Quote Of The Day

Propositional revelation spells trouble for it takes the heartfelt convicted knowledge of Christ the Lord and the great acts of our covenanting God as marvelous, praiseworthy and celebratory deeds, and replaces it with submissive intellectual assent to authoritative teachings. Instead of preaching being an amazing “Fear not!” announcement of glad tidings woven throughout the older and newer testaments, it becomes academic lecturing. Because it is humanly impossible to wholly eliminate the aesthetic dimension from worship, the hymns and special music provide the back-door individualized sentimental spasm tacked onto the “means of grace”.

And what depressing exercises when propositional revelation dominates theological discussion. Competing sense-verifiable facts inject uncertainty and tension into discussions of Genesis because we have to make sure what can and cannot be maintained against secular biology, geology and astrophysics. By contrast, how very relaxing it would be if we stopped the word play and immersed ourselves within the paragraphs, chapters and whole books to “prove” creation. Instead of declaring by fiat one’s insight into the divine meta-language, or self-confirming one’s method by bad-faith process of elimination, why not turn to the Psalms and Job to understand the Genesis creation?

The consequence of propositional revelation for Bible reading is that the book becomes a bone of contention in God-talk disputations. Gone from our hermeneutics is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob while we waste our time in scholastic pursuits like determining the ipsissima verba of Jesus. It is the yoking of Scripture to an unchristian positivist theory of knowledge and truth that substantiates the charge of bibliolatry. If we search and use the scriptures to reinforce our jots and tittles then our myopia will be too all-consuming for us to point others toward the Lord’s rule.

- Joel Hunter (From: "Can I Have My Bible Back?" at Internet Monk)