Wiley on the Bible
I have been thinking a lot about the Bible lately. I’m preparing for the upcoming NNU Wesley Center conference, “The Bible Tells Me So.” H. Orton Wiley has been helpful for my preparation.
I am an ordained elder in the Church of the Nazarene and professor at a key educational institution in the denomination. The denomination has about 2 million members; most reside outside the United States.
The conference I am leading will explore a Wesleyan view of the Bible. This is vitally important to our denomination, in particular, and the Wesleyan theological tradition, in general.
Being a young denomination — 100 years old — the Church of the Nazarene has a short history. Few authoritative theological voices exist from which to draw.
Perhaps the most important theologian in the Church of the Nazarene’s history is H. Orton Wiley. Wiley’s magnum opus is a three-volume work titled Christian Theology. It was commissioned by the denomination and first printed in the 1940s. I am finding Wiley’s work pertinent to the upcoming Bible Tells Me So conference.
REVELATION: JESUS, BIBLE, NATURE
Wiley often writes in his section on revelation that an important relationship exists between the Bible and Jesus Christ. He is eager to argue Jesus Christ is not identical or equal with the Bible. Jesus Christ – not the Holy Scriptures – is God’s supreme revelation.
In the opening segments of his discussion on revelation, Wiley employs the classic categories of general and special revelation. By “general revelation,” he means the revelation God gives in the natural world. Wiley says, for instance, “Nature is filled with the Divine Spirit and reveals God as the atmosphere is filled with sunlight and reveals the sun” (127).
By “special revelation,” Wiley means the redemptive purpose of God manifest in Jesus Christ and revealed most explicitly in the Bible. Wiley says Jesus Christ is “the personal word” and the Holy Scriptures are the “written word” of God. Interestingly, the Free Methodist denomination uses this kind of language in its article of faith on the Bible.
Given my interest in science and theology, I was intrigued by Wiley’s view on nature and the Bible. The revelation of God in the Bible was not meant to supersede the revelation God gives in nature, he says. “The Earth and the Bible are God’s two texts, each having its place, time, and function in progressive revelation.” Wiley even goes so far as to say, “Without the Bible, the universe would be a riddle; without Nature, the Bible would be meaningless” (140). I will be using Wiley in my future work on science and theology!
FALSE CONCEPTS
Some of the most interesting material comes when Wiley worries about he calls “false concepts” related to revelation. These concepts undermine the supremacy of the Living Word – Jesus Christ – as God’s primary revelation.
One false concept is the belief that the Church is more important than Jesus Christ. Here, Wiley shares the Protestant worry that the institutional Church might trump the revelation of God in Jesus.
The second false concept is the belief that the Bible is more important than Jesus Christ. Wiley says sometimes humans “unconsciously substitute the Written Word for Christ the Living Word” (142). Those who substitute the Bible for Jesus have their priorities wrong. The result is that “the views of God attained are merely those of a book, not those of the Living Christ which the book was intended to reveal” (142).
The third false concept is the belief that reason can become more authoritative than Jesus. While Wiley praises reason, he also says it can be used as a “legalistic defense of the Scriptures.” Such defense “depends on logic rather than life” (143).
BIBLICAL INSPIRATION
Wiley devotes an entire chapter to the issue of biblical inspiration. He defines inspiration as “the actuating energy of the Holy Spirit by which Holy men chosen of God have officially proclaimed His will as revealed to us in the Sacred Scriptures” (169). He doesn’t give much attention to the idea that God continues to inspire us as we read the Bible today.
A number of what Wiley calls “credentials” support the Christian claim that God inspired the writing of the Bible. Those credentials include miracles, the presence and fulfillment of prophecy, the uniqueness of Jesus Christ, and the testimony of the Holy Spirit. The Bible itself is evidence God progressively reveals more and more truth over time.
Wiley outlines three theories of biblical inspiration: 1) mechanical/dictation, 2) intuition/illumination, and 3) dynamical/mediating.
