The Centrality of Scripture

Kymberli Cook:

Welcome to The Table Podcast where we discuss issues of God and culture to show the relevance of theology in everyday life. My name is Kymberli Cook. I'm the Assistant Director here at The Hendricks Center, and I am so thrilled that you have joined us here today because we are going to be talking about why the Bible is so important to the Christian faith, so not an important topic at all. We really have two listeners in mind with today's discussion. We want to talk to you if you just wonder what all the fuss is about with the Bible. There's a lot of history.

Well, there's a lot of history, but what I want to say is that we want to assure you and we want to help you, orient you to all of the history and thought that's been put into the book, and we would be honored… I think I can speak for these gentlemen. We would be honored to introduce you to it, but we also want to talk to you if you love scripture and encourage you to recognize that many believers have contributed to the beliefs that you have likely inherited about the Bible, and we want to encourage you to recognize that inherited faith and appreciate it maybe on a deeper level.

And we are joined by two eminently qualified scholars to help us dig into those questions. First, we have Clint Arnold, who is a research professor of New Testament at Talbot School of Theology at Biola University. Thank you for joining us, Clint.

Clint Arnold:

Great to be here.

Kymberli Cook:

And we're also joined by Stephen Nichols, the president of Reformation Bible College and chief academic officer for Ligonier Ministries. Thank you for being here, Steve.

Stephen Nichols:

My pleasure.

Kymberli Cook:

What does a chief academic officer do?

Stephen Nichols:

Ligonier is a teaching ministry, been producing discipleship resources for over 50 years now. And so as a teaching ministry, we are always concerned about content and especially a faithful content that's helpful for the church. So, I have this wonderful role of being able to serve my colleagues there at Ligonier to just think through, number one, most importantly, how we can be faithful, about how we can connect this teaching to folks, and help them in their discipleship today. It's a great job.

Kymberli Cook:

When I saw it, I was like, "Man," I'm interested in theology and academia and all of that and I thought, "Man, that sounds like a really nice gig, just a chief academic officer." It reminds me of some of my… I actually have one friend who has this position, but some churches now are having resident theologians and I feel like that's a similar type thing where I'm like, "That'd be nice to just be paid to sit and do that stuff, wonderful."

Clint Arnold:

So, I've got to add something to that.

Kymberli Cook:

Please.

Clint Arnold:

Because I was a chief academic officer-

Kymberli Cook:

Oh, were you?

Clint Arnold:

… At my institution for a while.

Kymberli Cook:

Nice.

Clint Arnold:

And our creditors had a special conference once a year called CAOS theory, Chief Academic Officer Society, and there's times that those of us in the academic administration feel that there's a little bit of chaos there running some institutions, but that one always cracked me up, CAOS.

Kymberli Cook:

That's wonderful. Well, sorry to you who are listening for that little sidebar, but I was just a very interested, a little glimpse behind the curtain of what goes on in academic institutions, but thank you, gentlemen. As you have heard, they have both been chief academic officers. So again, they are imminently qualified, but thank you for joining us at The Table today. We really appreciate you being here. So, we're talking today about the Bible, the centrality of scripture, why it's important, how it's important, how Christians have approached it over the millennia, quite frankly. So, how did you, gentlemen, end up spending so much time studying the Bible? Steve, let's start with you.

Stephen Nichols:

Sure, I grew up in a pastor's home. I don't remember a time when I didn't own a Bible and multiple Bibles for that, and I'm so thankful for that, really being surrounded by the Bible. When I was a kid, it was scripture memory and it was scripture drills where we'd hold up our Bible and they'd call out a book in a chapter, you'd have to find it. So, I'm just very grateful for that and very blessed. I know many people don't have a similar story and grew up not in a Christian home or surrounded by the word of God.

And when God brings them to himself and they see the truthfulness of God's word, you see the joy of that discovery. So, I think whichever that journey is, whether it's within a context of having the Bible around or where God brings you to the Bible, I think we both have that same experience, how blessed we are to have the word of God. And I just think about, imagine navigating this current world without it. I'm glad I'm not in that position.

