Church Doctrine and the Bible

David Instone-Brewer

Description

You know the doctrines, but are they biblical? Too often, Christians are content to state a doctrine, list a few supporting Bible passages, and proceed on to the next. But are these doctrines truly derived from the Bible, or are we slotting verses into our pre-determined theological grids?In Church Doctrine and the Bible, biblical scholar David Instone-Brewer applies his expertise in first-century backgrounds and culture to popular Christian doctrines. Peeling away thousands of years of theological development reveals how the Bible's original hearers would have understood these doctrines and helps us resolve some of our doctrinal disputes and misunderstandings. Through this process, Instone-Brewer answers the question, "is this doctrine biblical?"Church Doctrine and the Bible will help pastors, theologians, and laypersons see familiar doctrines with fresh, first-century, eyes. By restoring the revolutionary simplicity of the Bible's teachings, we gain new insights into these doctrines and what they mean for the church today.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Christian theology
• Theology
• Christianity

Informations

• Publié par: Lexham Press
• Date de parution: 13 mai 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781683593775
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Scripture in Context Series
Church Doctrine & the Bible
Theology in Ancient Context
David Instone-Brewer
Church Doctrine and the Bible: Theology in Ancient Context
Scripture in Context Series
Copyright 2020 David Instone-Brewer
Lexham Press, 1313 Commercial St., Bellingham, WA 98225
LexhamPress​.com
All rights reserved. You may use brief quotations from this resource in presentations, articles, and books. For all other uses, please write Lexham Press for permission. Email us at [e-mail] .
Unless otherwise noted, Bible quotations are from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ® . Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Scripture quotations marked ( KJV ) are from the King James Version. Public domain.
Scripture quotations marked ( NRSV ) are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Earlier versions of some chapters in this book appeared as articles in Premier Christianity magazine ( www.premierchristianity.com ). Used by permission.
Print ISBN 978-1-68-359376-8
Digital ISBN 978-1-68-359377-5
Library of Congress Control Number 2020931312
Lexham Editorial Team: Elliot Ritzema, Claire Brubaker
Cover Design: Owen Craft
Contents
Introduction
Doctrines are the church’s conclusions about theology in the Bible. But would its first readers agree with modern doctrines? This book digs into the Bible text to discover whether the original readers would have drawn the same conclusions. This method ends up revitalizing some doctrines and invites revision of others. It even suggests we should reject a few.
1. Finding Doctrine in the Bible Is Difficult
Doctrines summarize what the Bible says on different topics. But how do our conclusions today compare with those of the Bible’s original readers? Understanding what they would have thought sometimes adds depth to our doctrine, but at other times it suggests there are things we have misunderstood.
Section 1:
Doctrines That Divide
2. The Role of Tradition
All churches accumulate traditions—even those that claim to have done away with them! Can they help us to interpret the Bible, or should we challenge some of them like Jesus did?
3. Baptism
Jews baptized themselves every day, so baptism wasn’t something new for the early Christians. However, John changed the Jewish practice completely, and Jesus changed it into an initiation. Today different beliefs about baptism divide the modern church—but these are changing again.
4. Church Governance
Denominations use different systems of leadership, from powerful hierarchies to self-ruling congregations. The Bible isn’t clear about leadership structures in the first churches, but there are some clues.
5. The Rapture
Belief in the rapture arose from a couple of ambiguous prophecies to become a necessary article of faith for many. Perhaps we can’t work out what prophecy means in advance, but then, what is its purpose?
6. Free Will
Do we choose God or does he choose us? We can reason either way from the Bible depending on how we understand certain words. What we believe about free will shapes the way we describe what God is like.
7. Inerrancy
Does the Bible contain contradictions, inexact measures, and perhaps actual errors? And if so, does this mean that the Bible isn’t real history?
8. The Virgin Birth
This doctrine is rejected as mythology, even by many believers. But no Christian would invent a story that makes Jesus illegitimate! This wouldn’t make him appear at all holy or special.
9. Church Divisions
A split occurred in Acts 6 that eventually divided Paul’s churches from Jewish congregations. Paul found a way to minimize the damage. Can we learn from this how to heal our own divisions?
Section 2:
Doctrines That Confuse
10. Prooftexts
Flat-earthers, Christian Scientists, and others support their viewpoints from the Bible but make errors in how they do this. We can avoid similar common mistakes in reasoning.
11. Acts of God
In the Bible, the prophets predicted disasters and used them as warnings from God. Should we regard all disasters as retribution from God? This traditional church doctrine is rarely heard today—for good reasons.
12. Remarriage
