belong

As I finished David’s post about what it means to say that we are “a Bible Church” I realized I had my work cut out for me. His post was clear and spot-on really, and I wasn’t sure what I might have to say to add to his thoughts. But the task has been given to me to kick the can down the road so to speak, and so I needed to find some way to consider the Bible as a central component in the life of the church, while moving us forward.

The Challenges of a Bible Church

To say that the Church of God is “a Bible church” seems to point to the reality that in some way there must also be churches that exist that are something different. That’s not to say that they don’t read, teach, or believe the Bible, or that they are unChristian in their approach to scripture. Rather it is simply to highlight that various parts of the global body have been organized differently around this book, and if that’s the case then it seems logical to assume that there are certain challenges that arise from either decision. It would serve us well to consider these challenges. 

So What does the Bible Teach?

Chief among these challenges is the reality that in the 21st century many people have more immediate access to the text than ever. With the advent of the internet, they also have access to countless tools with which to understand the meaning of the text. This can be a blessing, but it brings with it the challenge that every reader can then come to their own conclusion about what the text actually means. How does “a Bible church” handle the fact that in a group of 20 Christians all 20 will likely have a different take on how to understand the text.

This challenge is playing itself out around the world as competing interpretations of key passages of scripture are crashing into each other, but it’s a unique challenge as we consider the Church of God as a movement. Varying opinions among individuals is one thing, but what happens when different congregations within the movement approach scripture differently? Where is there a shared sense of interpretive identity? David mentioned that the Church of God’s historic approach to scripture has meant that we have side-stepped issues such as inerrancy and dispensationalism, but I’m not so sure it has. Certainly its the case that these issues have been of little importance in the past, but as churches have sought to be more educated Biblically they’ve turned to whatever resources were available. Many of these resources are found in Christians bookstores, the largest of which are run by denominations for whom Biblical inerrancy and dispensationalism are central tenants of the faith. As those resources find their way into churches, and people read their Bibles through those lenses, the question of “what does the Bible teach” becomes more difficult.

Some may answer, “Well, forget all that stuff and just read the Bible!” And that certainly does have some appeal. Let’s sit down, read the Bible, and trust what it says. However, as we read the Bible, we quickly realize that much of what it says actually seems rather foreign to us. This is only natural because, well, it is. The Bible is a book that spans two eras, many centuries, and by most estimations was completed nearly 1900 years ago. It was written in a different time, in a different place, to a different people, with a different world view. The fact that so many people do read it and find they’re drawn closer to God is a testament to the active work of the Holy Spirit. Nonetheless, it is possible to sit down and “just read the Bible,” and get stuff wrong. So, we’re back to the same question, “What does the Bible teach?”

…and who gets to decide?

This question has lurking behind it the next challenge for “a Bible church,”  which is “…and who gets to decide?” This has been the question ever since the Bible became more readily available during the Protestant Reformation. When the bible is scarce, and the ability to read it even more so, a shared understanding of the text is simpler. Whatever the priest, or cardinal, or Pope passes down is what the Bible teaches. The Reformers pushed back against the passed down teaching and sought to regain the Biblical teachings that they believed had fallen away from God’s true intent. They were, however, not concerned with undermining the approach that there should be someone who’s role it was to say what the Bible teaches. Calvin’s Geneva is a prime example of the power of one person in interpreting and teaching scripture for a community. But as for the Church of God, whose very existence sprung from a resistance to any sort of organizational hierarchy, such an approach is an abomination.

And so today, we’re left with the dilemma of being “a Bible church” while still struggling to understand what the Bible does in fact teach, and who gets to say.

The role of gravity in orbit.

If we are going to live in the new internet world, we cannot assume that all congregations through even an organization as small as the Church of God will be able to maintain total uniformity. This is simply out as an option, especially if we are unwilling to implement a more forceful, top-down approach to how we live together. We can, however, create something of a gravitational force that holds us all together, despite some of our differences.

The son at the center

To start with, my one quibble with David’s post was with his comment that Christians are to center our lives around the Bible. I would prefer to say that we center our lives around Christ, and that belief is based on the teaching of the Bible. Jesus himself speaks about how he is the fulfillment of the Jewish scriptures, and the whole of the New Testament is the testimony to reality now that Jesus has come, died, rose, and ascended as Lord. The shared identity we have with not only all Church of God believers, but all Christians, is that we have staked our lives on the claim that Jesus is Lord. This not only makes life possible (like the sun at the center of our actual solar system) but it also gives us the light by which to begin to read the pages of scripture more accurately. As churches read and study the Bible through the image of God in Jesus, we get closer to a reading that will bring unity, even in our differences.

The gravity of shared ideas

But this only solves part of the problem, because we still have to understand Jesus properly, and we’re back to Christians and churches deciding for themselves how to do that. How do we hold our views together without imposing imperial rule on congregations?

It is here that our Church of God heritage helps us out. Despite it’s long history of disdain for top-down power structures, the Church of God has never been without a teaching center. In the infancy days of the movement, D.S. Warner and others began to create a force of gravity around lives centered on Jesus by communicating a set of shared beliefs about the teachings of scripture through the publication of the Gospel Trumpet. The movement grew as congregations of people who were moved to faith by the teachings of the Gospel Trumpet were formed. These congregations, while able to sustain their own ministry in whatever shape they felt led, did so around a group of shared Biblical ideas that held them to their center and connected them to one another.

So, what shared beliefs do we have about the Bible today? How do these shared beliefs inform the way we read the Bible? Is there a Church of God answer to “what does the Bible teach?” and if so, “…who gets to decide?” Who’s playing the role of the Gospel Trumpet and communicating these answers? We might be afraid to answer these questions, but if we are going to continue to be a Bible church, it is important that we do the hard work of answering them, and then help Church of God congregations find their orbit around Christ in them.