Sola Scriptura, Part 4

Investigating Christian Truth-Claims

Run this Graphic before EVERY show this year:

This program is being presented in an effort to investigate all Christian truth-claims by comparing them with a contextual understanding of the Bible and its original intent. We are not interested in supporting or promoting any tradition, person, practice, culture, or denomination that stands contrary to this reasonable and contextual approach to scripture. Nothing is so sacred that it is exempt from scrutiny. Nothing so popular and accepted that it won’t be discarded if found wanting and unreasonable. This is Heart of the MatterTGNN’s original show where Shawn McCraney deconstructed religion and developed fulfilled theology. . . . where we make every effort to worship God in Spirit and Truth.

Show 12 438 Sola Scriptura – part IV
March 24th 2015
Live from Salt Lake City, Utah
This is heart of the Matter
Where we do all we can to try and worship God in Spirit and in Truth.

I’m your host, Shawn McCraneyFounder of TGNN and developer of the fulfilled perspective—calling people to faith outside of religion..

A Special Event with Matt Slick

Remember, May 5th, right here in the HOTM Studio we’re going to have Five Point Calvinist Extraordinaire and founder of CARM – Matt Slick in the house to teach us what Calvinism really is, and what it's not. Now listen – if you have watched the show for any length of time you are well aware of my utter disdain for Calvinism. I frankly place it on the level of Mormonism theologically – which I know is really stepping out there but I find the tenets so repulsive to what I read in the Bible I want to be honest about my view. Nevertheless, ANY Calvinist who claims the Gospel is my brother in the Lord.

And for me, one of the great benefits of having brother Slick here with us is to illustrate this – as well as learning from him where we have gotten things wrong. So, again, that’s Tuesday, May 5th – a two-hour Heart of the Matter special with Matt Slick of CARM.

And with that, how about a moment from the Word?

RUN INTRO FROM THE WORD here please.

The Impact of World Views

I mention this frequently but whatever world view a person has adopted in their life will color the way they not only see the world around them but how they interpret and understand scripture. It is one of the oddest realities I have ever seen in the human experience and it explains why Catholics see Catholicism in scripture, and Mormons see Mormonism, and Calvinists see Calvinism. I’m while people often receive what they are looking for in the study of life and scripture seekers of God in Spirit and Truth seem to relentlessly pursue Him until they reach the end of the rainbow – or the summit of the mountain, so to speak.

We might liken this reality in life to the world population getting in a giant bus and traveling along a road and on coming upon a strip bar (and all that such a place includes) some get off the bus and make a place their permanent residence. Others wait until we arrive at an old motel and stay there for the rest of their lives – after all, it does have a roof and vending machines and a small swimming pool and they don’t have to work very hard to stay. There are those who will disembark at the most attractive amusement parks others get off at national parks, you name it, we all sort of make our home where we want to live and not only make where we land the focus of our lives, we begin to see life through the lens of our respective choices.

Perspectives on Gospel Mountain

Some see life through sports, others through participation in service clubs, careers, academia, science, politics. Others wait to get off the bus until they have climbed into the hills of philosophy. And some may climb into the mountain range of religious truths which all provide different vistas and world views depending on how they are situated.

As a Christian, I would strongly and emphatically suggest that “Gospel Mountain is akin to the Everest of all human perspectives but even this singular mountain provides different vistas – depending on where each climber stops and makes camp. Gospel Mountain is home to hundreds of trails with names like EschatologyStudy of “last things”—TGNN teaches all biblical eschatology was fulfilled in 70 A.D. More ridge, Soteriology path, The Hamartiology switchback, Cosmology, and Ecclesiology, and all of these trails lead to some main and popular campsites including Camp Calvin, Camp Arminian, Camp Catholicism, and Camp Baptist. And of course, there are countless smaller sites covering the face of Gospel Mountain.

Are all camping on the same mountain? You bet they are. Can one camp claim to see heaven better or understand earth life better than another? They do . . . but all they are really doing is seeing heaven and earth differently.

From the time we started our journey there

Subjective Summit: A Higher Perspective

There is only one destination that has the best view of heaven and the broadest view of earth – it’s called “Subjective Summit.” But it is so difficult to get there, and so fraught with trials and temptations to quit and just make camp at the lower elevations, people don’t want to believe reaching it is possible or worth it. So they settle for seeing everything from a lower elevation, from a camp that is teeming with like-minded people, from a camp that seems best… only because they have been too fearful or tired to climb on.