Wiley rejects the mechanical/dictation theory. It is narrow and insufficient. Scripture itself often talks about the role the writers play in writing the Bible. The authors were not robots whose hands God controlled unilaterally.
He also rejects the intuition/illumination theory. This theory is too rationalistic, and it implies that natural human insight was merely lifted to a higher plane. It doesn’t emphasize God’s activity enough.
Wiley likes the dynamical/mediating theory of inspiration. It “preserves the scriptural truth that God speaks to human agencies,” he says “but insists that the agent is not reduced to a mere passive instrument” (176).
Throughout these sections, Wiley mentions the role of “plenary” inspiration of the Bible. By this, he means “the whole and every part is divinely inspired.” Plenary inspiration does not require the mechanical theory of inspiration, says Wiley, “only that the results of that inspiration give us the Holy Scriptures as the final and authoritative rule of faith in the Church” (184).
The final segment of Wiley’s exploration of the Bible addresses what Christians call the biblical “canon.” Questions about the canon typically pertain to the decisions Christians made about which ancient writings to include in the Bible. The Bibles read by Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians have writings not included in Protestant Bibles. This is an area contemporary biblical scholars have explored in much greater depth than what Wiley offers here.
ERRORS
I was particularly interested in the way Wiley talks about biblical inconsistencies, ambiguities, and/or errors. As I read Wiley, I thought about Michael Lodahl’s little book describing Wiley’s writing of my denomination’s article of faith on the Bible.
Wiley never addresses the topic of biblical inerrancy in a direct or thorough way. But he occasionally makes statements pertaining to the subject.
For instance, Wiley says, “only as we are convinced that the writers were aided by a supernatural and divine influence, and this in such a manner as to be infallibly preserved from all error, can the sacred Scripture can become a divine rule of faith and practice” (173).
In this quote, Wiley surprisingly claims the writers themselves – not the text – are “infallibly preserved from all error.” This is a strong claim, given that he rejects mechanical/dictation theories of inspiration!
Perhaps more importantly, Wiley says infallibility is important insofar as the Bible becomes “a divine rule of faith and practice.” This sounds like the line he wrote for my denomination’s article on the Bible, because it emphasizes the importance of the Bible revealing what is necessary for salvation.
A few lines in these long chapters sound like Wiley affirms absolute textual inerrancy. He says, for instance, that “God so guides those chosen as the organs of revelation that their writings are kept free from error” (171). While statements about the inerrancy of the text are rare, and the casual reader might conclude that Wiley believed in absolute textual inerrancy.
In the final segment of his long discussion of revelation, however, Wiley addresses the “integrity of the Scriptures.” By this, he means, the Bible has been “kept intact and free from essential error, so that we may be assured of the truth originally given by the inspired authors” (212).
Notice that Wiley inserts the word “essential” in this sentence. The Bible is free from “essential” error. In the same discussion, he writes, “No proof has ever yet been furnished of essential alterations” (212). He even makes the bold claim that proof of essential alterations could never be found in the future!
Of course, there is an important difference between saying the Bible has no “essential” errors and saying the Bible has no errors at all. Its the difference between some and none.
At the end of his discussion, Wiley addresses the textual differences in the oldest biblical manuscripts. The Bibles we read today come from these ancient documents. Scholars in Wiley’s day had fewer ancient manuscripts than are available today. But he knew that many differences exist in the oldest Bibles.
Wiley says that our Bible has integrity despite inconsistencies in the ancient manuscripts. Part of his argument is that Jewish copyists working prior to the printing press would “reduce to a minimum any errors in transcribing” (213). Notice Wiley never says copyists would make no errors whatsoever. He even quotes a scholar named Dr. Kennicott as “having found many variations, and some grammatical errors; but not one of which affected, in the smallest degree, any article of faith and practice” (213-214).
