So often I have found myself as a Christian wondering which Bible version is the best or laughing at the latest trendy Bible I've been sent to get out to today's hip students...and yet the Scriptures remain that which I have built my whole life upon...my job, my family, my lifestyle, my future, my soul, my eternity...I think I do take it for granted sometimes when I look up and see sixteen different copies on my shelf...but it the only book I have that many copies of...and perhaps that ultimately shows its remarkable worth for my life and our world...now if I could only get my students in class to have one with them when we want to study it...
What makes our Bible precious in a land that publishes so many?
How many Bibles have I owned since childhood? Oodles! The first of them (white imitation-leather) was probably a gift from my parents or a Sunday school teacher and came as a payoff for memorizing Scripture verses.
In the years that followed, my Bible collection grew to include black, red, and navy blue leather- and calf-skin-bound Bibles. My prized possession? A most-memorable wartime military-brown Bible produced for soldiers.
My inventory grew to include pocket Testaments, red-letter Bibles (the sayings of Jesus in red ink), Scofield Reference Bibles, Thompson Chain-reference Bibles, KJV's RSV's, TEV's, NIV's, ASV's, paraphrases (Phillips, Living, and Amplified). Oh, and I must not forget the plethora of study Bibles, which offer notes for youth, athletes, business people, women, contemplatives, and truck drivers, to name a few. Given my recreational inclinations, I have been waiting for a kayaker's Bible.
In my early teen years I was given a special flaming-red evangelism Bible designed to be carried to public school and positioned on top of one's textbooks so that other kids would notice and ask how to get saved. But I was never asked.
I met guys who, for five dollars, would draw a "reference ladder" on the edges of your Bible's pages so that you could immediately thumb your way to obscure Bible books. Ladders would have been illegal, of course, if one were competing in a Bible search contest—sometimes known as "a sword drill" (I was once a record-setter in such competition). Today, ethics and scandals being what they are, all Bibles in a sword drill would have to be inspected for ladders just as baseball bats are inspected for cork implants.
Today there are software products available that offer Scripture in more translations than one ever knew existed. Every word, every phrase of Scripture can now be searched, compared, and matched in milliseconds. It's scary to think of what Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, or John Calvin could have accomplished with such computer tools. It often makes me wonder if Saint Paul had any idea that his words would one day be sliced and diced, cross-checked and stretched, debated and defined as they have.
Bottom line: like many other North Americans, I have abounded in Bibles all my life, enough to start a small book store.
That fact was greatly impressed upon me 25 years ago when I visited China soon after it opened its doors to American travelers. My travel partner and I met a Christian woman who had not seen a copy of the Scriptures for two decades. When she spoke to us of the Scriptures, her recollection of certain stories was faulty or distorted. What could you expect from someone who hadn't seen a Bible for that many years?
Since all Bibles in the possession of travelers entering China at that time had to be registered at the border, and since we did not sense a calling to be Bible smugglers, my traveling companion and I could not pass on the Bibles that each of us had with us. But, on the other hand, it occurred to us that we could tear out certain pages from our Bibles and offer them to her. At least we were brave enough to feel certain that Chinese officials would not check our Bibles closely enough to see if every page was there. (By the way, if you could only give someone 15 pages of your Bible, what sections would you choose? You have minutes to decide.)
I must confess that several times over the years I have dreamed of a middle-of-the-night knock on the door of my home and of a Chinese border policeman demanding to inspect my Bible. Of course, if that happened, I could respond with a straight-faced, "Which one in my collection would you like?" With my stash, I could keep him looking for missing pages for some time.
That experience in China nevertheless impressed upon me what it might be like to live in another world where the Scriptures are rare and therefore precious.
