As our cultural context becomes increasingly post Christian, we too must become cross-cultural missionaries and find relevant translations and applications to help our students understand the spiritual realities presented in Scripture.
Even Jesus used parables to help bridge the gap between where his students were and the truth He was trying to explain. The article in Immerse Journal mentions using zombies, which I thought was a great idea and jotted it down as a future blogging idea. Why? The undead are not just for students. Zombies are a popular topic at the office and many colleagues have a copy of one the graphic novel volumes – “The Walking Dead” on their desk.
Zombies are the rage, having infested the popular culture. These undead have mindlessly shuffled into the mainstream as they seek to fulfill an insatiable appetite for their favorite snack – human brains. Likely getting their pop status start in George Romero’s 1968 horror movie Night of the Living Dead, these ghouls have taken over with movies, books, video games, a hit series The Walking Dead, and even a mud run that bills itself as a “Zombie infested 5K Obstacle Course Race”. Even the CDC has got in on the action, using the popularity of zombies in a campaign for emergency preparedness:
There are all kinds of emergencies out there that we can prepare for. Take a zombie apocalypse for example. That’s right, I said z-o-m-b-i-e a-p-o-c-a-l-y-p-s-e. You may laugh now, but when it happens you’ll be happy you read this, and hey, maybe you’ll even learn a thing or two about how to prepare for a real emergency.
Wright uses chapters 3 through 6 to examine the use of the Scriptures throughout the history of the church. This post will review Wright’s cursory examination of ‘Scripture and Jesus’, which he summarizes as follows:
at the heart of his work lay the sense of bringing the story of scripture to its climax, and thereby offering to God the obedience through which the Kingdom would be accomplished.
For Wright, the Kingdom is about God putting ‘the world to rights, judging evil, and bringing forgiveness and new life’.
N.T. Wright on Colbert Report
In emphasizing the Kingdom storyline and the climatic entrance of Jesus, Wright downplays two aspects of scripture. Continue reading →
Looking through church history, particularly within the first four centuries, we find multiple lists describing the NT collection of documents that are considered Scripture. This leaves us with questions like which list is right? And who determines (or discovers) which list of documents is correct? And can we be absolutely certain that a particular list is correct? The history of the canon led me to conclude that the list of NT books is fallible, even if the documents themselves are inspired.
A particular post on Canon Fodder got me thinking. How does the idea of self-authenticating documents impact the canon. Particularly how does it impact our ability to know that we have an inspired and infallible list of inspired and infallible documents. In the post Dr. Kruger concluded that tradition (the early church passing on the apostolic teaching) is important but it is not the only way to know which books belong in the canon.
… I think the consensus eventually reached by the church on the books of the NT can help us know which books are from God. However, I would disagree with Patton (and the Catholics) that this is the only way to know (Patton said, “it is only through tradition…”). Entirely overlooked in this regard is the intrinsic authority built into these books and how that intrinsic authority could play a role in their authentication.
What is this intrinsic authority?
The protestant reformers referred to this as the self-authenticating (autopistic) nature of Scripture. It is simply the idea that the books themselves bear the qualities and attributes that can identify them as having come from God
Our belief that we have the right 27 books is certainly founded on the fact that God providentially worked in the early church. But, our answer to the question of how we know we have the right books can go further than just saying “God’s providence.” I argue in Canon Revisited that God has provided a reliable means by which God’s people can recognize his books (through the help of the Holy Spirit). Part of that means is the fact that God’s books bear divine qualities; they have attributes that reflect God’s power and character.
I agree with Kruger that the inspired documents are self-authenticating and thatthe Holy Spirit was active in the role of the canon process. However, even with documents possessing these qualities, we are not any closer to obtaining absolute certainty regarding the collection of NT documents.
A document may be inspired and therefore possess divine qualities. However the book must still be assessed. While the assessment does not cause the document to be inspired, it is the recognition of the document as such, that allows the church to accept it. And it is fallible man that is still responsible for discovering or correctly evaluating that the book possesses these qualities. Unless people are able to recognize these qualities with absolute certainty, this would make the process of assembling the list fallible. This would be further complicated by man having to also understand what constitutes true divine qualities so that he may be able to identify them correctly in the document.
If the documents possess self-authenticating qualities, then who is to examine these documents and assess them? Was this a recognition that was done at a point in time by the early church to stand throughout history? Or is this something we encourage every believer to do today? How do we resolve conflicting claims?
The epistle of James is part of our 27 document NT canon. However, history shows that this document, despite any self-authenticating attributes, has had a tough time keeping its place in the canon. James was missing from the Muratorian Fragment (2nd century) and was one of the books that was still being disputed in the early part of the fourth century as noted by Eusebius (Eccl Hist 3.25).
Martin Luther’s Preface to the New Testament in the 1522 edition calls James an “epistle of straw“. In the preface to the book of James itself, he writes “[t]hough this epistle of St. James was rejected by the ancients, I praise it and consider it a good book, … However, to state my own opinion about it, though without prejudice to anyone, I do not regard it as the writing of an apostle…”. Luther goes on to describe the characteristics in the book that cause him to consider it unworthy of a place in the canon.
Who evaluated the epistle of James correctly?
the many in the early church who recognized it
those in the early church who did not
Martin Luther
The Magisiterium at Trent
Each believer must evaluate the book
How ever we wrestle through these questions it seems we are still left with a certainty problem. And therefore I still have to accept a fallible list of infallible books. However the NT canon is a collection of documents that we can still have confidence in and accept.
Dead Heroes Don't Save 