Wiley does not address in his work any specific discrepancies or errors. He is more interested in general theories than rooting out specific texts. But he realizes Christians have no access to the original biblical autographs. And he knows discrepancies exist among the manuscripts that are available to translators. His main claim is the Bible expresses the essential Christian message without error.
CONCLUSION
As I finished reading Wiley’s thoughts, I wondered what he might say about the Bible today. His book was first printed seventy years ago. A great deal has changed in biblical scholarship. And much has changed in how we interpret the Bible.
My conclusion is that Wiley’s basic intuitions are still helpful. He doesn’t give the last word – or even the first word, for that matter – on how we ought to think about the Bible. And contemporary Christians must listen closely to the best biblical and theological scholars today.
But Wiley proves a valuable resource – especially for Wesleyans and especially for my own denomination. His writing remains helpful as we affirm the authority of the Bible in our postmodern world.
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Comments
Tom,
Haven’t commented in quite some time, but thought I would throw an applause your way for affirming Wiley as a man of his time who affirmed the authority of the Bible.
Very refreshing to see that we are still acknowledging our roots and making room for those who, like Wiley, continue to affirm an ‘almost dictation’ approach. :o)
Don
I am going to find it online and order it right now.
Wiley was required reading in Training College until the year before I arrived they replaced it with Dunning’s “Grace Faith and Holiness” I skimmed through Wiley but never gave it the attention it deserved.
Thanks for the blog it was helpful
Great discussion of Wiley and Scripture. Like you say, a lot has changed about our understanding of the formation of the Bible in the last 70 years. For example, whereas once the concept of “original biblical autographs” might have been useful as people wished to consider the earliest biblical texts without apparent but accidental copyist mistakes, such a concept is now not as helpful. With evidence of textual families and communities of Jews behind some lines of biblical traditions, the idea that there ever was a single set of “original biblical autographs” has faded.
If we can delegate a pristine errorless text to an early unreachable era of original biblical autographs, we can maintain a stance of inerrancy toward these imagined texts. But in the clear light of evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran we find that Israel’s textual traditions were preserved with obvious respect in a number of different versions. We speculate that earlier temple and court scribes regularly recorded and copied Israel’s identity creating and faith building traditions and preserved them as best they could through thick and then, but altering and adapting them when necessary. They were fluid (to varying degrees depending on the text) until there were attempts to fix them in the late first century CE. With great respect, the texts we know as Scripture were copied, but if an explanation or a correction was needed, it was made. This scribal practice was probably the case from the earliest times. On a larger scale, if a scroll of Samuel or Kings was the inerrant original autograph, then how could Chronicles have been written so differently? Both are regarded as equally as Scripture even though Kings is obviously earlier.
Granted, we don’t have biblical texts from before the 3rd c BCE, but I am claiming that we should not keep imagining original autographs because of what we don’t have. We should use what we do know from Qumran to imagine a more complicated production and transmission process among Jews.
Hi Tom,
I share your admiration of H. Orton Wiley’s Christian Theology. However, I must confess that I am responsible for it being not being any longer used as a text at Asbury Seminary when I first came to teach there in 1976. There are brilliant insights and illuminating discussions in it, but it is still too tied to a “modernist” and “fundamentalist” worldview, and his use and concept of inerrancy (“the inerrant record”) reflects this. I find it interesting that some of the more “progressive” Nazarenes as yourself treat Wiley gingerly and sentimentally and don’t see him embroiled in fundamentalism and are eager to protect him from this perception. I think one can appreciate his scholarship without skirting over his fundamentalist leanings. I would agree that Wesleyan theology is inherently inconsistent with fundamentalism, and that is one of the reasons why I removed his Christian Theology as a textbook in 1976 (incidentally, with the blessing of Harold Kuhn).
Honestly, I need to re-read what you wrote, because of the depth of it. But I have to admit, that I disagree with Wiley in many areas years ago. I felt that many of his statements was not consent enough throughout his writing. I also had a very hard time (ready to get myself in trouble here) accepting the fact that we a denomination based so much on one person personal belief and made it required study for students and almost made it to level of the Bible. Sorry Wiley is not on my favorite list of individuals that I felt had the best insight for what the Scripture was or was not.
