True and False Humility When Handling the Scriptures

"Hermeneutics is a big word. You may be unfamiliar with it, but it’s a necessary part of all Bible study.  Hermeneutics is the science of interpreting what an author has written. For Christians, it means following the appropriate rules for interpreting Scripture. And although the word “hermeneutics” doesn’t appear in the Bible, its practice is clearly described: “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).

In that verse, the apostle Paul provides the what and why of hermeneutics—accurate handling of God’s sacred Word. Right interpretation of what God has spoken to us means that we can rightly apply it to our lives, and rightly proclaim it to others. “God is not the author of confusion” (1 Corinthians 14:33, KJV) and He doesn’t present us with a smorgasbord of doctrinal options. If God wrote it, then all that matters is what Hemeans by what He says, not what I think or want it to mean.

But today, in a culture dominated by subjectivity, an objective, authoritative truth has no place. That’s true even in the church, where, in the early days of the twenty-first century, postmodern theologians gained a significant voice. They called themselves the Emerging church, and argued, in effect, that certainty is overrated. Instead, they invented their own approach to hermeneutics.

Tony Jones, an early leader in the Emerging church, called it the “hermeneutic of humility.” The idea was to interpret God’s Word but stop short of coming to any definitive conclusions that would exclude alternative interpretations. It identified as “humble” what other eras of church history knew as confusion or unbelief.

10 Concerns Francis Schaeffer Took to the Grave (pt. 2)

"Penned just before his death in 1984, Francis’ Schaeffer’s forgotten tome ‘The Great Evangelical Disaster’ drew attention to various concerns that lay heavily upon the Protestant thinker’s mind before he passed into glory. Today, rereading this book some three decades later seems to almost verge on the prophetic (small case "p"). The Switzerland-based American teacher was able to pinpoint several major themes that have come to plague the evangelical scene in our days. In this article, we are going to highlight ten major fears that Schaeffer took to the grave which should be of concern to all of us who identify ourselves with the Gospel-centred, Reformation-rooted Protestant faith.

Yesterday we considered the first five fears namely:
1.- Growing Relativism

2.- Lack of Discipline 

3.- Compromise of the Truth

4.- Social Work (Misplaced Priorities)

5.- The Temptation of Ecumenism 

Today we will consider the remaining five concerns that Mr. Schaeffer wrote about shortly before his death.  As you think about the past 35 years, how many of these concerns were valid?  What can we do to address these ten concerns as individual believers and as local churches?  

6. Abortion 

Far from assenting to rife abortion-justifying euphemisms such as the ‘quality of life’ or ‘the happiness and well-being of the mother’ or ‘the need for every child to be wanted’, Schaeffer believed that mass abortion was simply the outworking of a revived hedonistic attitude which put a person’s happiness above a sacred respect for human life.  He was unable to understand how anyone confessing the name of Christ could remain within a pro-abortion denomination. In the final analysis, abortion was an all-out attack on the precious image of God which is made known through humankind. “The unborn child is a human being created in the image of God, and to deny this is to deny the authority of the Bible. It is impossible to read Psalm 139 and truly believe what it says without realizing that life in the womb is human life. It is impossible to truly believe in the Incarnation and not realize that the child conceived in Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit was indeed the Son of God from the time of conception”.

7.- Liberalism 

The fruit of theological liberalism had left many formerly-sound churches completely destitute of any spiritual power. Modernism, influenced by German Higher Criticism, had all but baptized the cardinal doctrines of the Enlightenment in the name of Christ. What did such an approach entail? Schaeffer answers: “The denial of the supernatural; belief in the all-sufficiency of human reason; the rejection of the Fall; denial of the deity of Christ and his resurrection; belief in the perfectibility of man; and the destruction of the Bible”.  Liberal preachers like the acclaimed Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969) had no authoritative Bible left to preach from. Secular humanism took centre stage therefore any doctrine that did not put the spotlight upon man was ultimately done away with. Rather than the church influencing the world; the world took the reins of the church into her Gospel-denying grasp. Today this is seen in the emergent church and in the seeker sensitive/church growth movements.

10 Concerns Francis Schaeffer Took to the Grave

Penned just before his death in 1984, Francis’ Schaeffer’s forgotten tome ‘The Great Evangelical Disaster’ drew attention to various concerns that lay heavily upon the Protestant thinker’s mind before he passed into glory. Today, rereading this book some three decades later seems to almost verge on the prophetic (small case "p"). The Switzerland-based American teacher was able to pinpoint several major themes that have come to plague the evangelical scene in our days. In this article, we are going to highlight ten major fears that Schaeffer took to the grave which should be of concern to all of us who identify ourselves with the Gospel-centered, Reformation-rooted Protestant faith.

1.- Growing Relativism 

Relativism came about due to the Enlightenment’s focus upon the autonomy of man. No longer was God to set the rules and call the shots; but rather humankind was to determine what was good and evil, true and false (as in the wicked day of the Judges in ancient Israel). Ethics and epistemology became absorbed by an inordinate passion for egoism and self-interest. Once the infallible, inerrant Word of God was openly decried; there was nothing left to take its place but human fancies. Schaeffer realized that a church built upon the sandy-foundation of relativism could not withstand the onslaught of fallen reason. Only the non-negotiable absolutes of Scripture could enable the church to keep waging a good warfare. It was those “absolutes which enabled the early church to withstand the pressure of the Roman Empire” A relativistic church would have nothing left to say to a sinful culture. 

2.- Lack of Discipline (Polemics)

Given the resurgence of pagan relativism throughout post-modern society, many churches had fallen into the trap of downplaying Christian doctrine (absolutes) by refusing to take action against false teachers. Schaeffer identified a lack of church discipline (2-3 John, Jude) as the real breeding ground for heretics. It was this deficiency which explained the victory of the liberal party within early twentieth-century American Presbyterianism. The Great Evangelical Disaster, by Schaeffer. As Schaeffer makes clear, “Discipline had not been consistently applied by the faithful men of the church”.  Without ecclesiastical and denominational discipline for doctrinal reasons, the church would be left vulnerable before the avalanche of false teaching. Hence Schaeffer’s proposal: “The practice of the purity of the visible church first means discipline of those who do not take a proper position in regard to the teaching of Scripture”.  And again: “Where there is a departure from the historic view of Scripture and from obedience to God’s Word, then those who take this weakened view need to be brought under discipline”. Only a high view of Scripture could justify the reestablishment of biblical discipline. If unorthodox ministers/teachers/bible study leaders were not dealt with, how could their churches stay true to sound doctrine? (Note this theme in 1-2 Timothy, Titus)

 3.- Compromise of the Truth

Drawing the Line: Why Doctrine Matters

Drawing the Line: Why Doctrine Matters
by R. Scott Clark

"Imagine Mike. He’s an unusual mechanic. Where other mechanics find natural laws (such as gravity) unavoidable and even useful, he suspects them to be arbitrary, invoked in order to stifle his creativity. We can imagine how the story ends. Cars brought for repair are returned in worse shape than before. Mike goes out of business. Whatever Mike might think, the laws of physics are built into the nature of creation.

So it is with doctrine in the Christian faith and life. Throughout Christian history, folks have proposed to do without Christian doctrine, the good and necessary inferences drawn from the implicit or explicit teaching of Scripture. Like Mike, some Christians have suspected that doctrine is just an invention, a way to control people. Such a position is just as false as Mike the mechanic’s. Doctrine is inescapable because it is revealed in Scripture and necessary to Christian faith and life.

Doctrine is Biblical

Our English word doctrine is derived from a Latin word, doctrina, which means, “that which is taught.” In Christian usage, it refers to Christian teaching about Scripture, God, man, Christ, salvation, church, and the end of all things. It is fitting that the English word doctrine was first used in the 1382 Wycliffe Bible translation (from Latin to English), because in the old Latin Bible, the word doctrine occurs more than one hundred times. The King James Version (1611) used the word about half as often, and contemporary translations use it more sparingly. Nevertheless, the idea is present throughout Scripture.

One of the root ideas in the word doctrine is instruction. Moses received instruction from the Lord on the mountain (Ex. 24:12), which occurred after the Israelites had sworn a blood oath (v. 7) to do all that the Lord had spoken. That instruction included truths about who God is, what He had done for His people, and what He expected of them. That pattern is repeated throughout the Old Testament.

In the New Testament, Titus, a young pastor on the island of Crete, was exhorted to “hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught” so as to be able to “give instruction in sound doctrine” (Titus 1:9). There are several such passages in the New Testament, some of which we will survey below. Clearly, the teaching and preservation of divinely revealed doctrine is basic to the office of the minister and to the function of Christ’s church.

Doctrine is Evangelical

The universal church and her greatest teachers have always taught and confessed certain basic doctrines. The early church focused on the Bible’s doctrine of God and Christ. After considerable Bible study and debate, the church concluded that God’s Word teaches that God is one in essence and three in person, and that Jesus, God the Son incarnate, is one person with two natures (divine and human).

If You Only Believe What You Like in the Bible....