Interpreting Scripture

Skye Jethani has provided a list called the Ten Commandments of Scripture Interpretation.

I realise, of course, that in putting this list on a blog aimed primarily at Presbyterians, who are wise in the Word and don't need warnings about the way they interpret Scripture, that I'm preaching to the converted, as it were.

So, for all those people who read this blog who aren't Presbyterians, (those loose-theology Baptists, and wildly-wacky Pentecostals, and tradition-focused Catholics, as well as all the others - I speak with tongue in cheek, in case you didn't notice), I'm putting this list on here for your information.

You may not agree entirely with Jethani's list (one commentator rightly points out that there may be a contradiction between commandments two and four), but I think it has some good reminders for anyone who has to stand up and preach.

Shane Hipps responds

Just to keep you up to date with an ongoing conversation on virtual community that we began several posts ago, in which Shane Hipps said in a videoed interview (shown on the Out of Ur blog) that he didn't think virtual communities were real communities. This was responded to by Scot McKnight a few days later, and since then Hipps has replied, trying to expand on his video interview, in which, rightly, he said he was struggling to get across something for which he only had a few minutes and little preparation.
As he says in the most recent post: First, my language in the video was less nuanced than it might have been in written form. That is my tendency in a spontaneous oral interview. I will try to be more precise here.
As always the comments are full of insights, such as the following from Phil someone:
We are getting so far from the truth that I am finding it hard to believe what I am reading. The Father did not send a book, or a CD, or an article, or a music album, or a recorded sermon: He sent a Person, His Son, and said, "As the Father sent Me, into the world as a person, even so in the same way I am sending you." Paul echoes this: "You know what kind of MEN we proved to be among you." God COMMANDS us to not forsake the assembling of ourselves--not our blog posts or websites or Facebook locations--but ourselves TOGETHER. Church happens with people, together, in His name, where He agrees to come too! When will we get it???

So are we postmodern or not?

It isn't always worth quoting things out of context, but hopefully the following few paragraphs will give you enough of William Lane Craig's argument to get the point. (You can read the whole article: God is Not Dead Yet here.)

...Don't we live in a postmodern culture in which appeals to such apologetic arguments are no longer effective? Rational arguments for the truth of theism are no longer supposed to work. Some Christians therefore advise that we should simply share our narrative and invite people to participate in it.

This sort of thinking is guilty of a disastrous misdiagnosis of contemporary culture. The idea that we live in a postmodern culture is a myth. In fact, a postmodern culture is an impossibility; it would be utterly unlivable. People are not relativistic when it comes to matters of science, engineering, and technology; rather, they are relativistic and pluralistic in matters of religion and ethics. But, of course, that's not postmodernism; that's modernism! That's just old-line verificationism, which held that anything you can't prove with your five senses is a matter of personal taste. We live in a culture that remains deeply modernist.

Otherwise, how do we make sense of the popularity of the New Atheism? Dawkins and his ilk are indelibly modernist and even scientistic in their approach. On the postmodernist reading of contemporary culture, their books should have fallen like water on a stone. Instead, people lap them up eagerly, convinced that religious belief is folly.

Seen in this light, tailoring our gospel to a postmodern culture is self-defeating. By laying aside our best apologetic weapons of logic and evidence, we ensure modernism's triumph over us. If the church adopts this course of action, the consequences in the next generation will be catastrophic. Christianity will be reduced to but another voice in a cacophony of competing voices, each sharing its own narrative and none commending itself as the objective truth about reality. Meanwhile, scientific naturalism will continue to shape our culture's view of how the world really is.

The Truth Project

Focus on the Family's The Truth Project is a direct attempt to reverse the troubling statistic that only 9 percent of professing Christians have a biblical worldview. It's a stunning fact that backs what many believers have already seen and felt-that worldly values are increasingly taking hold and causing havoc among believers.

To help counter this slide of beliefs, Focus on the Family is launching their The Truth Project--a DVD-based small group study that clearly and concretely re-introduces believers to the truth claims of God. Supported by Dr. James Dobson and Christian worldview authorities Ravi Zacharias and Oz Guinness, FOTF believes it holds the potential for exponential change within the body of Christ.

The series is led by an energetic Dr Del Tackett. Tackett is president of the Focus on the Family Institute and Senior Vice President of Focus on the Family. An adjunct professor at New Geneva Theological Seminary and Summit Ministries, he served more than 20 years in the United States Air Force. As a professor, he's taught more than 30 undergraduate and graduate courses at three different institutions, over a 12 year period. He's also an ordained elder in the Presbyterian Church in America.

You can see a trailer of the series here; I recommend the four-minute version rather than the 30 second one, which is cut into such short shots that it's only just comprehensible.

Quote from Albert Mohler

“The same culture that has developed the microwave oven, the CAT-scan, and the vaccine for polio has also produced social pathologies which threaten the very existence of the culture.”

Albert Mohler, in the article, Transforming Culture: Christian Truth Confront Post-Christian America.

Mohler has also published a book just this year:
Culture Shift: Engaging Current Issues with Timeless Truth. Published Multnomah, 2008.
“Thoughtful Christians seeking to engage the culture from a well-informed and thoroughly biblical perspective will find an impressive resource in this new work by R. Albert Mohler. Culture Shift is an outstanding contribution, which I heartily recommend.” David Dockery
“Dr. Albert Mohler brings his intellectual brilliance, moral wisdom, and theological insight together in a book that belongs on the shelf of anyone who is interested in both understanding the shifting sands of morality in our culture and how to deal with it. If you are in that category this is a must read.”
—JAMES MERRITT