The Bible as Principle and the Absence of Logic: A Dangerous Combination
I am sick of hearing "timeless principles being taught from God's word." There is nothing wrong with principles. The right principles are, of course, right. ("Don't spend more than you make" is a great principle.) Maybe I should rephrase the first sentence: I am not sick of timeless principles being taught from God's word. I just hate preachers offering timeless truths they have unmined from the story of Scripture without considering that maybe the "timeless truth" is really their own (lack of?) common sense. When timeless truths need to be unmined from narratives in Scripture, then we usually end up with a form of question begging. For example, I heard ten principles on exponential thinking on a video teaching yesterday, most "mined" from stories. Each one of the principles was fairly uninsightful: Exponential Growth is God's blessing; Exponential Growth is Believing God for Big Things are two that come to mind.
Here's the problem: Detaching ourselves from the actual story of Scripture (the "mining" of principles that is hidden in the story, which apparently serves no other purpose) leaves us unhooked from God's narrative reorientation of all of life--including what his blessing looks like and what God considers big things. Once unhooked, then "Big Things" and "Blessings" can be filled with answers before even questioning what those might look like; in short, the preacher is begging the question--likely without realizing it.
Now, here's why it is dangerous: Alot of preachers are not money-grabbers and greedy. They love people. They love God. They are sincere. And they don't always "fill" the questions they are begging with bad answers. Sometimes they are filled with good answers....but that only makes the bad answer-filling all the worse. Because they are sincere, critical thinking takes a dive because people trust their heart and know that some of the principles the preacher has unmined have been great advice.
Preaching the story of Scripture means that alot more dialogue has to take place. It's alot harder to do. It takes a longer time in terms of years to see change. BUT, there is a greater chance that the change happening is not to the image of the preacher, but to the image of Christ. At least, I hope that's true. Of course, maybe I have just communicated a principle from my personal canon of common sense.
Here's the problem: Detaching ourselves from the actual story of Scripture (the "mining" of principles that is hidden in the story, which apparently serves no other purpose) leaves us unhooked from God's narrative reorientation of all of life--including what his blessing looks like and what God considers big things. Once unhooked, then "Big Things" and "Blessings" can be filled with answers before even questioning what those might look like; in short, the preacher is begging the question--likely without realizing it.
Now, here's why it is dangerous: Alot of preachers are not money-grabbers and greedy. They love people. They love God. They are sincere. And they don't always "fill" the questions they are begging with bad answers. Sometimes they are filled with good answers....but that only makes the bad answer-filling all the worse. Because they are sincere, critical thinking takes a dive because people trust their heart and know that some of the principles the preacher has unmined have been great advice.
Preaching the story of Scripture means that alot more dialogue has to take place. It's alot harder to do. It takes a longer time in terms of years to see change. BUT, there is a greater chance that the change happening is not to the image of the preacher, but to the image of Christ. At least, I hope that's true. Of course, maybe I have just communicated a principle from my personal canon of common sense.
posted by Aaron Perry at
11:05 AM
6 Comments:
i don't know the blogiquette on commenting on your own posts so quickly, but neither do i care. i wonder if i have, to paraphrase kierkegaard, made what would have been true as a whisper into something false by shouting it.
i just commented, but there was an error so maybe it won't show up. It was a decently lengthy comment, but I can sum it up by saying I think broad principles are fine to put on paper so long as they are fleshed out in actual dialogue.
It's hard to put a dialogue on paper, but it's hard (for me) to really ponder something that i can't look at on paper. So principles like that can remind me of what was fleshed out (if, indeed, they were).
like i said, matt, i have no problem with principles. a whole book of the Bible is given to principles. what irks me is the hermeneutical practice of finding principles in all the stories of Scripture.
if dialogue is happening, then a large piece of working through the formation of the self by Scripture is taking place.
amen. teach it.
On a slight tangent, it is getting harder and harder for me to 'preach' w/o interaction/dialogue. Well, not hard I guess, but annoying. I don't really enjoy preparing a sunday morning sermon where dialogue is not welcome.
I find it harder to develop a 25 minute sermon sunday morning than an hour+ bible study sunday night
that's interesting, matt. i have implemented two forms of dialogue around all of my sermons and one form around my sr. pastor's.
form 1: heads up and question to a small group of people in our church who have good insight. i ask for stories that fit the theme of the sermon and/or their thoughts on the text. it's amazing how well people can preach to their own congregation.
form 2: what i call "Monday Morning Remix" where i summarize the sermon and then offer a thought on it--that either pushes or affirms something. i then ask for hte feedback of others. this one has been slow catching on, but hopefully it at least keeps the biblical text on the minds of people alittle longer.
you might like, "Reading in COmmunion" by Steve Fowl and Greg Jones.
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