Kymberli Cook:

What drew you to dig deeper into scripture? It's just fine, I love your answer, but somebody sitting in a pew that would never end up being in some of the positions you've had and the time with the scriptures that you had, what drew you to be like, "No, I want to know more?"

Stephen Nichols:

I hope Professor Arnold appreciates this story, but as a freshman in college, I took Greek. And the professor walked into the classroom, had Greek grammar, which was Machen's Greek Grammar, picked it up, kissed it, and set it on the podium. And then he proceeded to give this brilliant lecture about Greek, and I was hooked. And from then on, I just knew that I really wanted to commit my life to an in-depth study of this. I went more the route of church history and historical theology than biblical studies, but it really was that moment was a turning point for me of a calling, I think, to pursue this.

Kymberli Cook:

What about you, Clint?

Clint Arnold:

Well, I am a little bit more like the second person that Steve described in that I never really cracked open a Bible until I was a teenager, so raised in an non-Christian home, the Bible just was not a part of our family life at all. But there was a lot of sin issues in our family with divorce, remarriage, and a lot of difficult things, and my great-grandmother had given me a Bible at one time and it said holy on the cover. You were talking about that earlier today, and I took that literally that that was holy, but I never read it until I was 13.

And in God's providence and grace, my mother and stepfather and I moved into this new farming community and we were surrounded by Christians for the first time in our lives and they kept inviting us to church. "Oh, no, thanks. No, thanks," and we finally came, and it was around a dinner table that the pastor led my mother and stepfather to the Lord. And then he caught up with me a couple of weeks later and explained the gospel, shared how I could receive Christ, and I prayed and received Christ at that time.

And then the discipleship process began with this pastor and he told me, he says, "You really need to get into the Bible." And I thought, "That's what every Christian does, get into the Bible." And I started reading the Bible and I couldn't get enough of it. Everything was brand new, everything was fresh. I'd seen change in my family's lives. I knew something was real and dynamic and working here, and it motivated me to get into it deeper and deeper.

Kymberli Cook:

So, the holy really then took root.

Clint Arnold:

Yeah, it was a different book than any other, for sure.

Kymberli Cook:

Oh, interesting. So this morning, in honor of this podcast, as I was driving in today, I was listening to 2 Timothy just being read on the Bible. Props to you Logos for having that now, so I was listening to 2 Timothy and it made the way through the whole book, and especially there at the end, chapters three and four, I am very much like you, Steve. I was raised in a Christian home, the Bible drills were probably the source of some anxiety, just all of that.

But for some reason, those passages, those two chapters I feel like have just kind of been consistently present in my life and people have dug into them on sermons that were meaningful for me. And I hadn't even really put it together until this morning and I just thought, "My heart just feels this home when I hear these words," and I hadn't ever really thought about it until I just heard it read. So I'm curious, is there any passage for you all? It can be a book, it can be a passage, it can be a verse, but where you kind of have that home feeling where you're like, man, I just kind of come home to my faith and it just kind of settles right here for some reason? Clint?

Clint Arnold:

I learned an expression from my youngest son once and it was called, "What are you vibing?"

Kymberli Cook:

That is a much cooler way of asking.

Clint Arnold:

I have to confess that it varies for me from time to time. I get enamored with a certain book for a period of time and immerse myself in it and enjoy it and savor it and so on, and then it's something else. And interestingly, right now it's Leviticus and we've decided to do a series on Leviticus in our local church, and I'm part of the preaching team there. I'm so excited about this because of all of the great stuff in Leviticus, we're going to call it Loving Leviticus because that's not the way most people respond to it. But when you dive into it and think about what it reveals about God, about his plan of salvation, about his holiness, there's just so much to be encouraged by. But I have to admit, I've done a lot of academic work on Ephesians and Colossians years and years and years of work on those written commentaries on both of them, and I never get tired of them. I feel really at home in both of those.

Kymberli Cook:

Interesting. What about you, Steve?

