scripture

Christian, you cannot read the Bible any old way you want – Part I

Lisa Spencer4 Comments

I am often confronted with the strange ways the Bible is interpreted. I don’t mean the deviations in various interpretations, such as baptism, spiritual gifts or eschatology, but interpretations that subject the meaning of the Bible to standards that are disconnected from it’s nature and purpose.

I came across this hilarious video from the new Family Feud game that is hosted by Steve Harvey. Take a listen;

Funny and yet sobering, reminding me of ways in which some treat the Bible as if we can make it be whatever response we want AND get excited about it! I find so often that this brother’s “Texas” can be our approach to the Bible. By that I mean, employing methods that have nothing to do with the Christ-centered theme of Scripture. I’m talking about reading definitions into the text or extracting meaning out of the text that is not even related to what the author is trying to communicate or even connected to God’s redemptive narrative of what he is accomplishing through the Son.

Over at The Gospel Coalition, David Schrock has provided both a fine example of how we can disconnect passages from their intended meaning. In Jabez and the Soft Prosperity Gospel, Schrock indicates that the primary reason for interpretations that result in a sub-Christian or anti-Christian paradigm results from making personal applications of Scripture and not considering how passages relate to the overall theme of Scripture. Continue reading →

When have we sufficiently read the Bible?: on individualism and community

Lisa Spencer1 Comment

I came across this article the other day on The Gospel Coalition, Let’s Be Honest: Reasons Why We Don’t Read Our Bibles. Erik Raymond suggests 5 reasons:

1) It makes us uncomfortable

2) It’s too hard

3) We are undisciplined

4) We think it’s stale and lifeless

5) We have a dysfunctional relationship with God

He gets to the crux of the matter with this statement;

Let’s be honest: if you don’t read your Bible it is because you don’t want to read your Bible. And to bottom line this further, this is indicative or your relationship with God. We cannot separate a love for the Word of God and the God of the Word.

person holding bibleNow, a lot of this really resonated with me since I’ve written similar prescriptions of why we might find Bible reading boring. Anyone who has followed this blog for any amount of time knows my passion for believers being serious about Bible reading and comprehension. In fact, I would expand on his 2nd point about the Bible being too hard in that Christians really need a framework to understand how the 66 books fit together as God’s complete story of redemption. When I consider my own trajectory in Bible reading, my comprehension of the holistic Christ-centered nature of Scripture has evolved and is evolving over time because of the direction of others. But especially because of how it is emphasized in the preaching and teaching of the Word at my church. Over the past decade, I have been increasingly exposed to preaching that considers the holistic nature of Scripture not just cherry picked verses to support whatever instruction the preacher wants to provide so that I do x, y and z. Continue reading →

Yes, Jesus DID say that in black letters too

Lisa SpencerLeave a comment

open-bibleI was cleaning out some old email and came across this letter to subscribers from Greg Koukl, Stand to Reason Ministries. He makes a good case for black letter Bibles, that is NOT having Jesus’ words in red letters. But the stronger case is for considering how God spoke through all Scripture. Here’s what Koukl says;

“Twice recently I’ve noticed people making a theological point based on what Jesus, allegedly, did not say.  In both instances I have the same questions:  So what?  Why should it matter what Jesus did not say?

I have three points in mind with these questions.  They have to do with a tactical maneuver, a misstep in thinking, and a misunderstanding about the Bible that so-called “red letter” Christians seem to fall into.

First, notice the tactic being employed here:  appeal to authority.  The person making the comment is trying to bolster her point of view by enlisting Jesus as her ally, as a person whose views must be reckoned with.

Now, on this point I completely agree.  What’s odd, though, is that this appeal is often made by people who seem completely unconcerned with Jesus’ opinion until it appears He sides with them.  This looks suspiciously like special pleading.  If, for example, Jesus had condemned the behavior in question, would that make a differenceto the challenger?  If not, then why bring Jesus into the discussion at all?