Understanding Our World View

What is your world view and what forms it? What have you made your home and what have you allowed to color your understanding of scripture? I am going to now read from 1st Corinthians chapter 3 verses 1-11 now. I’m not going to give any commentary on it. When I’m done we are going to go right into prayer and the rest of the program. But as I read what do you think you are hearing? What do you think scripture is saying to you? Most importantly, how have the things you have been taught (and the camp you are in) colored the words you will now hear?

1 And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ.
2 I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able;
3 for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?
4 For when one says, "I am of Paul," and another, "I am of Apollos," are you not carnal?
5 Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one?
6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.
7 So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.
8 Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor.
9 For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, you are God's building.
10 According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it.
11 For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

And with that let’s have a word of prayer.

PRAYER PRAYERPRAYERPRAYER PRAYER PRAYERPRAYERPRAYER

The Topic of Subjective Christianity

Okay, we are talking about Subjective ChristianityA direct, personal relationship with God—free from institutional authority, guided by personal relationship, faith and agape love. being the only viable solution to the mess Christianity has been in (and continues to be in) relative to denominationalism, division, and dogma. We have been trying to explain why the teaching of Sola Scriptura (the Protestant teaching that the scripture alone will establish the rule of faith for the body) is a fail and we have given the following reasons over the past two weeks:

• Jesus never wrote anything nor commanded that His apostles write anything but instead told them to “preach and teach.”
• If there has ever been a time when the New Testament was needed it was in the first 100-300 years of the church if Sola Scriptura was so important. But God didn’t provide the word to His people then – instead He gave His Holy Spirit.
• That the Holy Spirit has always served to unify and bring all true believers together – never to divide. But Sola Scriptura has done more to divide and ostracize and kill in the church than almost any other tenet.
• The logic of Sola Scriptura in the face of world-wide literacy rates makes little sense.
• In Christianity we weigh out principles and compare what is good. To weigh physical realities of one church against another would not only be tough it would be an appeal to things of the flesh rather than things of the Spirit. Therefore the church is based on spiritual things not physical.
• That believers are the epistles of Christ – “Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.”
• That the Letter killeth but the Spirit gives life- 2nd Corinthians 3:6: “Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament;

The Impact of Sola Scriptura

“Not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”

• Because due to the concept of, The Utter Allure of the Tangible, the Spirit – not personal opinion of scripture – leads the church.
• That sola scriptura inadvertently creates a spirit of domination that causes people to claim, “We know more than you.”
• (And finally) Sola Scriptura sets seekers of truth on an endless journey to discover which religious approach is true – who has it all right – rather than rely on the Spirit to lead.

Before we get into the actual creation and compilation of the New Testament and its availability to the masses, there are a few more considerations that must be approached.

The Christian Approach to Scripture

Number 11

We often find ourselves as Christians saying things like:

“The Bible is inerrant, the Word of God and is completely reliable.”

I think these proclamations are true – the original mss are inerrant, it is inspired, and the Bible can be relied upon to teach us all the things God wants us to know when it arrives by the Spirit. The trouble with these blanket statements is they are either taken so zealously or so flippantly it’s hard to know how to apply these statements to our study of the Bible. Let me give you an example.

If we take the Gospel accounts of the last supper this is a summary of the information provided to us:

• Jesus sent two – Peter and John – to go and prepare the Passover.
• They asked Jesus where to prepare and Jesus tells them, “Behold, when you have entered the city, a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water; follow him into the house which he enters.”
• He tells them "Then you shall say to the master of the house, 'The Teacher says to you, "Where is the guest room where I may eat the Passover with My disciples?"
• Jesus says, "Then he will show you a large, furnished upper room; there make ready."
• So they did and prepared it.
• And in the evening Jesus and the rest showed up to eat.
• There was wine, bread, certainly other foods including a sauce made with raisins, dates, and garlic.

Got all that? So, we now do communion in church – I mean most Christian churches hold some sort of communion. I want to know if:

• We are supposed to have two prepare it?
• If it has to be in the city?
• If the place we do it has to be owned or run by another person?
• Who bears a pitcher of water when we find him?
• If we have to ask Him where the location is of the room he has for our Passover to be held?
• If the room has to be upstairs?
• If the room has to be furnished?
• If we are supposed to eat it in the evening?
• If there should be wine, bread, certainly other foods including a sauce made with raisins, dates, and garlic.