Stephen Nichols:

Well, to use this expression, I'm vibing. For me, I like the Psalms. I just always come back to the Psalms. As you mentioned, you find yourselves in seasons sort of diving into a particular portion. Last year it was the gospels, I just kept reading through the gospels. This year I'm doing Paul's epistles, and Crossway puts out those wonderful little reader's editions and they're just bound beautifully. So, it's just an enjoyable experience to read and then of the content of what you're reading, but I still always come back to the Psalms.

Kymberli Cook:

Isn't that interesting-

Stephen Nichols:

Just the beauty of the Psalms.

Kymberli Cook:

… How just different parts… To Leviticus, I will say in seminary, there was a point where it was very intense and I hadn't done what I needed to do ahead of time. And so, I had to read the whole book of Deuteronomy in one sitting and by the end of it, and I kind of had to journal my way through it as part of the assignment. And by the end of it, I was sobbing. I was like, "This is such a beautiful book," so I had a soft spot for that general area. I can appreciate Leviticus. All right, well, now that we know how much you all love scripture, for the record, I do too, I'd like us to turn to why the Christian faith as a whole clings so tightly to the Bible. Why is it so important? So let's start first, and you mentioned something about historical theology, so this is going to be punted to you first and then you can add in.

I know you have very much to say, too, but let's talk first about those earliest Christians. We don't have time to get fully into the development of the canon as a whole. We've actually already done a podcast on that. For you listening, that's Making Sense of the Biblical Canon. Feel free to go there and Michael Spiegel will walk you all the way through how it was developed, but can you at least describe for us why the writings specifically that were being passed around and that were inherited from the Jewish tradition, why were they so important for those earliest Christians?

Stephen Nichols:

If we start with the first century Christians and the New Testament writers, we see this remarkable expression, they will interchangeably use God says, and scripture says. And so the high view of scripture of the New Testament scripture writers, and then we have that wonderful text at the end of Peter where he speaks of Paul's writings. The ink is still wet on Paul's epistles and he's comparing them with other scriptures. So, just the high regard we see in the Bible itself and self-consciously aware of this book as scripture. So, that's where it starts. Then you go to the church fathers post-New Testament, so 90 on, and they're writing epistles. They're in that vein of the epistles that are written. And when they want to make a point, they'll quote the text. In fact, it's a good witness, and Dr. Arnold here is far more an expert in this, but it's a good witness to us is the presence of the text in the church fathers as part of our manuscript evidence.

So, they'll quote the text if they want to make a point, and if they really want to make a point, they'll just string together a bunch of texts. So, early on you see that in the church, authority is not lodged in a religious leader, authority is not lodged in the dynamic illumination of the Holy Spirit. Authority is lodged in the word of God, in scripture, and so that's the trajectory that's set. Now, you get to the 400s, 500s, and all of a sudden we sort of veer away from that and scripture recedes, and now the church's tradition on scripture comes to the foreground, and our beloved reformers, of course, return us back, and that's the whole sola scriptura in authority. But you look at those early centuries of the church, scripture is the authority for life and church practice because it is the word of God and you see it and the documentary evidence.

Kymberli Cook:

And this is for you Clint, and I want to hear any thoughts you have there too, but what do you think the relationship is between them seeing… So, I think even the Jewish texts might be a separate conversation, but especially the New Testament texts that are arising, what is the relationship between the revelation that we see in the person of Christ and they're pointing to that as the word of God and the authority that is then granted? What's the relationship going on there?

Clint Arnold:

So, the texts that we have available to us today are texts that give a record of who Jesus is, what he has accomplished on our behalf, and what the future plans are that he has in place for us, the way God has used him through that. So, I love this passage in Colossians 3:16 that I talked about recently, "Let the word about Christ dwell in you richly," and of course, in that first century context, at the time that was written, there was no New Testament gospels written probably that they would've had. So, the word about Christ would've been the oral traditions of everything that was taught about Jesus, everything that Jesus taught, and that was memorized and faithfully passed on. And these all came to be written up eventually in our synoptic gospels and in the Gospel of John, and that became the word of God that we know is the New Testament text.