I can never remember a time in my life when the Bible has not been a dominant presence in the way I think and live. Sometimes I like to refer to myself as a biblical person rather than a Christian. The latter term, Christian, is becoming so innocuous, even pejorative in today's world. It can mean many things that are actually counter-productive. But identifying myself as a biblical person seems to align my identity with the source documents of my faith. My faith, my life, I am saying, is grounded upon the God of the Bible.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
A Multifaceted Gospel by Al Hsu in CHRISTIANITY TODAY
Here's an interesting article promoting the multi-faceted dimension of the Gospel where the author suggests that we shouldn't necessarily be threatened by new tellings of the Good News...a very interesting issue as we continue to consider how and what we must communicate to a world deeply in need of knowing Jesus...
At the 2006 Ancient Evangelical Future conference, historian Martin Marty commented briefly on the Atonement theories proposed by the early church. Did the church fathers hold to penal substitution, Christus Victor, or Anselm's view of the Atonement? Yes. All of the above.
Panelists pressed Marty to declare one view or another the "right" one. Whatever one thinks, he responded, the reality is that the church held to multiple versions.
The same is true today, in evangelical thinking about the nature of the gospel. Because we are a biblical people, we want to preserve the gospel in as pure a form as possible, which is why many people and institutions (like this magazine) prioritize substitutionary Atonement. But because we are an evangelistic, missional people, we want to contextualize the gospel to reach as many as possible.
The danger of the conservationist impulse is that it can lead to static reductionism. The danger of the entrepreneurial impulse is that it can lead to utilitarianism or relativism. At our best, we hold these impulses in tension, creating gospel approaches that are both timeless and timely. The result is multiple ways of explaining the gospel—and that makes some of us nervous.
Communication theory teaches that messages are conditioned by the social location of both sender and receiver. You can tell two people the same sentence, and they might hear entirely different things. Likewise, people naturally tell the gospel in their own particular way. Some focus on a change of heart, mind, or direction; others major on judgment or conviction of sin. Some speak about the promise of new life, now and eternally; others stress individual transformation or societal and cosmic renewal.
We need all of the above. Jesus did not speak the same blanket message to all people. Instead, he used a variety of metaphors to explain his identity: light, door, bread, way, truth, life. Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman received very different messages. Jesus proclaimed the Good News sometimes in parables, sometimes through denunciation, sometimes by action.
Indeed, some might criticize Jesus for not presenting the gospel comprehensively on every occasion. Sometimes he mentioned "eternal life" or "the kingdom of God." Other times he didn't. Sometimes he called for repentance, but not always. Jesus, and the New Testament writers who followed him, modeled cultural creativity and contextualization by telling the Good News in multiple ways: "Come, follow me." "The kingdom of God is at hand." "Jesus is Lord." "Repent and be baptized." "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved." "For God so loved the world."
We need not pit these passages against one another. Plurality does not equal pluralism. The ancient creeds, echoing 1 Corinthians 15, say that for our sake Jesus was crucified, buried, and on the third day rose again. God's people have been reflecting on these declarations ever since. We will never exhaust their implications, whether expressed as "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life," or "I once was lost, but now am found."
Every gospel summary has pros and cons. None is comprehensive; indeed, some may well be deficient. But different approaches can provide necessary correctives. Thus, we need what Joel Green calls a "kaleidoscopic" understanding of the Atonement, or what Scot McKnight calls "stories of the Story."
Evangelicals needn't be afraid of new approaches to the gospel—the church has been coming up with them for centuries. We managed to get through 1,900 years of Christian history without the Four Spiritual Laws and the bridge diagram. The formula of "accepting Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior" is also fairly recent. And what worked in the post–World War II context might not be appropriate in the early 21st century. Many people today have different questions, assumptions, and concerns.
Hence, we need variety and creativity in our gospel witness. A chorus of voices from N. T. Wright and Dallas Willard to Allen Wakabayashi and Brian McLaren calls us to rediscover the kingdom of God. Scot McKnight tells a story about the restoration of cracked eikons (image-bearers). Kevin Vanhoozer places the gospel in the context of an unfolding drama. James Choung's True Story offers a "four worlds" diagram in which we are designed for good, damaged by evil, restored for better, and sent together to heal.
