Schenck's Intuitions

Ken Schenck has posted a thought-provoking article on "the default paradigm Christians have with regard to Scripture." He lays out four "intuitions" concerning this paradigm.

1. Some people often link their faith to the version they grew up with.
So a 60 year old who has based his or her faith on the KJV finds it hard not to see modern translations as "cutting things out" of the Bible and thus angrily resisting them. Of course I don't have a problem with them continuing to use the "church's text," which the KJV reflects better than the other modern translations. But a minister should "add on" an understanding of how we got our Bible.

2. Some people have a "what you see is what you get" sense of the Bible. They don't like the suggestion that the "packaging" of the books might originally have been different than what it is. 2 Corinthians looks like a single book to me as it is packaged in my Bible. People get irritated at the suggestion that chapters 10-13 might come from a different letter.

Of course theories like this one are no priority to know whatsoever, even for a minister. But they're nothing to be afraid of either. I think I can preach 2 Corinthians better because I know a pretty good explanation for the sudden and surprising change of tone that takes place at chapter 10.

3. Some people see any approach to the Bible that views the books within a historical process as detracting from its "divinity," its inspiration. So to talk about situations that have affected the perspective, or talk of how Matthew might have edited Mark, or talk of the possibility that John or Revelation underwent stages of development makes it seem too human.

Does a person need to have a sense of historical process to hear God speak through the text? No, but I guarantee you that a good deal of the wild diversity of biblical interpretation comes from the countless ways that people try to create a singular meaning to these diverse texts by ignoring the likely historical processes underlying this text.

4. The Scripture paradigm which ultimately underlies what I'm trying to get out here is the default reading of the Bible as God's word to me--with little or no sense of what these texts originally meant.

So the authors are not authors but God's scribes. He told them what to write to me.

It comes as a cold shock to many faithful Christians to hear that the Bible was not written to them (note the comment from Schenck's colleague, Keith Drury), but to people who lived thousands of years ago. However, having time to digest the thought, it makes perfect sense. Whenever I teach Revelation, for instance, one of the first points I make (after explaining the nature of apocalyptic literature) is that the book begins by declaring, "Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near" (Revelation 1:3).

A book that is meant to be read aloud is a book that is meant to be read, primarily, in community. Revelation was written to a particular community (the seven churches in Asia) at a particular time (during or just prior to a period of intense persecution) for a particular purpose (to encourage the faithful to persevere to the end). Does it still have application for us today? Of course, it does. But are we free to use it to create our own world in which computer chips and bar codes are "the mark of the beast," cobra helicopters are locusts with men's faces, and the Roman Catholic Church is the Great Whore? Such "interpretations" are properly considered beyond the pale because they are not in continuity with the community's historic understanding of the Scriptures. They are, instead, the imaginative concoctions of individuals who have carried the "He told them what to write to me" notion to its logical extreme.