And I think what I'd like to add is just that the early church saw this as more than just a documented history. The early church saw these documents that we came to know as the New Testament documents as the writer of Hebrews puts it, living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. Something that God wields, something that God uses to miraculously change lives, to reshape and reform who people are, bringing them more into the image of Christ, and somehow uniquely the church uses these documents and God through the church uses these documents to bring people closer to a relationship with Christ and into a walk that's pleasing with God.

Kymberli Cook:

That's a wonderful add. I think why they still matter, so not just to the early church, but even why this document as a whole now that we have… But the earliest documents still matter to us is because at the core, it is an understanding that or it is a belief that God has revealed himself to us. And we see in that passage that he says, "no, you're even my image bearers, and I don't have to tell you anything about myself, but I'm choosing to." And he does so through the person of Christ and then the preserved record of Christ and everything around it, and that's where the Jewish tradition comes in and we rethink it and… Not rethink it, that's not a good term, but we re-understand everything that was going on there. The Bible itself even points broader than in the world, it points to nature at times revealing God, that kind of thing.

So, God has revealed himself as tightly and succinctly as possible. Now, don't you love when things are phrased that way? I was in a podcast recording the other day where I was one of the guests and they were like, "In one phrase, can you say this?" I was like, "I really don't want to, please don't do that to me." Because they're not one phrase, but as tightly and succinctly as possible. For our friend listening who wonders why this old book is such a big deal, what would you say is the reason for the Christian reverence that we give to the Bible?

Clint Arnold:

The holy God has revealed himself through this means through this book, and because of that, we can get to know our creator, God, in a deeper, personal way.

Stephen Nichols:

There's an image of Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, the classic book that I love. It's the beginning image, and he has a Christian described as dressed in rags, a burden on his back, and none of his family has that same perception on life. To them they're fine, but he's fixated on this burden on his back. And then Bunyan says, "And a book in his hand," and of course the book in his hand is the Bible, and it is what is eventually going to lead him to Christ and lead him to relief from that burden. So, it's an existential thing to recognize that our fundamental problem before our holy God is that burden of sin. And there's only one way that we're going to learn how to be relieved from that burden, it's the book.

Kymberli Cook:

So if you're listening and you don't have that question at all, you are sitting here with us and you're hearing Steve talk and you're like, "Oh, that's so true, and that's been my life, and it was the burden and now it's the book that brought me there," that's wonderful, and you're committed to scripture. We also want to talk a bit about the approaches to the Bible that Christians have had and why they have had them throughout the history of the church specifically because there is a lot. Steve, you walked through a little bit of it and we can dig in deeper because I think sometimes… I didn't, until I came to seminary, I didn't know that I had inherited all of this and that there were forks in the road where I didn't inherit some things that others have because way on down the line, I'm in this tradition.

And so, I would love for us to unpack a little bit of that today just for people listening who are 100% behind the Bible, they know why it's a big deal, but maybe they don't know as much about why they believe what they believe as they could. So talk to us, we have thousands of years later, we still have all of these writings. Talk to us about the variety of ways that Christians approach them now. What does "reverence", what does "centrality" look like in various Christian traditions today? Either one of you can hop in.

Clint Arnold:

Since you used the word hop, I will build on that and refer to the image of the grasshopper.

Kymberli Cook:

All right, I did not see that coming.

Clint Arnold:

No, and I'm going to start simple and then we can work out from there.

Kymberli Cook:

Sure.

Clint Arnold:

But I think one of the things that I see in the church today often is what I might call grasshoppering around the text. In other words, seeing the Bible as a collection of Bible verses. So, you hop from this verse to another verse to another verse, and there's great promises and there's great thoughts and great ideas in this way, but in terms of an approach to Bible, there's a popular approach that looks at it a little bit like that. And I think for me, growing as a Christian was recognizing that Bible verses are embedded in context, Bible verses are embedded in whole letters, whole books, and these books are embedded in historical cultural settings.

