I have been traveling and sick for the best part of this month, so this is a later than I had planned follow-up to the last post of last year. I have been thinking about this quite a bit. The issue, the question I posed in the last post, has some far reaching implications; not only for each of us personally, but also for the health and unity of the Body.
The question was, what do you do with passages that seem to conflict with what you believe? The answer to that may begin at a different place than you might expect. It begins with another question or two. The first is, why do you believe what you believe? How did you come to the positions that you have?
One of the first courses one takes in seminary is called Prolegomena, it is a word that takes about a semester to learn to say and is not all that useful in polite conversation thereafter. The word is a derivative of a Latin word that in turn was borrowed from the Greek. It means prolog or introduction. In systematic theology it is an introduction to theological method and possibly a survey of the divisions of the system.
For me it was probably the course out of the 128 hours I took at the seminary that had the greatest impact. In learning the process of theological method one thing became crystal clear, I did not have very good reasons, or foundation, for the things that I not only believed but for which I had argued and fought. It was at the same time humbling and stunning.
Much of what I believed, up to that point, were things that I had been taught, things I had read, or things that I had picked up from either sermons or messages I had listened to on cassette tapes. Now, at the time I had been in and had been leading Bible studies for nearly 14 years and I had served on the staff of a Christian organization for nearly 10 of those years. Regardless, I realized that when it came to difficult or controversial passages, I tended to either force the Bible to fit into what I already “knew” or else I would find someone who had written on the subject that “agreed” with what I already “knew.”
While I had developed the skills that I needed to engage in the Bible in a way to deal with issues correctly, I skipped steps, or else did not really know how to use the tools I had in a way that would deal with the challenge without bias.
Looking back on discussion and controversies in which I have experienced or observed over the past 40 or so years, it seems that many times, actually more times than not, we in the Body seem to handle issues that challenge our understanding in the same way that I did.
So as we start down this path of looking at how to handle difficult, seemingly contradictory passages or concepts, perhaps we need to start with a personal inventory of sorts. Perhaps ask yourself:
One of the first courses one takes in seminary is called Prolegomena, it is a word that takes about a semester to learn to say and is not all that useful in polite conversation thereafter. The word is a derivative of a Latin word that in turn was borrowed from the Greek. It means prolog or introduction. In systematic theology it is an introduction to theological method and possibly a survey of the divisions of the system.
For me it was probably the course out of the 128 hours I took at the seminary that had the greatest impact. In learning the process of theological method one thing became crystal clear, I did not have very good reasons, or foundation, for the things that I not only believed but for which I had argued and fought. It was at the same time humbling and stunning.
Much of what I believed, up to that point, were things that I had been taught, things I had read, or things that I had picked up from either sermons or messages I had listened to on cassette tapes. Now, at the time I had been in and had been leading Bible studies for nearly 14 years and I had served on the staff of a Christian organization for nearly 10 of those years. Regardless, I realized that when it came to difficult or controversial passages, I tended to either force the Bible to fit into what I already “knew” or else I would find someone who had written on the subject that “agreed” with what I already “knew.”
While I had developed the skills that I needed to engage in the Bible in a way to deal with issues correctly, I skipped steps, or else did not really know how to use the tools I had in a way that would deal with the challenge without bias.
Looking back on discussion and controversies in which I have experienced or observed over the past 40 or so years, it seems that many times, actually more times than not, we in the Body seem to handle issues that challenge our understanding in the same way that I did.
So as we start down this path of looking at how to handle difficult, seemingly contradictory passages or concepts, perhaps we need to start with a personal inventory of sorts. Perhaps ask yourself:
- Why do I hold the position that is being challenged?
- Do I have a solid, comprehensive understanding of what the Bible says about the issue, or have I based what I think on the work or opinion of others?
- Do I know how to validate either what I believe, or what is being suggested that challenges my belief?
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