Enjoyed your thoughtful piece on Wiley. I am, of course very interested in the topic of your conference and have written a few essays on the issue myself, especially one in Rob Johnston”s anthology of various “evangelical” views on Scripture, where I wrote on the Wesleyan tradition. Wish I could attend your conference, but in retirement, with no institutional support, I can only afford a few conferences per year.
Wiley played a small role in the “Battle for the Bible” controversy. Lindsell had claimed (falsely, based on Warfield and the Princeton theologians) that the church had always held to inerrancy until the modern period when it was abandoned by some on critical grounds. Jack Rogers and Don McKim countered this claim in their book on biblical authority, which was in turn answered by John Woodbridge of Trinity who adduced Wiley to Lindsell’s claim, based on his use of “infallibility” which Woodbridge took to mean “inerrancy.” I had the occasion to engage in public debate with Woodbridge in Chicago, and much of our time was spent on the interpretation of Wiley. I argued that it was intellectually dishonest to use Wiley to support the inerrancy position when the larger context of his discussion refuted the major assumptions of inerrancy.
We also debated whether the broader Wesleyan tradition should be understood in the inerrancy tradition (as my father argued in his articles on the question). Bob Lyon at Asbury used to argue a major distinction between inerrancy and infallibility and place the Wesleyans in the latter category. When (about 1970) the WTS dropped dropped the word inerrancy, it substituted “infallibility,” but defined that as “without error” in a theologically gauche reference in parentheses to the Random House Dictotionary as “R.H.D” in the article of religion. That remained for a decade or so until I moved that we eliminate the parenthesis—the motion passed, as I remember it, with only two dissenting voices.
I’ve never been sure what to make of this debate, whether it is semantic or substantive. On the substantive level it is like the distinction of Hans Kung (in INFALLIBLE?) between “Infallibility” (roughly equivalent to “inerrancy”) and “Indefectability” (roughly equivalent to “infallibility” in Bob Lyon’s sense of “trustworthy” or “will not lead us astray.” I think this is helpful, but I prefer the work of Paul Bassett who used the Anglican tradition to unfold the Wesleyan view as one of “authority” and “adequacy.” It is worth noting that the article on Scripture in the Anglican 39 (incorporated into the Wesleyan 25) has no theory of “inspiration”; it merely points to the Scripture as “containing all things necessary to salvation.”
The development of “inspiration” as an explanation for the authority of Scripture is largely a post reformation development that finds its home in “Protestant Orthodoxy” (both Lutheran and Reformed) where the Bible tended to become the “paper pope” (inerrant because inspired) against the Pope (infallible because inspired). The definitive Princeton article on inerrancy was published about the time Vatican I proclaimed the infallibility of the Pope.
Tom,
You have written an excellent article – well organized and helpful – on Dr. Wiley.s theology.
I had the honor of hearing him speak on some of these subjects in Beulah Park on the Santa Cruz campgrounds.
He was a good man as you are too.
Thanks Tom for a fine overview of Wiley and the Bible. I too must admit that a more careful reading of Wiley is in my future. I believe he walked some very fine lines between saying too much or too little about Holy Scripture and did a even better job at keeping our focus on Jesus Christ.
At the time I was a student, I was itching to read Tillich and I did. I was hungry for philosophical theology or at least something not so propositional. And now, strangely, I too must find a copy of Wiley and read it closer.
I have this funny feeling that Dr. Sanner is smiling!
Looking forward to the conference Tom! Blessing on you! You make me think friend!
It seems to me if Jesus is more important than the Bible that we are making experieince more important than the Bible and that is subjective. Jesus said in John 13 he came from the Father. The Father told him what to say. We only know about Jesus because of the Bible. Even our relationship to the living Christ is based on what we know from the Bible. How can we make the Bible less important than what it tells us?