And the Bible was in some ways like Jesus was incarnated, the Bible was incarnated into a social-historical context and there's a richness and a texture that comes from knowing where this Bible verse fits into the larger context. And it's exciting and enriching to see that in the way that God has chosen to give us the scripture in this holistic sort of way. And so that's one thing that I like to encourage people to consider is a fuller, holistic way of approaching the Bible, especially seeing things in context.

Kymberli Cook:

It's really interesting that you say that because I was just having a conversation with one of my interns today, and he was at a church that is very seeker-friendly, and he was saying that the only time that the Bible was read was when one verse was kind of shared and out from that there was… He said, "I didn't learn very much about the Bible, but I felt very empowered. I felt very good about my life and what I could accomplish." And I think that that's maybe a practical application. There are people that we call it cherry-picking a lot here, but that go and they take certain things and put it together, but I also think that this self-care, self-empowerment vein that's running through our society also, there's a danger of kind of going and clipping out the things that really fit that narrative, and the church might end up doing it and might not even really be meaning to, but that's really interesting that you bring that approach to scripture up.

Clint Arnold:

And if you're just cherry-picking and hopping around different places in scripture, you're missing some crucial things that it's saying and seeing the whole testimony of the scripture, the whole revelation of what God wants you to know about yourself, and I love the image of Christian and burden on his back to understand what that burden really is as a means of understanding yourself and your desperate plight and desperate need before a holy God is just really crucial. And cherry-picking may not get you there.

Kymberli Cook:

What would you say? What are some other ways that-

Stephen Nichols:

I'd love to keep on this theme.

Kymberli Cook:

Go ahead. If you have something to think to say-

Stephen Nichols:

I'll be real quick and then I'll-

Kymberli Cook:

Please, no, you're fine.

Stephen Nichols:

I'll hop off onto another.

Kymberli Cook:

You're fine.

Stephen Nichols:

But no, I think the old adage, even the devil uses the Bible for his own purposes and you can get the Bible to support any view you want it to. That's where the whole council of God is so, so crucial, so I really appreciate that. I was enjoying listening to it. One of the things, we talk about the attributes of God., one of the things I found very helpful as a construct coming out of historical theology and different theologians is speak of the attributes of scripture. And it's just a nice way to sort of help us think about what scripture is, and so historically we've had four of these. We think of the authority of and the stresses that it is revelation. This is not a bottom-up book of a human expression of encounter with the divine.

This is a divine down book, a top-down book, and because it is origin sourced in God, it is authoritative. And so, we have the doctrines of inspiration and inerrancy that flow from that. We speak of the necessity of scripture. If we want to be right with God, which is humanity's the human condition's central issue, scripture is necessary to lead us to Christ and teach us of Christ.

We speak of the sufficiency of scripture and many say for an orthodox view of scripture, this is where the rubber meets the road. You can affirm inerrancy all day long, but do you rely on the Bible and look to the Bible and trust in the Bible? And then we have this word, the perspicuity of scripture, which is an unclear word that means clarity because there's a lot of disagreement over particulars, but it does mean that central message is clear, simple, not simplistic, but simple and understandable. And I'd just like to add a fifth attribute, and it is that scripture is beauty. It's a work of art. God could have given us bullet points and maybe wouldn't have so much theological debate, but we've got narrative and poetry and fascinating apocalyptic drama scriptures. It's beautiful literature.

Kymberli Cook:

So, going a little bit off of what you were talking about with the authority and it's not the encounter of the human with the divine and up, are there Christian traditions who do say that?

Stephen Nichols:

Right. You mean bottom-up or top-down?

Kymberli Cook:

Bottom-up.

Stephen Nichols:

Oh, yes, and they're the wrong ones.

Clint Arnold:

Agreed.

Kymberli Cook:

Well, right now we're just exploring why they might think that.

