In a few nutshells, inerrancy means that the human
authors of Scripture didn’t record anything that God didn’t want them to
record. What they wrote was the truth, and so today, to affirm the inerrancy of
scripture means that whatever the Bible teaches as truth is actually true. Whatever
the Bible wants us to believe is true is
true. On that basis, we say that the Bible is the highest authority for us in
all matters on which it teaches. Its
teaching is entirely trustworthy, reliable, and authoritative for us. That’s
why the authority, sufficiency, and inerrancy of the Scriptures are usually
part of the same section in your theology textbook. God’s people are to bow
before God’s Word, accepting it and submitting to it.
Sometimes when I consider the debates within
evangelicalism (three that come immediately to mind are the nature of hell, the
practice of homosexuality, and everyone’s favourite elephant in the room:
gender roles) I wonder whether those on either side agree that God’s book makes
no mistakes. They probably think they do. Don’t we all think we do? I think I
do. But the test of the Bible’s authority isn’t in the degree to which it
agrees with us, or even in our being able to say that the Bible is inerrant.
The real test of our belief in the inerrancy of the Bible is in what happens
when we don’t like what the Bible teaches about something.
What do we do when a text offends us? What do we do when
what seems to be the clear teaching of a passage strikes us as culturally
regressive? What do we do when that text seems to say things about God that we
don’t want to be true? What do we do when the Bible seems to call us to do
things that we don’t much want to do? The answer to questions like these is a
far better indicator of whether or not we believe the Bible is inerrant, or
authoritative. Why?
When we don’t like what the Bible teaches, there are
different approaches to saying so without really saying so. Each of these is a
subtle way of showing that regardless of what you think, the Bible isn’t really authoritative for you, but
something else is. Each of these is a way of showing that something (usually a
cultural assumption or pre-commitment) has eroded your view of the inerrancy of
the Bible. Ten examples:
·
The Postmodern
approach: “No thanks – your claim to truth is just another way for you to try
to control me, and your certainty is arrogant. Of that I’m certain.”
·
The “Reject
the Clear in Favour of the Vague” approach: “This passage seems to be
saying…(insert highest consensus interpretation here) but because of… (insert
rare, unlikely-but-not-impossible interpretive option here) it could also mean such-and-such.
·
The “Principle-Trumps-Text”
approach: “That’s not really what this passage means, because… (insert God /
love / salvation here) is… (insert positive attribute here) and that would be a
contradiction.”
·
The “History
Trumps Study” approach: “Well I was always taught that that means (insert
unchallenged, traditionalist interpretation here).”
·
The “Love
for Jesus Qualifies Me” approach: “I’m no theologian; I’m just a pastor, so
…” or “I’m no theologian; I’m just trying to help people get saved”
·
“Evangelical
Papal Deference”: “Hmmm. Interesting.” (Then leaves to see what celebrity
teacher X has taught about this text first. That teacher’s view is adopted as
their own.)
·
“Chronological
Snobbery”: “Yeah, but what the author didn’t understand at the time is
that…”
·
The “Canon-within-a-Canon”
approach: “Yes, but you can’t take that seriously, because Jesus said…, and
he’s the Son of God.”
·
The “No
Explanations Welcome” approach: “There’s no way that happened / is true.
You’d have to be an idiot to believe (insert biblical proposition). I just
can’t imagine that God would…”
·
The “Authority
by Bandwidth” approach: “Yeah, but this is just one passage. I don’t want
to put too much stock in one passage.”
What difference might it make in some of the debates in
the church if we were to pause for a while and revisit the doctrine of the
inerrancy of the Bible? I think it might help. If we could be reminded – in a
pastoral, devotional way, not an academic, cavalier,
this-is-interesting-but-there’s-nothing-really-at-stake way – that there are no
mistakes in the Bible, and that what’s there is really what God means for us to
believe and practice, then I can’t help by think that we might make some
progress in some of these debates.
A qualification: submitting to the Bible doesn’t make the
discomfort go away. But that’s how you know you’re submitting. It’s not
submission unless you disagree. Otherwise it’s called consensus.
This issue is worth our attention. Where God’s people
affirm the inerrancy of the Scriptures, debates and discussions take a
different tone altogether. That’s a practical reason we need to recover the doctrine
of the Bible’s inerrancy. There are better reasons, and I need to spend some
time wrestling through the meaning of each. And so do you. Here are some of
those reasons, and I aim to turn these into future posts:
·
Because it’s God’s book.
·
Because it’s counter-cultural
·
Because an errant Bible can’t be authoritative
·
Because reliable
and authoritative aren’t the same
thing
·
Because the Bible can’t be true about some
things and not true about others
·
Because it’s the only way to maintain both the
divine and human origin of the Bible
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