions that had a good reason for occuring at their start. But properly speaking such divisions must not cause us to be aloof from other true Christian churches and people. There is, after all only one body along with our one faith.

With our inevitable differences in interpreting matters that while important are not crucial for us being in the faith, let us seek to emphasize what is essential. In that we need unity in the faith. In nonessentials liberty. And in all things, love (from the words of Augustine).

What might you like to add to this a bit heavy theological post?

timely truth

Often we hear that God's truth is timeless, and that's true. Timeless as in going beyond just the time in which it is written. For example in any time and place, I would think that John 3:16 is pretty straightforward, and requires little or no new special nuancing, to be understood.

But truth needs to also be spoken of as timely. In other words, truth is communicated to us in our contexts in ways that not only resonate with us in helping us understand, but which also moves us towards God's goal of the kingdom in the new creation in Jesus. For example not only are masters told to do well to their slaves in Scripture, but also within Scripture we believe there are powerful seeds planted which in the end do away with all slavery.

Truth doesn't change, so in that sense it's timeless. We need the entire will of God given to us in Scripture, but it takes on different emphases and can be shared and lived out in fresh creative ways depending on the context where we live. Although all of Scripture is the word of God, there are times when certain things in it will jump out at us as needed as a word aptly/fittingly spoken for the occasion, time and place.

Timeless truth in Jesus remains. How it is lived out must ever be subject to new and fresh ways of both speaking of it and living it out. In other words we need to be timely and fitting in our ways of expressing and applying it. I think Scot McKnight is right, that we must not read Scripture through Tradition (whether Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic or Protestant Reformation) but with Tradition, always open to new ways God may be giving us both to see and express the truth given to us in Scripture and in Jesus.

I get a sense this is a bit fuzzy, so I'll keep working on it. Maybe it's just this early hour in which I'm up. But what would you like to add to this, or what questions might you have here?

Scripture- then tradition, reason and experience

Over at Jesus Creed, Scot McKnight has been going through John Stackhouse's book, Making the Best of It: Following Christ in the Real World. In this book Stackhouse talks about how Christians think through issues: Scripture, tradition, reason and experience. In the end, Christians sometimes come to different conclusions on how best to address a problem of society or who to vote for, etc. This is inevitable as we all vary with reference to all four entities. I need to add to this that the prerequisite to Stackhouse is the commitment to follow Jesus in discipleship.

Scripture involves interpretation, and though we have the Spirit to guide us, why is it that we Christians do have different interpretations and think differently on how to tackle the problems of this world? I think it involves in part the nature of our existence here. We know only in part and we see through a glass darkly. This makes us more dependent on God, and it should make us more humble about what we think with reference to everything, while not watering down at all our commitment to the Triune God and to the faith once for all entrusted to us, God's people in Jesus.

The realism Stackhouse seems to be advocating (I haven't read the book) is in light of the idealism we find in Scripture, but an idealism that does not deny the existence we live in here. So that God's will worked out in us in Jesus does involve experience, but an experience that is always being brought back to the touchstone of Scripture and then to our church tradition and various church traditions, as well as to the tradition of the Church at large. Then to our reason, and finally back to our experience.

We live out God's will mediated to us in Christ and from Scripture in a real world together as God's people with the gift of our reason. But oftentimes we're better off to acknowledge that we simply don't know what the best course is in a given situation. And in prayer along with fellowship with other Christians, we seek to make the best decision we can, and keep learning. All four of these are important, and probably in that order: Scripture certainly first always having priority- then tradition, reason and experience.

This is not a denial that Scripture is our basis for faith and practice. But how that is worked out, I believe, is through the church as best we understand it in real life. With an ever ready desire to change where need be and keep growing in our understanding of God's will, and in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

What do you think about factoring in, along with Scripture: tradition, reason and experience?