Stephen Nichols:

In one sense, this was sort of higher criticism and it started with the Pentateuch and then it moved into the gospels, and I'm going to step aside here because we have much more authority here, but that's really what was the heart of it. We're really seeing here through these authorial strands of the Pentateuch, we are seeing at various moments in Israel's history, their expression of that divine encounter, whether it's the deuteronomist or the priestly vein, and then same thing with Jesus and the different, so-called community. So, the Gospel writers are not individual authors. They sort of represent communities in that the old view is in the 200s and 300s even that were reflecting on who Jesus is. So, there's definitely those traditions, but they're out of step with orthodoxy and Bible's teaching of itself.

Kymberli Cook:

So, I do want to continue with just helping the person listening understand if they haven't ever really realized that that conversation has gone on that bottom-up, top-down that that's even happened in the church, what "hill" is the bottom-up group defending in that approach to authority or not holding the top-down view?

Clint Arnold:

That's a tough question to answer-

Kymberli Cook:

I know, I'm sorry.

Clint Arnold:

… Because we're trying then to venture into probing into the motives of scholars-

Kymberli Cook:

Or I guess I could add, well, this may be the same but values-

Clint Arnold:

But I think it's a legitimate question.

Kymberli Cook:

… What values might be there that we can surface to help understand why they would take that position though we might not end up there?

Clint Arnold:

So, I studied in Germany for a year and there was a word that's often used in German scholarship, it's called Wissenschaftliche, and that's the scientific study of scripture. So, there's a group of scholars and Stephen referred to them as historical critical scholars, that believe that they are applying a scientific method to the study of the scripture in a way that would be applied to any other literature. And the end result is that we really have a set of documents that, for instance, the gospels that are not very trustworthy in terms of conveying accurate historical information.

The problem is that so many of these historical critical scholars are controlled by a set of presuppositions and assumptions that bringing with them to the text that maybe influence where they end up far more than they realize. And so in a post-enlightenment world, when there's this inherent doubt about the reality of supernatural beings, doubt about the miraculous, doubt about the existence of God, and this flows into biblical scholarship in certain ways, it will have an impact on where we end up, and even in our methodology. I remember years ago we had a scholar that came on our campus that was from a very prominent German university and described it as a theological system in which it's controlled by a set of theological convictions more than it's controlled by an objective critical method. And so, becoming aware of that I think for a scholar, for any of us, is really crucially important

Kymberli Cook:

For the few that are still open, when somebody might go to a Barnes and Noble and pick up a book about the Bible, it could very easily be coming from that kind of perspective, and they are learning from it and they're interested, and let's say they did encounter the Bible, just in a very similar way that you did and it meant something to them and they're wanting to go read more about it, they might not be aware that there's this whole different language going on between the two camps.

Stephen Nichols:

You raised such a great point. I hear this testimony of students who go off to a university and study a Bible as literature course, and nine times out of 10 they're going to be reading a textbook by Bart Ehrman, very popularizer of the critical method you've been talking about, and wanting to talk about how helpful the Bible is or whatever the case may be, but not realizing-

Kymberli Cook:

Because it's not denigrating it.

Stephen Nichols:

Right.

Kymberli Cook:

And from their perspective, as far as I understand, they are still trying to elevate scripture or the Bible as important for life, there's a special nature to it that is helpful and worthwhile, and so sorry to cut you off, but I just wanted-

Stephen Nichols:

No, you're exactly right, and not realize that underpinning all of that is this rather unhelpful view of what the Bible is in its essence.

Clint Arnold:

Well said.

Kymberli Cook:

So, why did you all find yourself landing in the other camp?

Clint Arnold:

I'll begin. I started today by describing my conversion and God became very real to me. The book that claimed to be holy seemed very holy, and it made a big difference in my family's life and in my life. And so, I was bent toward accepting it at face value, what it really was. Then, I started studying the Bible and I just had this insatiable desire to get into it deeper and deeper and deeper, and I eventually did doctoral studies, postdoctoral studies, and wrote commentaries, and academic monographs on things and would go five miles deep on very specific things, but it encouraged my faith.