I am pretty sure I remember at NTC Dr McGonigle saying that Wiley had been very dependent on WB Pope’s systematic theology. I wonder if that is partly why he doesn’t directly comment on the topic of inerrancy?
“A great deal has changed in biblical scholarship. And much has changed in how we interpret the Bible.”
> HOW do we interpret the Bible differently today?
“And contemporary Christians must listen closely to the best biblical and theological scholars today.”
> Must? That’s quite a statement. And, who are the best biblical and theological scholars?
Thanks Tom. Great article on Wiley’s view of Scripture! Still very helpful to Pastors as we introduce / lead people through the Nazarene “articles of faith.” But, also helpful as we engage our culture and try to articulate a Wesleyan view of Scripture. Probably can’t make the conference at NNU, but thanks for making resources like this available via internet. I appreciate the good work!
Dr. Oord,
I am sure that most of us have always come back to the topic of “errors in the Bible.” Sadly, while this is a crucial topic, far too often Christians make this an all-or-nothing concept. As you noted, even Wiley himself was more than careful with the words he used when talking about innerancy. I don’t think he would ever admit that the Bible is 100% without error (contextual).
While I believe the Bible is 100% inspired, I also realize that it is 100% human. What I mean by that is humans wrote it, copied it, made decisions on which books to keep/reject etc. Why should our faith falter realizing that God uses our human shortcomings and works within our human understanding to reveal His purposes? Our faith shouldn’t rest on whether one period or word is out of place inside the scriptures, it should rest ONLY in God Himself.
Personally I have found the Bible to speak more truthfully into life than any other text. Its authority trumps any other book I have ever read. But, in no way would I ever elevate these words above God in any way. That is what is problematic and stems from fundamentalist roots that still affect the church today.
Dear Tom:
I agree with Blair B. The Bible is our inspired guide into the life of Christ, as well as the history of the God’s universe. Wesley viewed it as historical and inspired, as did Wiley, as have many other great scholars. Without the Bible as historically true and divinely inspired (the two must go together) we have no other source to go to for faith and practice.
I like what Wiley says about the Bible in relation to the world. “Without the Bible, the universe would be a riddle; without Nature, the Bible would be meaningless.” This statement gives a good perspective on how we should view the Bible. The Bible isn’t meant to be prescriptive of how the world works, but it does give us some insight. Likewise, we can’t have just the Bible and not relate it to the world. Wiley’s views are useful in helping us understand the Bible and how it relates to us.
Tx Tom…The stuff abt Wiley. I was one of his students in 1946 at Pasadena College. I was a new Christian. Maybe you can find additional reasons for the validity of your symposium via his writings. Another thot you can toss out is: If in your intro, you take us all the way back to when “Hyper Calvinism” had the Christian world in its grip. It seems the C., World was staid.and unproductive. Then Wesley came on the scene and blew fresh life upon the Christian world. Well, better close, God bless and Staight ahead ronrodes
I would like to get to the root of the discussion. Why must we deal with inerrancy? First, the Bible is called “the Word of God.” God is without error therefore the Bible, God’s Word, must be inerrant. So goes the argument. This is a totally flawed line of reasoning. It is circular reasoning. Who says the Bible is the “Word of God.” The Bible (and people).
George Eldon Ladd states in his book “Biblical Criticism” that the Bible is the word of God, in the words of men, in history. Look at all the filters. Because Humans are the conveyers of inspiration they will be subject to their times, the social-political environment, the understanding of God and the limits of their words and finally their means of communication, oral or written. Just the understanding of the cosmos is enough to render statements in the Bible in error. (Does the sun go around the earth or vise versa?)
As long as humans, who are part of a historical-social-political milieu, wrote the scriptures, we must expect inconsistancies, not just errors in grammar and transmission alone, but in substance.
