Source Of The Scroll We Have?

"But some 

who do not know 

the Singer 

will believe this monster is the 

author of the Scroll you have."

 - Calvin Miller  -

The Singer Trilogy 

(The Song)

Repugnant Interpretations

39 Articles of Religion

Anglican Church

VI. Of the Sufficiency of the holy Scriptures for salvation.

Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation. 

XX. Of The Authority of the Church

"Controversies of Faith: And yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God’s Word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another."

Greek Hebrew Latin Belong At Foot Of The Cross

"Scriptures are given to lead us to holiness and to Christ, it doesn't mean that we are to set aside our intellect and understand them neither does it mean that those who are interested in learning more about scripture are to forsake study of the text and its original language. These things can be helpful but they must be done while leading us toward holiness, not toward intellectual snobbery, and certainly not in a way that reinforces and elitist hermeneutic. David Alan black puts it best:

'Greek, Hebrew, and Latin all have their proper place. But it is not at the head of the Cross, where Pilate put them, but at the foot of the cross, in humble service to Christ.'"

- Dr. Les Hardin. The spirituality of Paul. Pg 34

Quoting David Alan black. "Using New Testament Greek in Ministry: A practical guide for students and pastors. (Grand Rapids.v Baker, 1993), page 21.

Scripture Given To Male Us Holy

"The Bible is not there to give us God's approval for anything and everything we want in life. It is given to us by the Breath of God (2 Timothy 3:16) to make us holy."

- Les Hardin

The Spirituality of Paul

The Bible Is A Window.

The Bible is not a painting to be looked at, but a window to be looked through, and through that window we see Jesus.

- Bruxy Cavey

An Authority We Must Forever Bow To

"The church is not over the holy scriptures, but under them. In the sense that the process of canonization was not one where by the church conferred Authority on the books, but one we're by the church acknowledge them to possess authority... . And why? The books were recognized as giving the witness of the Apostles to the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus and the interpretation by the apostles of these events. To that apostolic authority, the church must ever bow."

- Anglican Church's Lamberth Conference Statement. 1958

First We Must Agree How To Agree

Epistomology really is the first question. Always has been. And it isbwhybwe have sensless fights and shalkow conversations. 

"One of the most important questions in every religion is the question of authority. 

By what authority do we believe what we believe, and by what authority do we teach what we teach? 

You cannot agree about anything until we have first agreed how to agree."

- John Stott.  

- 

"Why does this huge, sprawling, tactless book sit there inscrutably in the middle of our cultural heritage ... frustrating all efforts to walk around it?"

 - Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye. Northrop Frye, The Great Code (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982), xviii–xix

Something The Bible Never Claims

"Theologian John Baillie once remarked, “The New Testament does not say, ‘You shall know the rules, and by them you shall be bound,’ but, ‘You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’”

- Leonard Sweet. AquaChurch.  2.0

Let God Out Of The Bible.

“Amanda” was a six-year-old Sunday school student, the daughter of a county sheriff. On “Presentation Sunday” at her local church in Boulder, Colorado, she was given her very own Bible. During coffee time in the fellowship hall, a member of the church congratulated her and asked if he could see her Bible. “OK. But don’t open it.” “Don’t open it? But why shouldn’t I open it?” “You’ll let God out.”
 Open the Scriptures.
 Let God out."
- Leonard Sweet. AquaChurch 2.0

Argued Bible

"There is something terribly wrong when we argue about the Bible more and enjoy it less."

—Clark H. Pinnock

The Bible Is Better Than Your Preacher

"The printed page is a missionary that can go anywhere and do so at minimum cost. It enters closed lands and reaches all strata of society. It does not grow weary. It needs no furlough. It lives longer than any missionary. It never gets ill. It penetrates through the mind to the heart and conscience. It has and is producing results everywhere. It has often lain dormant yet retained its life and bloomed years later."

- Samuel Marinus Zwemer

How To Be Taught Better

".... by 1525 the protest movement involved much more than the mass, or even believers baptism - it involved the nature of the church. The concept of a church of committed Believers had taken the place of a church made up of the mixed multitude. This new church, like that of the Apostles, was to be made up only of those confessing Christ as Lord followed by Believers baptism, instead of everyone born in a given Parish. The Lord's Supper would then be observed by the baptized in a simple manner, shorn of its medieval trappings, as a pledge of Brotherly Love in remembrance of the one, all sufficient sacrifice of Christ.