And what I mean by that is I felt like I could go into, for instance, a particular slice of the Book of Acts, that's very historical, look at every available piece of historical evidence and not find anything that contradicted the testimony of Luke and the Book of Acts. On the contrary, finding abundance of historical information of various sorts, inscriptions, papyri, archeological data, literary data, and so on, that illustrated the text. And so, it became even more self-authenticating by diving in more deeply. And so, I came away feeling like, as believers, if we really take this seriously that the Bible is inerrant, it's true in everything it affirms even historically, we have nothing to fear in getting deep into the scholarship, deep into historical study because the more we do, the more we will find out the Bible is accurate.

Kymberli Cook:

Even in some of the more "unbelievable places".

Clint Arnold:

Part of the difficulty is that we will find things narrated in the Bible that we have no way of gathering empirical evidence for that. So, we have to say we just don't have the historical evidence one way or the other on that. We've got things that point and suggest, but we may not have historical evidence for everything that we would like to demonstrate historicity.

Kymberli Cook:

Well, of course, but I guess what I was just trying to summarize is by you saying all of the digging deep actually strengthened your faith even for those parts that can't necessarily be empirically proved because the parts that can be are. It even made it a straight-up reading of scripture all the more believable because of what you found.

Clint Arnold:

That's exactly right. When you think of the Book of Acts or the Gospel of Luke and Luke wrote 25% of the New Testament, if Luke got this correct in certain places, chances are he got it correct in other places. In other words, he was a very careful historian. He was a member of the Jesus movement and thought that the Holy Spirit was real, God was real, and God was moving in amazing ways and it's very inspiring to read. But he was also one who was concerned about getting things accurate, and of course we believed he was moved along by the Holy Spirit to ensure that as well.

Kymberli Cook:

What about you, Steve? Why did you end up landing with your approach to the Bible?

Stephen Nichols:

I've been really enjoying listening to that answer. In many ways, we're sort of venturing a little bit into apologetics here and we think of apologetics for the non-Christian and the unbeliever, I think there's apologetics for the Christian, too, and for the one especially to put it, "Am I a Christian because I grew up in a Christian home? Do I believe in the Bible because I've just known it all my life?" And you want to say, "No, you actually believe this Bible because it's true, it's objectively true." And the thing that I find fascinating about the Bible, especially if you compare it… Because it's not the only book that claims to have divine origin. There are other religious texts out there that make similar claims, but the Bible was written in such a way involved in space and time and almost there's an ordinariness to the… We're talking about the extraordinary-ness to it, but there's also an ordinariness to it of just being in…

Pontius Pilate, he's a mid-level bureaucrat. If he wasn't in the pages of scripture, we wouldn't be talking about him as an historical figure at all, but there he is, and it's almost as if the Bible invites scrutiny. It's not some revelation that's just directly given to one individual and then is written down. It's not some secret language. It's known languages of Greek and Hebrew, and so I find the Bible to sort of welcome scrutiny, and I think we just have to respect that of it. And then once we do scrutinize it, we see that the Bible is unique and we see that it's reliable, and the ergo to that is maybe we should read it, see what its message is, and maybe that message is-

Kymberli Cook:

With the words that it's saying and not necessarily ascribing different meanings to many of the words that are there, just reading what it says. We don't have a ton of time to dig in here, which I would love to because I'm a theologian and this is where I get excited. But do you think it's possible for people to overstep and cling too tightly to scripture?

Stephen Nichols:

You hear this charge and sometimes you hear it from Catholicism to the Protestant view that we've turned scripture into an idol and I don't think so. I think as we come to scripture with that attitude of reverence and awe, we don't worship scripture, we worship the God of scripture, but it is through scripture that we learn to worship God in reverence and in awe. You see the psalmist who speaks so highly of what would be the Pentateuch, back to Leviticus, who just wants to meditate on the word of God, needs the word of God for life. I think that we can have as high a view of scripture as the psalmist does.

Kymberli Cook:

Clint, what would you say to somebody who says that they only gain their truth if they were trying to solve any problem that they would go to the Bible?