The strength of our churches doctrine of Scriptures is that the inerrancy is limited to “all things pertaining to salvation.” We can rely of the Bible, as a whole, to point to and reveal God. This does not eliminate individual errors of history, science,grammar or translation.
It seems like Wiley was aware of this but may have been trapped in his own historic-social-political milieu.
Dr. Oord and friends,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Wiley’s perspective concerning the Bible. It seems that Wiley makes a significant point with theological and practical implications when he writes, “Jesus Christ is not identical or equal with the Bible. Jesus Christ – not the Holy Scriptures – is God’s supreme revelation.” Jesus Christ did come to earth to reveal our Heavenly Father to us.
This is why we are growing more suspect of any thoughts and ideas about God that Jesus Christ does not demonstrate in Scripture.
Tom, I was intrigued by your interpretation of Wiley’s statement: For instance, Wiley says, “only as we are convinced that the writers were aided by a supernatural and divine influence, and this in such a manner as to be infallibly preserved from all error, can the sacred Scripture can become a divine rule of faith and practice” (173).
In this quote, Wiley surprisingly claims the writers themselves – not the text – are “infallibly preserved from all error.” This is a strong claim, given that he rejects mechanical/dictation theories of inspiration!
I take his quote to mean that the writers were so inspired that their writings were perserved from error. Your interpretation and mine seem to spring from our contrasting belief or lack of belief in the reliability of the Bible.
I am looking forward to the conference.
Tom,
Thanks for a great post that considers the formation and integrity of the Scriptures. I have not read Wiley’s work on the subject but am certainly interested after reading your post.
I too believe that Scriptures are free from any ‘essential error’, while not going so far as to assert a complete ‘inerrancy’.
I believe that one fascinating component of reading and interpreting the Scripture is how we so often classify interpretation as exegesis or eisegis. According to many strict historical-critical methods numerous New Testament figures ‘eisegeted’ the texts that they quoted. I believe that the Word is living and active and that sometimes God re-interprets and reapplies the content in light of present circumstances.
I would further assert that the revelation of God is not restricted to Scripture (though always rooted there). What I mean by this is that I believe that a “word from the Lord” that does not take the exact form of a quote from Scripture is not necessarily any less God’s Divine revelation. It may not be a Divine revelation to all humanity, but that does not undermine the authority that it carries for the one to whom it was spoken.
Thanks for the challenging thoughts.
Mike J
I consider myself very fortunate to have studied Dr Wiley’s theology while attending TNC. His fundamental (inerrant)approach to Scripture helped me as a young Christian to become grounded in God’s Word as His eternal inerrant infalliable truth. Because of this I am greatful for men like Dr. Wiley who unlike many scholars today knew what he believed and why he believed it unlike many present day progressive modernist who wish to reshape, re-examine, and re-define the truth of Scripture.
I agree with Wiley’s assertion that creaturely response is vital in order for God to act or for salvation to occur. I found it interesting that he viewed the Bible as completely inerrant because it is divinely inspired. I believe that the content may be perfect since it is what God willed Scripture to say, but since it was written by His disciples, the context of it may be grammatically incorrect or may even contradict itself at times. The issue of the different versions of the Bible is an entirely different issue! The presence or absence of verses between the versions have made people wonder what’s truth and what’s not since all versions of Scripture are not consistent with each other.
How can the Bible be perfect if there are inconsistencies within various versions of the Bible? That statement seems completely contradictory to me.
In your concluding thoughts you say “a great deal has changed in biblical scholarship. And much has changed in how we interpret the bible…contemporary Christians must listen closely to the best biblical and theological scholars today.” When you say “we” I do not think you are speaking for the vast majority of contemporary Christians. There is a ground swell of commitment to classic interpretation, scholarship and humble orthodoxy. I hope that when you mention we need to listen to our best and brightest today, you are including theologians from all sides, not just ones who share your views on what the bible is and isn’t. Let us not forget that the previous generations have much to say to us today that is every bit as worthwhile and valid as what we can talk about. Let’s not be so enamored with the new that we forget our history, not Wesleyan but Christian.