Now, obviously this is an extreme approach . . or is it? I mean we do say that we take every single word as being inspired and we actually claim to use the Word to establish how we worship and do church so is it so extreme? Shouldn’t we do things exactly how Jesus did them? If you say we can skip SOME of the elements WHO decides which? And if we say, we use reason to be our guide I would respond with, Such reason has produced tens of thousands of denoms that have divided over such things. Again, the only solution is such things are entirely subjective and therefore do not matter.

The Evolution of Christianity

Number 12

We have to note that Christianity did NOT spring forth fully formed either. It changed, swayed, morphed, and literally shifted focuses over the course of its existence! We pick on the LDS for the shifts of focus in their faith but the Body is guilty of nothing less. The reason for the shifts is the Holy Spirit moving (often in opposition to man). And this is okay. But the Sola Scriptura stance automatically suggests that we have a manual and therefore stasis is the goal.

Number 13 is to take a very important passage from Hebrews and point out that it ironically has two sharp edges. The passage is Hebrews 4:12 and says:

“For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

I hail the positive truths this passage represents and use it to show

The Word and the Spirit

The great import the Word has in the lives of believers. But at the same time I would suggest that if taken wrongly, and abused and misused, that when it comes to individuals and congregations that “the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” Think about it.

Number 14

Have you ever notices that the Holy Spirit has remained available and unchanged but the Manuscripts for the Word have not…that we don’t even have ANY of the original manuscripts? Defenders of Sola Scriptura will say things like: “That’s because God wants us to live by faith.” I would suggest that its because God wants us to place our focus and emphasis on the Spirit and use the Word referentially.

Spirit and Material in Faith

Number 15

Have you ever considered that God so loved the World that He sent us His Only Begotten Son and that His Son was all God (spirit) and all Man (material)? And that after His Son ascended into heaven that God sent the Holy Spirit and the Written Word – another manifestation of Spirit and the material? If you have let me ask you – Did Jesus want to be known by His flesh or by the Spirit that was in Him? Was His flesh impervious to being misunderstood? Absolutely. How about His Spirit? Not by the Spirit.

So in this age of Spirit and material word we have our rule of faith – by the same elements that had precedence in our Lord and King. We certainly recognize that He was in the flesh but it is His Spirit that made Him different from every other human being on earth.

Love Over Legalism

Number 15

God has called us to be “lovers not lawyers.” Throughout scripture we read things like: “Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.” 1st Corinthians 8:1. 1st Corinthians 13:2 “And though I…understand all mysteries and all knowledge…but have not love, I am nothing.” 1st Corinthians 1:22-23 says: For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness.

Did you know that scripture – the New Testament – was originally written as prose. That the manuscripts were one long bunches of paragraphs. That’s how they were written. If we would have received them in this way and read them in this way today we would have had an easier time of seeing the “big picture” of the narrative. So what happened? Men broke them up into chapter and verse – which was a VERY Greek, and a very legal way to read. Ever read a legal document – they have 28 numbers at the left of a double line. Why? Logic. Reasoning. For argument.

When the New Testament was put into chapter and verse it accomplished the same thing. Instead of reading the Zeitgeist of the word we started to use it to argue and tear and bite and divide. The spirit says no but men, loving to be right, have become lawyers instead of lovers.

Number 16

For number sixteen I am going to appeal to our overhead to give you an extended example of number 15. This is yet another fail of Sola Scriptura: (USE PAPER)

The Complexity of Language

One final thought – Number 17

The study of language is VERY complex. If you disagree read Wittgenstein or Chomsky, or Jacques Derrida. In addition to seeing the world around us from our particular chosen vantage points we also, due to fear and laziness and simplifying matters take very complex matters and assign them simplicity so we can cope. So if the Bible says this, I believe it, and that’s all there is too it, right? In the dogmatic mind of the zealot maybe but I am not always so convinced.