Clint Arnold:

In other words, does the Bible address every conceivable issue that I might have? Well, that's an interesting question. If I have tooth decay, I don't know if I'm going to find anything in the Bible about brushing my teeth, flossing, going regular dental checkups. I hope I'm not making anybody feel guilty here. So, there is a sense in which the Bible doesn't address every conceivable topic, but it certainly gives us a framework for addressing all of the major issues of life. Of course, the Bible is mainly concerned about our relationship with God, the problem of our rebellion against God, that maybe we're unwittingly don't even realize that we're living in rebellion against God and that we come to realize that, and then the scripture gives us a solution to that plight that we have. The scripture tells us about the future, scripture tells us about God's plan for the church, but a lot of different things that the Bible doesn't directly address and we wouldn't really expect it to.

Kymberli Cook:

We have talked about the word sufficiency, and I think sometimes that can get passed down through a variety of teachings and it becomes, "Well, that's the only real truth, and we have to look there." Tooth decay obviously is a hyperbolic, but it's not far from some communities that… And so, I think that it's helpful for us to both talk about, yes, absolutely scripture is sufficient, and just like what you were saying, its main concern is these things, but they are broadly, broadly applicable in so many areas of life. So, it's worthwhile to go to scripture, but also recognizing that it itself recognizes its limits. So one last question, and we don't have super long, but what would you say to the person listening about the role that the Bible should have in their daily life?

Clint Arnold:

I'm happy to jump in on that. In reflecting on this and preparing even for today and just reflecting on the topic, I can't think of anything that's had a bigger, more profound impact on my personal life than regular times of reading and reflecting and praying through the Bible. It has just reshaped me, and it's helped me to walk in a way that's more pleasing to God than the way I was raised, and so it works, but it works in a way that leads us into a life that is joyful, with peace, and is something that God will be well pleased with.

Kymberli Cook:

What would you say, Steve?

Stephen Nichols:

There's a lot of noise today, and voices come at us all the time. Who knows what this new era of AI and deepfakes is going to be. We really need that place to stand. We just need that grounding and that foundation and God has revealed to us his word. It's a gift to us it, and we've always needed it. It's always been urgent for Christians to know their Bible and read their Bible and study their Bible, but it really seems like we're coming into a moment where that urgency has taken on just a palpable increased sense. So, where would we be without God's word in our life?

Kymberli Cook:

So, as far as standing firm, like you said, and having a place to stand, what does that look like practically for somebody with the Bible on a Tuesday?

Stephen Nichols:

Well, I think it's good old Romans 12:1-2, "We have our minds are shaped and they're influenced by the world, they're influenced by our sinful nature, and sinful self, and we need to be transformed in our thinking and step by step, day by day we grow in grace as we take advantage of the means of grace and seek to obey God's word in our lives. It's sort of that simple and just that consistent stepping forward in the right direction and growing as a Christian.

Kymberli Cook:

Clint, when you were talking, when you said that it had shaped you, the image that I got in my mind was of like a heavy, long-standing river that has been there for generations and will be there for generations still, but it shapes the landscape and it does so usually not through massive floods or crazy circumstances, though sometimes it does, but mostly it's that day-to-day, consistent, just forward, like you were saying, Steve, forward motion of the scripture. And I think that is something that sometimes I even find myself missing in my daily life if I haven't spent time with the scripture and haven't allowed myself to be daily just shaped by it.

So I hope you, as you are listening, are able to appreciate the fact that that river is deep and it is steady and it is long-standing, and it is something that it is something that you would be very respectable to depend on and to allow yourself to be shaped by. Our time is up, and I want to thank you, Clint and Steve, for joining us for this beautiful discussion about a beautiful book that thousands and millions of people have thought is beautiful and have allowed themselves to be shaped by as well. So, it is an honor to be here with you in that tradition, and thank you for listening. And we would ask that you would subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you are using and that you be sure to join us next time when we discuss issues of God and culture.