“Jesus Christ is not identical or equal with the Bible. Jesus Christ – not the Holy Scriptures – is God’s supreme revelation.”
That is an interesting quote. I grew up in a fundamental household.I remember hearing my dad’s argument to everything questioned biblically or theologically as, “The bible says that’s the way it is so that’s what I believe.” I think it is easy due to the way the vast majority of christians have been taught in, Sunday school, VBS, Church camp and sunday services that the bible is absolute and there is no more. All that has been revealed is all there is. The stories we know are all God needs to tell us God is the bible and the bible is God. What a breakdown in fundamentals, at least in regards to this thought. As a book, the bible is not that vast and really it is pretty easy to understand and decipher. Jesus Christ however, as the revelation to understanding and infinite God and salvation that flows from God’s love is another matter. When I read the bible not as complete but a work in progress as Christ is revealed by it, the bible takes on new dimensions and Jesus becomes more real and authoritative for what I believe. I think perhaps Christians have just gotten lazy and decided the bible as is with no more revelation of God through Christ is fine. (God wrote it, I believe it and that’s that).
Tom,
I can appreciate the way that you bring out that Jesus and the Bible do not stand on equal footing but Jesus alone is the full revelation of God. There is no doubt that scripture is extremely helpful in understanding the nature of God but should not be held in the same position as Christ. In your blog I found it interesting Wiley’s thoughts about the correlation between nature and the scripture. I think there is a lot of value in our understanding that scripture really helps clarify to us the universe that we live in and also the universe helps us unfold some of the mysteries of the scripture.
I found this article very helpful and intriguing. Wiley is a very profound man who’s wisdom has trascended even 70 years! I liked when you addressed the three false concepts. I think that today, and even in college classes, the focus can become on reason or the Bible rather than on Jesus Christ. It is refreshing and a heart-warming reminder to always have the focus be with Jesus and on His personal revelations. Thanks.
Tom,
Appreciated your comments here. Unfortunately, I think that the concept of biblical innerrency has made its way deep into the church, even though it is not embraced in our actual statement of belief. Once again a reminder that we must do our best to present what we believe in an intentional way. Failure to teach what we actually believe leaves room for a melting pot theology that isn’t good for anyone.
Thanks again for your thoughts!
Tom,
Great article and reflection on the Bible and the role it plays in the catholic church and in our tribe (Nazarene). I agree with Wiley that we must remember that the Bible does not equal to or trump Jesus as the revelation of God. To many times we in the church have come to have “Bible-ology.” We have chosen to worship a book over the revelation of God’s love in Jesus. I am constantly pulled back to the words of Jesus in John 5:39 where Jesus reminds us of the supreme revelation.
I also agree that I as a pastor must help people in, and outside, the church to understand exactly what we believe. The key is not about what the words are but the fact that they are inerrant so far as they lead us to a life inside of Christ. This leads back to the earlier topic. We must continue to grow in Christ and this means allowing the Scriptures to change our lives as well as the church and all the revelations of Jesus in today’s world. We must continue in our journey to grow and become more like Christ. In so doing, we will see our lives become more like Him as well as others will grow in that direction as well.
Jason
Wiley said that everyone receives preventing grace from Christ’s atonement (Vol 2) regardless of their faith (Romans 5) and this enables men to believe in God. How then did the Old Testament saints believe in God? Why does Paul say that we (believers) are justified by faith at the beginning of the chapter? Paul says that we are saved from wrath, reconciled, made righteous and that we will reign. He never once mentions the grace to believe, or granting repentance but only the benefits to the believer.
Great questions! I suspect Wiley thought God was timeless and the atonement is retroactive (from our view) to those prior to Jesus. I would disagree, because I don’t think God is timeless. But I’d say the atonement is an illustration of the prevenient grace God has ALWAYS been expressing to creatures, even to creatures prior to the emergence of humans.