So, first I want to point out that if Jesus’ opinion on any one issue matters, maybe we should take His counsel on other things for the same reason.

For example, even if we have no record of Jesus’ thoughts on, say homosexuality, did He weigh in on the closely related issue of marriage?  He did, it turns out:  From the beginning, God designed, endorsed, and intended marriage and sex (“one flesh”) solely for long term, monogamous, heterosexual unions (Matt. 19:4-5). Shouldn’t this teaching of Jesus’ have a legitimate bearing on the debate, if His opinion really matters? Continue reading →

Hearing God Speak

Lisa Spencer11 Comments

Last week was a bit of a milestone. I picked up the bound copy of my master’s thesis. The following is a modified version of an article I wrote for my church’s newsletter recently explaining my thesis topic:

Deere and SamraIf you’ve been following this blog for some time, you know that I recently graduated from Dallas Seminary with a ThM Degree. However, graduation was delayed due to delays in my thesis completion and approval. Despite the struggles, it was worth the endeavor because I wrote on a topic that I believe deserves addressing in our contemporary evangelical environment. The title of the thesis is “God Already Spoke: A Response to Extra-Scriptural Divine Speech.” I interact with three books that encourage hearing the voice of God outside of Scripture. These books are Surprised by the Voice of God by Jack Deere, God Told Me by Jim Samra and Jesus Calling by Sarah Young.  I refute the premise these authors promote that God needs to tell us more about himself or his requirements for us than what has already been communicated through Scripture.

I have been immersed in this topic for some time. Having spent much of my earlier Christian life in Charismatic type churches, there was always the expectation that God needed to provide additional information through some kind of direct speech, or through a “prophet” or a voice we hear in our heads. The underlying presumption is that Scripture is insufficient to hear the voice of God and we need something more.

My journey towards discovering God’s voice through Scripture and its sufficiency began in 2006 when a friend challenged me on how I was reading the Bible. Like many today, I read it in a very fragmented fashion, which served as a springboard to hear the voice of God outside of Scripture. But this way also subjects divine speech to inconsistent methodology. I was re-oriented with a framework of how the 66 books should be taken as a whole.  Over time, I discovered the beauty and sufficiency of the redemptive-historical narrative of Scripture that provides a wonderful picture of God’s communication to us. Continue reading →

Jesus Already Called, But We’re Not Listening

Lisa Spencer1 Comment

people not listeningI recently learned that the popularity of Jesus Calling, the devotional by Sarah Young, is bigger than I thought. Not only has the book sold over 9 million copies but there is a plethora of companion pieces, including a devotional Bible and phone app. Clearly, it has followed the path of the Purpose Driven Life and Prayer of Jabez that makes me wonder if Jesus told his disciples to go into all the world, therefore, and make merchandise. And let’s not be too quick to throw the authors and publishers under the bus because they wouldn’t be mass marketing Jesus products unless there was a demand based on sales.

So this post is not about Jesus Calling so much as it is about “us”. And by “us” I mean Christians who have soaked up this book and embraced it as if hugging Jesus himself. Because after all, the book is written in the first person as if Jesus himself is speaking. It occurs to me that there is something about this book that is appealing to people, especially women, and they have found comfort in it.

This book obviously resonates with people. To be sure, the popularity and evolution of companion products suggest that these devotionals feed something we need, or think we need and seek after.  The demand suggests that we need to have some kind of experience of Jesus in order to be satisfied with our Christian walk. And this leads me to ask why what God has already given us is not enough?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against experience. I think it is a necessary component of our humanity and especially more so in serving and worshiping an invisible God. The problem comes when we put experience in the driver’s seat for the sake of obtaining emotional comfort based on subjective means. Life is hard and pain is real for sure. We want assurance and relief during troubling times. We generally hate uncertainty. But that should drive us to rely on what God has sufficiently spoken instead of subjective words that come from others who claim to speak from God. Then you have to go through the gymnastics of figuring out if it is from God. As I wrote about in A Sure Word, why not just rely on what has already been written? Continue reading →