Let’s take a word from the Bible as an example – beauty. To begin with, when we hear or read a word, we all take the term into our minds and it enters into our soul after being filtered by our experience, our education, our temperament, even our mood and hormones (at the time). Additionally the individual’s intelligence also plays a role into how they will interpret and understand and approach the word. It is interesting but when we read it is a singular event. We do it ourselves. Alone. And are left with just the singular words, strung together into sentences, and forming paragraphs and all we have is our own series

Challenges of Scriptural Interpretation

Can you see why Sola Scriptura is such a fail and we have so many denoms, sects, doctrines, and dogmas which all serve to divide the body that should be one?

The Catholics would take this thought and say, “That’s right, Shawn, and this is the reason why we need men called and ordained of God to clarify and teach the Word because it is NOT open to private interpretation.” But what has this approach given us? Doctrines and practices like transubstantiation, a perpetual virgin named Mary and priest who don’t marry (and as a result run into all sorts of issues). So men in authority overseeing and creating doctrinal interpretations haven’t done it. Sola Scriptura has certainly failed.

The only way to approach the Word in the Christian setting is to combine the two elements and add a third. What do I mean?

Combining Elements of Interpretation

We take the Word and those who have been blessed by God to teach it teach it – to the best of their ability. The word is presented into the subjective minds of all listening and they, hopefully by the Spirit discern what is true, discard what they believe is not, and allow (this is key) for everyone around them to have whatever opinion they want.

So, let’s get back to that word beautiful before we open up the phones. It isn’t used much in the New Testament – four times I think – but here’s one:

Romans 10:15
How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things.

One group of people may read this literally, and think of the actual feet of preachers being beautiful. Of that group there are those who think beautiful feet would be pedicured and lotioned and soft. Others may think the feet are tough and apostle like. Some may envision male feet, some female. In the study of beauty the Greeks taught that we could categorize them as having proportion, symmetry, balance, and harmony. But we also have the fact that beauty IS in the eye of the beholder, is it not?

I mean I personally cannot think of a more beautiful human being physically that Jesus and I have never seen Him and Isaiah says that He had not beauty. In fact, when it come to the beautiful things in this world I find the broken, and weathered, and old, and decaying things in the material world far more beautiful than the new, contiguous, or balanced. There will then be a group that will believe the beauty feet is to be seen metaphysically – as in God sees those who he sent, with them moving their feet to go out, as beautiful in his eyes. Beautiful feet in this case represent sacrificial feet, feet that represent the heart of those seeking to please God.

Different Interpretations of Beauty

There will be a group who might include elements of either of these perspectives into their observation and interpretation of beautiful feet but who will also consult other scripture and recognize that this may be an example of a Hebraism or phraseology taken from the Jews. They may read Adam Clarke’s commentary which says:
Dr. Taylor remarks on this quotation, which is taken from Isaiah 52:7 that "feet are variously used in Scripture, and sometimes have respect to things internal and spiritual.” For as the life of man and the practice of piety are compared to walking (Psalm 1:1) so his feet may signify the principles on which he acts, and the dispositions of his mind. Ecclesiastes 5:1 says, “Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God.” Agreeably to this, the feet of the messengers in Isaiah and of the apostles in this verse, may signify the validity of their mission-the authority upon which they acted, and any character or qualifications with which they were invested."

Some will read the Greek and discover that the Greek words for beautiful feet are Horaos (meaning “belonging to the right season” “flourishing” and or “beauteous.”) and “pooce” which means foot and then retranslate the two words to meaning:
“How flourishing is the foot”
OR
“How belonging to the right season is the foot of them.”

Got all that – and there IS more. But here’s the deal – EVERYONE is entitled, according to their faith, their intellect, their world view, their tastes, their understanding, and the Spirit working on them to understand and see these two words as they want. They will anyway.

Sola Scriptura says that scripture defines everything but that scripture is of no private interpretation.

The Gospel's Unifying Solution

And these two claims – when applied to human beings – is a recipe for division. The ONLY ONLY ONLY solution is for Christians to patiently, lovingly allow and enjoy all views – WHATEVER is being discussed – so long as the Gospel has been agreed upon:

1. That the world was separated from God because of sinMissing the mark of faith and love—no punishment, just lost growth or peace..

2. That God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son to save it.

3. That He was born of a virgin.

4. He lived a sinless life.

5. He was wounded for our transgressions.

6. Put to deathSeparation from God—now overcome. Physical death remains, but it no longer separates us from life with God. on the cross.

Core Beliefs

7. Rose again on the third day.

8. Ascended into heaven.

9. Is the author and finisher of our faith?

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