scripture

On pointing fingers while clinging to Bibles

Lisa Spencer3 Comments

I want to briefly sketch out a few thoughts I had as I observe the tensions related to the schisms in the church today over addressing issues of race and justice. This actually started off as a Facebook post but as I kept typing, I thought it would be better served as a blog post. It’s not meant to be exhaustive and know that what I’m about to write can be expanded on. But I just wanted to address this common charge that I see quite often in the woke/anti-woke wars (for lack of a better term). And its this: those Christians aren’t upholding Scripture and undermining its authority. Honestly, I see it on both sides.

Well it is true that some can be ignoring Scripture and disregarding its authority, I’m referring to the vast number of Christians in relatively orthodox spaces that preach the gospel, uphold scriptural authority, and believe the church is Jesus’ bride to accomplish his purposes. Based on some extended observation, I don’t think the problem is so much that people aren’t relying on Scripture or upholding its authority. Rather, it’s how the framework of Scripture is being interpreted and applied to present day circumstances with varying understandings of sola scriptura. Everyone who professes Christ and scriptural authority are coming to vastly different conclusions. Why is that?

The more conservative/fundamentalists tends to draw harder lines between the historical context of the Bible and present day issues. They are more likely to separate its application from academic disciplines related to life. On the extreme end, the fundamentalist sees no room for any thought outside of Scripture to have relevance to the Christian faith. When led by a resistance to worldliness for the sake of Christian faithfulness, they may be prone to divorcing faith and works as James commends in his epistle.

Continue reading →

Bible in a Nutshell Part 4: OT history (God leads his people)

Lisa Spencer1 Comment

My intention in doing this series was to post one segment at least once a month. I’ve let more time lapse since the last segment so I thought it would be good to get back to it. A crucial aspect of this series is seeing how God moved on behalf of his creation starting in Genesis to have a snapshot of what the entirety of the Bible is about. Therefore, in order to consider the cohesive story of the 66 books of Scripture, it is imperative to consider the overview (part 1), foundation in Genesis (part 2), and God’s provision through the law (part 3). Continuing on, this post will cover the period of kings known as Old Testament history.

By way of review, what we’ve seen so far leading up to this period is that from the beginning, God gives life to his creation with specific intentions for it to glorify him. As man is made in the image of God, a theme that undergirds Scripture: God will be a God to his people. From the Fall, God’s desire to rescue his people is seen throughout. From the promise of Abraham, comes a people who God rescued, then he gave them a name and then his requirements in the law. In the law, a system of worship was established and office of priest solidified through through which the mediation of God’s presence would occur. This was the whole point of the tabernacle so that God could meet with his people. So we see, as the narrative of God’s story continues, he reveals more of himself–his character, intent, and will.

What started as one man and one woman, evolved into a family, then a nation. As I noted in the last post, the nation of Israel should be seen as a people of God’s possession.

The historical books (Joshua-2 Chronicles) tell of Israel’s conquest of the promised land, life in the land, loss of the land, and return to the land. But there is a component added to this period of Israel’s history that bears a noteworthy mark of God’s revelation concerning his leadership. Continue reading →

The Bible in a Nutshell Part 3: the Pentateuch (God’s Law)

Lisa Spencer2 Comments

Continuing on with the series, having laid the foundation in Genesis in Part 2, Part 3 will cover God’s revelation of himself through the exodus from Egypt, the provision of the Sinai covenant, and the march towards the land of promise. This portion of the Bible shows how God is gathering a people to himself, and his expectations for them as his people.  My main goal in this series is to demonstrate the cohesiveness of Scripture and seeing it as one seamless story. So as I move along, it’s important to keep the beginning of the story in mind to see what God is doing with respect to his creation.

With that, by way of review, from the fall of man, we must see God’s rescue of his creation as a unified plan beginning with the promise in Gen. 3:15. I also noted how God’s redemption is mediated through righteous representatives: Noah, Abraham, and his offspring and he is providing Through Abraham, God gave a specific promise for 4 things: 1) a land to live in; 2) numerous descendants; 3) blessing for himself; 4) blessing through him for all the nations of the world.

The tribes of Israel form and are allotted land. Their presence in the physical territory is meant to bring a blessing to surrounding nations. Does that still hold? The church has been divided on that issues. I’ll discuss that more when we get to the New Testament. Continue reading →

Bible in a Nutshell Part 2: Foundations in Genesis

Lisa Spencer3 Comments

Continuing on with the series and keeping the overview in part 1 in mind, the significance of Genesis is that it lays the foundation for what God is establishing with respect to his creation. The beginning explains the how and why God started everything. To reiterate what I said in the overview, God is revealing to us who he is and his expectations for his creation. Also, it’s important to remember that when I reference creation that means all of it, humanity and the earth.

A couple of points are noteworthy here. One, Genesis was written by Moses to the children of Israel while they were wandering through the wilderness. Now think for a minute what was going on with them. They had been called as a people of God’s own possession, delivered as a people from the hand of oppression and delivered with promises of a land where they’re position would thrive as a light to all nations. But for the time being, they were slogging through a seeming nothingness and feeling forsaken. The Genesis account informs Israel of how and why they were formed in accordance with the God of creation.

And this leads to the second noteworthy point. The creation account unfortunately gets bogged down with dissections about the earth’s age. In my opinion, this is a distraction from the purpose of the text. Moses is not revealing to Israel the creation account as some sort of scientific treatise about the genesis of the earth, but to tell them THAT God created everything, out of nothing and had a plan for his creation. His plan was that man (man and woman working together) being made in the image of God was to subdue the earth, to reflect his glory. What God intended for humanity cannot be dismissed for what would happen in Genesis 3 but bear important implications for how his people would work together for the sake of his kingdom.

Another significant aspect of Genesis 1-2 is that it demonstrates that we cannot divorce the spiritual aspect of reconciliation to the Father with what he desires for creation. He said ‘it is good’ which means that the physicality of creation is important. Continue reading →

The Bible in a Nutshell Part 1: Overview

Lisa Spencer5 Comments

Before we can talk about the parts of the Bible, it helps to know what the Bible is. For much of my Christian life I’ve heard references such as the God’s instruction manual for Christian living. While I think there is some truth to that description, it does not adequately describe what the richness of these 66 books. Moreover, if we reduce the Bible down to a user manual or book of propositions, our tendency will be to miss the larger story of redemption.

While the Bible is comprised of many books that were written by 40 different authors over the span of 1,500 years, the Bible is one book. It is God revealing himself to us. But we have to see how he is doing this in consideration of his intersection with time and history. As I mentioned in my last post, we want to look at the Bible from a 20,000 foot angle, so to speak. It’s easy to get lost in the trees of particular passages but lose sight of the forest. But with this series I’m hoping to give a snapshot of each section to show the beauty of the forest by providing points to consider concerning how the pieces of these 66 books fit together. There are three aspects to the Bible I think are important to bear in mind.

1. The Bible is a divine book

If you have a red letter Bible, you might be tempted to think of the words of Jesus as more important or spiritual the rest of the Bible. But this would be a mistake. All Scripture is breathed out by God,

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (2 Tim. 3:16-17)

God moved through men as the Holy Spirit influenced their pen so that they would write in their own words the thoughts, will and intention of God. As I’ll note later, men wrote in their own styles but were guided by the Holy Spirit in accordance of what was happening. And just a side note: this means the Bible itself is spiritual, not just words on a piece of paper we make spiritual. Continue reading →