The New Testament hardly mentions remarriage, so how can we know what it teaches about this? The key lies in Jewish and Roman regulations, which assumed that most people would remarry. The relative silence in the New Testament is therefore very significant!
13. Original Sin
Augustine taught that babies inherit Adam’s guilt even before they sin—but this was based on a faulty Latin translation of Romans 5:12. So does that mean we aren’t born sinful?
14. Miracles
Jesus said we can ask for whatever we want and that we only need the smallest grain of faith. So why aren’t miracles more common? Some missing words from these phrases provide the key.
15. Prayer
What’s the point of telling God what he already knows or trying to change his mind? In a glimpse behind the scenes, the Bible shows that prayer helps align spiritual forces with God’s will.
16. Omnipotence
How does God achieve his plans? Does he manipulate us like a puppet master, corner us like a chess player, or guide and protect us from evil like a warrior?
17. Providence
Romans didn’t believe that bad things happened by chance—they believed in a goddess called Fortuna or “Luck.” But what does the Bible say about random chance and divine purpose? And how does God work all things for good for his followers?
18. Unforgivable Sin
Jews believed that the sin of blasphemy was unforgivable, and although Jesus took this belief seriously, he also offered a solution. But what does Hebrews mean when it refers to a sinner who cannot be brought to repent?
19. Hell
Jesus taught a great deal about hell as a place where people were tormented, though the Epistles speak mainly about destruction in hell. When he referred to eternal punishment, did this mean torment or destruction—or both?
Section 3:
Doctrines That Matter
20. Trinity
This all-important doctrine can be diminished by simplistic formulae or metaphors, but God is at least as complex as his creation—and certainly more complex than a clover leaf!
21. Sacrifice
Jewish animal offerings were killed painlessly, so the concept of a sacrifice implied a costly gift, not suffering. What did Paul and others mean when they compared Jesus’ death to a sacrifice?
22. Jesus’ Punishment for Sin
Talking about God punishing Jesus might give the impression that God is a cruel father. The Bible says that Jesus bore our punishment, but surprisingly it never actually says that God directly punished him.
23. Redemption
Payments to redeem a kidnap victim or to buy a slave are strange images for salvation, but in Bible times these concepts were regarded very differently from how we think about them today.
24. New Life
What happens when we become a Christian? The images of a new birth and adoption might imply we have no role in this, but what did they mean in Bible times?
25. Repentance
In Jewish theology we must ask forgiveness from those we have hurt before God will accept our repentance. This explains how repentance works in the Bible and why God demands it before forgiving us.
26. Justification and Good Works
No official Christian or Jewish theology ever taught that heaven is a reward for a good life—they all emphasize God’s grace. So why did Paul bother to preach against salvation by works?
27. Saving Faith
The Greek word pistis has a broad meaning, so it can be translated as “faith,” “trust,” or “belief.” What do they each mean? And which one do we need for salvation?
28. Core Beliefs
What do we need to believe to be saved? There are very few essential doctrines, and the list is surprisingly tricky to find in the Bible. But what if you don’t have a Bible to read, so you don’t know any of them?
Conclusions
The three sections of this book have forced me to consider which doctrines are important, which are divisive, and which are so confusing that it is possible we have misunderstood the Bible.
Index
Introduction
Doctrines are the church’s conclusions about theology in the Bible. But would its first readers agree with modern doctrines? This book digs into the Bible text to discover whether the original readers would have drawn the same conclusions. This method ends up revitalizing some doctrines and invites revision of others. It even suggests we should reject a few .
L et me begin this book with a confession: I normally work in biblical studies, which means I don’t usually delve much into theology or church doctrine. This might sound strange, but like every academic discipline, biblical studies and theology are becoming more specialized as knowledge grows. (After all, an expert is someone who knows increasingly more about increasingly less!) The separation between theology and biblical studies has become problematic, because theologians are sometimes tempted to ignore the Bible, and biblical scholars feel that theology isn’t always grounded in the text. For example, when Wayne Grudem planned to base his Systematic Theology on the Bible, some of his fellow theologians derided the idea and tried to dissuade him. Fortunately, he ignored them.
The difference between theology and biblical studies is similar to that between theoretical and practical physics. The practical physicists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research break up atoms to discover the building blocks of matter. The theoretical physicists at the same institution try to build a theory to explain all the particles that have been discovered. But what if they found a theory so beautiful and simple that they decided to ignore any further discoveries? They might decide that the atom is made up of protons, neutron