Fritz Blanke (1525) has asserted that the characteristics of the church described above "were not to be found anywhere else at that time." Then he asked, "What is the source of this new view of the Christian Church?" 

Griebel answers: "We were listeners to Zwingli's sermons and readers of his writings, but one day we took the Bible itself in hand and we were taught better.""

- William Estep. The Anabaptist Story. An Introduction To Sixteenth-Century Anabaptism 

Can't Find God In The Newspaper

 “I don’t read the newspaper much. I can’t find much about God and Jesus in them.”

- Eugene Peterson 

Time Interpretation

"Zwingli came as an admirer and student of the renowned humanist scholar Erasmus. As a general principle humanist rejected the church's claim that under the guidance of the Holy Spirit what was implicit in the teaching of the Apostles was clarified and made explicit overtime, which meant that modern teachers were deemed best and most authoritative. In contrast, Christian humanists believe that the sources closest to Christ were most reliable, beginning with the apostles and with the Bible - rather than modern clarifications as the purest source of Christian truth."

- J. Denny Weaver. Becoming Anabaptist. 2nd Edition

I Don't Own The Truth

"Have you ever noticed that in any situation, when your ego is invested, afraid, or needy, it's very hard to smile? But when the truth is not your personal possession, it is very easy to smile."

- Richard Rohr. The Naked Now 

George Washington Was Baptized Twice, But Once!

Biblical words actually have precise meaning at times. 

It may come as a surprise to many to know that George Washington was twice baptized. According to his mother's Bible, he was baptized (Christened by Sprinkling) when he was not quite two years old… This baptism was in the orthodox Episcopal manner, and when he reached the age of thirty - three he took an oath to conform to the doctrine of the Church of England.   
  During Washington's life a strong wave of evangelicalism swept the Methodist and Baptist faiths, and it was during this period that he remarked to John Gano, Chaplain in the Continental Army, “I have been investigating the Scripture and I believe immersion to be the baptism taught in the Word of God, and I demand it at your hands. I do not wish any parade made or the Army called out, but simply a quiet demonstration of the ordinance.”
  Accordingly, George Washington was immersed in the Potomac in the presence of forty - two witnesses.
  John Gano was, at the time, a Baptist Minister and remains so all his life. His son, also named John, became a preacher in the Church of Christ in the early days of the Restoration Movement, and his son R.M. Gano, became a highly successful and popular preacher. He was an early leader in the church in Dallas and is said to have baptized 1000s of converts in his long ministry."

Focused On The Right Object

"The aim, as in all theological and biblical exploration, is not to replace love with knowledge. Rather, it is to keep love focused upon its true object." 

~ N.T. Wright The Day The Revolution Began 

"Larded" Over With Religion

"He wished to impress upon his ordinands that when one truly presented the Word of God, it would undo people because it had the innate power to help them see their own need and would give the answer to that need in a way that was not larded over with “religion”or false piety. The grace of God, without filters or explanation, would touch people."

~ Eric Metaxas. Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

How To Read The Bible

A few years later, in 1936, Bonhoeffer wrote his brother-in-law Rüdiger Schleicher, who was as liberal theologically as Bonhoeffer was conservative. It says much about their relationship that he could write such things:

First of all I will confess quite simply—I believe that the Bible alone is the answer to all our questions, and that we need only to ask repeatedly and a little humbly, in order to receive this answer. One cannot simply read the Bible, like other books. One must be prepared really to enquire of it. Only thus will it reveal itself. Only if we expect from it the ultimate answer, shall we receive it. That is because in the Bible God speaks to us. And one cannot simply think about God in one’s own strength, one has to enquire of him. Only if we seek him, will he answer us. Of course it is also possible to read the Bible like any other book, that is to say from the point of view of textual criticism, etc.; there is nothing to be said against that. Only that that is not the method which will reveal to us the heart of the Bible, but only the surface, just as we do not grasp the words of someone we love by taking them to bits, but by simply receiving them, so that for days they go on lingering in our minds, simply because they are the words of a person we love; and just as these words reveal more and more of the person who said them as we go on, like Mary, “pondering them in our heart,”so it will be with the words of the Bible. Only if we will venture to enter into the words of the Bible, as though in them this God were speaking to us who loves us and does not will to leave us along with our questions, only so shall we learn to rejoice in the Bible."

(Eric Metaxas. Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy)