Hi friends!
A few days ago, my Facebook news feed presented me with a link to an article on Relevant Magazine’s website entitled “5 Things I Wish Christians Would Admit” and I thought it was a most interesting article, so I shared it. Last night, one of my friends commented on my post with a link to another article that she found, this one a direct counter to the original, and she asked me for my opinion of it. I took a look at it, and now I’m sitting here writing this blog post. Needless to say, this is gonna be a long one, so gird up your loins and hold on tight.
DISCLAIMER: I’m not a Bible scholar or theologian. I’ve not had years of seminary to prepare me for this post. I certainly do not suppose that I know it all. These facts do not disqualify me from this conversation, though, and I have managed to learn a thing or two in my 20 years on this earth. Also, I suggest reading both articles before continuing.
Half of the reason why I don’t like Dean’s counter-argument is because I don’t like the tone he adopts. Though, from skimming the rest of his blog, it would appear that it is simply his style of argument. It isn’t super effective, but whatever cooks your chicken, I guess. Secondly, much of his argument is spent criticizing Mr. Pavlovitz’s word choice. This is a reasonable approach because, indeed, the way you say something is just as important as what you say. But at the end of the day, it only left me with a long list of ‘problems’ and not very many solutions. I really could go on and on, but that isn’t my point in writing this piece. I am in search of truth, and I believe both articles offer insight into the truth. [I also think Mr. Dean should see a doctor, because it is apparent that his panties are very tightly bunched, and he may need some help taking care of that.]
1. The Bible Isn’t a Magic Book
As Mr. Dean fairly pointed out, this is a bit of a misleading title for the claims made within the paragraph. That doesn’t discredit the validity of the claims. It is important that we approach the Bible and its contents with contextual appropriateness in order understand most fully what we are reading. In the same way that I have found myself in many a hilarious (and awkward) situation by overhearing a fragment of a conversation and completely misunderstanding it due to my lack of contextual information, we can misunderstand the Bible if we don’t know what’s going on in any particular passage. The Bible, made interesting (I’m using this word very loosely here, and you will understand what I mean by it in the rest of the sentence) by the various writing styles and genres it encompasses, tells the beautiful overarching story of God’s love for us, and this is ultimately the most important thing about it.
2. The Bible Isn’t as Clear as We’d Like It To Be
Again, as Mr. Dean got a bit nit-picky about, this title has some underlying nuances which could ruffle some people’s feathers (and it has). But again, the statement itself is true: the Bible isn’t always perfectly clear. This is, as Dean pointed out, at least partially due to the fact that we as fallen creatures aren’t always successful in interpreting it correctly, which brings us back to the idea of context (please note: I’m not saying that by perfectly understanding the context of a passage that we will always perfectly understand it. Sometimes we just straight-up don’t get it). On the other hand, as Mr. Pavlovitz notes, the Bible can sometimes seem unclear because of apparent contradictions contained within. His illustration of Old Testament commandments contradicting (in and of themselves) Jesus’ New Testament commands is a good example of this. But like Pavlovitz says and explains, it doesn’t diminish the Scriptures. The good news is that God didn’t simply drop the Bible from the sky and say “Okay guys here ya go, read this. You’re not allowed to ask me any questions about it if you don’t understand something. I’m gonna go take a nap now.” We have the freedom to approach Him with our doubts and concerns about it, and in doing so we have received real clarification.
3. The Bible Was Inspired By God, Not Dictated By God.
I don’t really want to address Mr. Dean’s issue with this section, largely because his greatest issue appears to be with the notion of ‘free will’. I could sit here all day proving the existence of free will and combating Dean’s arguments regarding it, but because I hope to be able to take a nap this afternoon, I’m not even going to touch the topic.
However, it is important to mention that Dean is right in believing that we need to be careful of how we understand the phrase ‘inspired by God’ and, may I suggest also, the phrase ‘dictated by God’. There is no denying that the biblical authors were divinely inspired. The consistency of the Bible’s overarching important message would dissolve if this were not the case. And Pavlovitz is right in saying that the authors didn’t become mindless zombies transcribing word-for-word what God stood in front of them and said. We should not take this to mean that the Bible doesn’t include any words that proceeded from the mouth of The Lord, because, as anyone who has read the Bible will tell you, this just isn’t true. I really could say a lot more regarding this, but because I have the attention span of a six-year-old hyped up on Pixie Stiks and Mountain Dew, I’ll lose my train of thought and start to ramble, so I think I’ll leave it at that.
4. We All Pick And Choose The Bible We Believe, Preach and Defend.
C’mon guys, let’s be honest, this is so true. We’re all guilty of ‘cherry-picking’ the Bible. What exactly we choose to uphold varies based on our own individual experiences, our cultures, our friends etc. Perhaps the reason we do this is because we’re uncomfortable with what certain passages say on the surface. I know that there are certain passages that I’m uncomfortable with. Maybe we don’t understand what the passage is really getting at, and if we did our problems with it wouldn’t exist. I dunno. It’s a hard pill to swallow. At least for me it is. I’ve met people like Mr. Dean who will say “suck it up, princess, that’s just how it is.” Maybe we’re all missing something. We wouldn’t be so neck-deep in arguments back and forth if we weren’t. I’ll be the first one to admit that I suspect there’s ultimately more to the story, a big picture that God is trying to get us to see. My mom would say that the ‘big picture’ is grace, and I don’t doubt that at all (my understanding of grace is incomplete, and I’m in the process of wrapping my head around it. But that is another story for [maybe] another day).
5. God Is Bigger Than The Bible.
I think this is something that we all need to remember. Pavlovitz’s description of how the Bible points to God is accurate, and I’m not going to nit-pick and “read between the lines” like Mr. Dean does to uncover all the “gaps” in it. But the point of it all is that God is super great and super big. We as humans have tried using all the ways we know how to describe how incredible God is, but the fact of the matter is that we will never truly be able to capture it all. Our human methods are inadequate. Yet because it’s all we’ve got, we make do and use them to glorify Him. I wouldn’t think that God expects us to do any differently.
I suck at conclusions, guys, so please bear with me.
We Christians suck at a lot of things too, huh? Especially regarding Scripture. Hermeneutics will forever be an issue, and arguments are bound to ensue. But we’re all after the same thing: correct understanding of The Bible and how we ought to apply its teachings. And hey, we haven’t failed miserably at it! I’m really thankful that God didn’t leave us to fend for ourselves in this regard. He gave us intellect which we should use, and He gave us Jesus to bridge the gap that sin made between us and Him. The best we can do, I suppose, is take our doubts and concerns about the Bible to Him.
honeyandthebrie 
My last name is “Deal” not “Dean” :p And in this reply I am not angry; this is just how I process and respond to those that criticize me. Don’t read attitude into this, I’m just having fun in my spare time here.
Introduction:
“But at the end of the day, it only left me with a long list of ‘problems’ and not very many solutions.”
What solutions are you referring to? What must I solve? I indicate in my post that that apparent problems that Pavlovitz poses are either not problems at all, or are really just pious excuses he makes to not receive Biblical criticism and instruction. He attempts to relativize doctrine by claiming that scripture is unclear, and therefore he feels justified for disregarding Biblical instruction when anyone attempts to correct his relativistic, and heterodox (if not heretical) perspective.
1. Saying that he carelessly uses the word Magic “doesn’t discredit the validity of the claims.”
I demonstrated that this first point is vacuous, since no professing Christian on this planet refuses to “admit” that the Bible is composed of many books. He criticizes an opposes an imaginary demographic, and therefore this first claim isn’t valid, so I actually do discredit his claim.