Let us continue to explore and share the gospel in ways old and new. Whether we talk about justification by faith or defeating the powers, sight for the blind or reversal of entropy, freedom for the oppressed or healing of the nations, it's all good. The gospel is all of the above, and so much more.
At the 2006 Ancient Evangelical Future conference, historian Martin Marty commented briefly on the Atonement theories proposed by the early church. Did the church fathers hold to penal substitution, Christus Victor, or Anselm's view of the Atonement? Yes. All of the above.
Panelists pressed Marty to declare one view or another the "right" one. Whatever one thinks, he responded, the reality is that the church held to multiple versions.
The same is true today, in evangelical thinking about the nature of the gospel. Because we are a biblical people, we want to preserve the gospel in as pure a form as possible, which is why many people and institutions (like this magazine) prioritize substitutionary Atonement. But because we are an evangelistic, missional people, we want to contextualize the gospel to reach as many as possible.
The danger of the conservationist impulse is that it can lead to static reductionism. The danger of the entrepreneurial impulse is that it can lead to utilitarianism or relativism. At our best, we hold these impulses in tension, creating gospel approaches that are both timeless and timely. The result is multiple ways of explaining the gospel—and that makes some of us nervous.
Communication theory teaches that messages are conditioned by the social location of both sender and receiver. You can tell two people the same sentence, and they might hear entirely different things. Likewise, people naturally tell the gospel in their own particular way. Some focus on a change of heart, mind, or direction; others major on judgment or conviction of sin. Some speak about the promise of new life, now and eternally; others stress individual transformation or societal and cosmic renewal.
We need all of the above. Jesus did not speak the same blanket message to all people. Instead, he used a variety of metaphors to explain his identity: light, door, bread, way, truth, life. Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman received very different messages. Jesus proclaimed the Good News sometimes in parables, sometimes through denunciation, sometimes by action.
Indeed, some might criticize Jesus for not presenting the gospel comprehensively on every occasion. Sometimes he mentioned "eternal life" or "the kingdom of God." Other times he didn't. Sometimes he called for repentance, but not always. Jesus, and the New Testament writers who followed him, modeled cultural creativity and contextualization by telling the Good News in multiple ways: "Come, follow me." "The kingdom of God is at hand." "Jesus is Lord." "Repent and be baptized." "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved." "For God so loved the world."
We need not pit these passages against one another. Plurality does not equal pluralism. The ancient creeds, echoing 1 Corinthians 15, say that for our sake Jesus was crucified, buried, and on the third day rose again. God's people have been reflecting on these declarations ever since. We will never exhaust their implications, whether expressed as "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life," or "I once was lost, but now am found."
Every gospel summary has pros and cons. None is comprehensive; indeed, some may well be deficient. But different approaches can provide necessary correctives. Thus, we need what Joel Green calls a "kaleidoscopic" understanding of the Atonement, or what Scot McKnight calls "stories of the Story."
Evangelicals needn't be afraid of new approaches to the gospel—the church has been coming up with them for centuries. We managed to get through 1,900 years of Christian history without the Four Spiritual Laws and the bridge diagram. The formula of "accepting Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior" is also fairly recent. And what worked in the post–World War II context might not be appropriate in the early 21st century. Many people today have different questions, assumptions, and concerns.
Hence, we need variety and creativity in our gospel witness. A chorus of voices from N. T. Wright and Dallas Willard to Allen Wakabayashi and Brian McLaren calls us to rediscover the kingdom of God. Scot McKnight tells a story about the restoration of cracked eikons (image-bearers). Kevin Vanhoozer places the gospel in the context of an unfolding drama. James Choung's True Story offers a "four worlds" diagram in which we are designed for good, damaged by evil, restored for better, and sent together to heal.
Let us continue to explore and share the gospel in ways old and new. Whether we talk about justification by faith or defeating the powers, sight for the blind or reversal of entropy, freedom for the oppressed or healing of the nations, it's all good. The gospel is all of the above, and so much more.
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