2. This is not nit picky. Opposing the perspicuity of scripture is a denial of sola scriptura, the sufficiency of scripture, and the Protestant Reformation. If a person begins with the assumption that scripture is not clear, then people search for revelation elsewhere: in the pope, in feelings, in mysticism, in arbitrary opinions, or in any number of other subjective mediums. Therefore, to deny that scripture is generally clear leads us to false teaching and the denial of the Gospel. Erasmus made this same claim and Luther responded to it. Here is Luther’s Bondage of the Will, and reading around section 35 will show what an evil claim it is to say that scripture is unclear, since it results in the denunciation of what scripture says about itself and what Christ says about it: http://www.truecovenanter.com/truelutheran/luther_bow.html
Also, if scripture is unclear then we have no coherent questions to ask God about. Asking questions about scripture to God assumes that the Bible is intelligible enough to provoke questions. Pavlovitz incorrectly places blame on scripture by citing those passages instead of explaining that those issues have a very obvious answer once we study enough. But obviously is scripture is unclear then it is useless to study it.
3. He doesn’t address the fact that 2 Peter 1 claims that no prophesy is ever a result of an individual’s private interpretation or will. God controls people’s wills when they prophesy, and the Holy Spirit lead the wills of the writers of scripture. And Paul says that God works in believers to will in Philippians 2:13. Pavlovitz uses a common assumption of free will, even though the Bible doesn’t teach it, in order to oppose true Biblical inspiration while pretending that he is opposing an aberrant view. But either way he isn’t quite specific enough, so his message is too mushy to know for certain if he does this on purpose, or if he even knows what he is claiming.
4. I wasn’t saying that no one picks and chooses; people who believe in free will, for instance, pick and choose. What I mean to say is that he says this in order to disregard ANYONE that has the audacity to claim to know the meaning of any text of the Bible. He claims that picking and choosing would be like someone quoting John 14:6 to prove that Jesus is the only way of salvation. Quoting and positively applying specific verses to our lives is not picking and choosing because he doesn’t prove that quoting one verse necessarily negates another. Since we are finite we can only have a certain amount of knowledge at any given time, and therefore we make mistakes, but this doesn’t mean that all Christians purposely utilize picking and choosing as a hermeneutical methodology. That’s fallacious and patently false. However, even if this was the case, I would be able to disregard his claims about the inspiration of scripture since he himself claims to pick and choose. If Pavlovitz picks and chooses, then his interpretation of the Bible isn’t true, and therefore we don’t have to listen to anything he says since he admits that he is wrong. It’s ironic.
5. “I think this is something that we all need to remember.”
I point out that no one claims that the Bible is God so this 5th point is wildly irrelevant and unspecific. “We as humans have tried using all the ways we know how to describe how incredible God is, but the fact of the matter is that we will never truly be able to capture it all” wasn’t the point he was making. His only meaningful point was that the Bible isn’t God (metaphorically described as the ocean) which no one claims. Honestly I have no idea with anyone thinks that article is profound. It is either vacuous, an attack on the sufficiency of scripture, or is unspecific and meaningless.
In Christ, Blake Deal. (Notice the “Deal” part and not the “Dean.” My last name is Deal :p)
Lol, sorry for getting your last name wrong! I totally saw on your blog where you had said the same thing to someone else, and I still completely screwed it up. Sorry!!
Thanks for taking the time to read this. As you would have noticed, I didn’t address every single one of the points of your argument or Pavlovitz’s, simply because that isn’t what I was trying to do. I was taking both articles and seeing what indisputable truths we can draw from both of them. You get into super detail about certain things, and neither I nor Pavlovitz do, probably for the sake of being short and to the point. When doing so, one can hardly cover all the bases in order to ensure that there is no misunderstanding.
One more thing, I don’t think the generalizations made by Pavlovitz were intended to say that ALL Christians do this or that, because as you said, that’s hardly fair.
It’s hardly fair for you to defend him when he really does make these grand generalizations. He said “each time” meaning every time someone corrects another with scripture, that they are engaged in hypocrisy. We can never obey Paul’s command to exhort one another to good works and good doctrine if we have no capacity to know good doctrine. Pavlovitz merely attacks our ability to know anything about the Bible, since he thinks anything that anyone says is hypocritical or a result of picking and choosing. If this really were the case, Pavlovitz shouldn’t be talking about the Bible, since talking about the Bible automatically makes him a hypocrite, by his own twisted standard. I’m sorry but his article is not worth the metaphorical paper he typed it on :p