Laurie Vanden Heuvel, of Chino, California, has pursued special study in the matter of church education. This is her third article in a series on Feed My Lambs. In warning against the so-called “new hermeneutics,” Mrs. Vanden Heuvel calls attention to the following item of special interest: “The Los Angeles Times of May 3, ’76, in an enlightening article entitled ‘Bible’s Accuracy: An Old Debate Reborn,’ quotes at length from Dr. Harry Boer’s Reformed Journal article of March, 1976, placing Dr. Boer on the side of those contesting the inerrancy of Holy Scripture.”

The Feeding

Nutrition was developed as a science in 1780 when Antoine L. Lavoisier discovered that food and oxygen combine in the body to produce energy. Since that time careful studies and experiments have been con· ducted by experts in many professions, home economists, chemists, educators, agricultural researchers, and others. Main nutrients have been classified into groups and a legion of diets have been scientifically contrived to correct every conceivable deficient or unbalanced situation. Tn short, one might say that there has never been a time in world history when men in developed countries have been so carefully and so well-fed physically.

Sadly, on the spiritual side of man‘s nutritional ledger, there seems to be a trend in the opposite direction at least in many churches. While vigorous independent teams and crusades are working round the clock to teach Scripture, insisting that their students master the memorization of countless Scripture texts and passages, the educational agencies of many denominations are debunking doctrinal studies and sermons and telling people that memorization as an educational technique is no longer effective and catechism as an educational process is no longer necessary.

In I Corinthians 3:2 the apostle Paul refers to the “milk” and the “meat” of the Word of God, and the apostle Peter in I Peter 2:2 speaks also of the “milk” of the Word. It is difficult to define with precision which is the “milk” and which is the “meat” of the Word, but one thing is sure: God’s people must he fed; they must be fed with milk and meat which is the “whole counsel” of God; they must be fed in order that they may grow, from spiritual infancy to maturity. So the content of the teaching is vitally important.

Two-truck approach – Traditionally the Christian Reformed Church has approached the teaching of Scripture in two ways. One program, generally called the Sunday School, taught sacred history with an indirect approach to doctrine. The other program called catechism taught basic Christian doctrine according to the pattern developed in The Compendium of the Christian Religion, a brief summary of the historic Heidelberg Catechism.

Despite recent synodical decisions to the contrary, it would seem that this two–track approach is still the most thorough and systematic approach to the Holy Scriptures.

Perhaps one of the failures of the past was the tendency to teach somewhat apart from the context of Scripture. As a result students who are now adults may have received the impression that doctrine was something other than Scripture. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Yet one can understand how students might receive that impression.

Doctrine must be taught within a Biblical context. Memory work answers should contain the direct testimony of Scripture whenever possible. Worksheets should draw students directly into Scripture where they must ferret out these doctrines for themselves. Lesson explanations must reinforce the doctrine being taught with Biblical examples wherever possible. In discussion, questions should solicit not only a feedback of research previously completed, but they should be questions which are structured to discover whether students have the ability to (1) utilize what they have learned and (2) to determine to what extent students value what they have learned.

Perspective of vital importance – In the teaching of sacred history, perspective is of vital importance. It is not enough to teach only dates, names, places, or even events in chronological sequence. The teaching of sacred history must answer basic questions.

It must answer the question – WHAT is the Bible? The Bible is the self–revelation of God.

It must answer the question – WHY has God chosen to reveal Himself in the Bible so that His children may see God’s sovereignty, grace, and design in working out the plan of salvation in which all God’s creation and God’s children become united in Jesus Christ for the ultimate purpose of God‘s glory.

The teaching of sacred history must answer the question – HOW has God revealed Himself in the Bible? God has revealed Himself along three main lines which are distinguishable and yet always intertwined:

1. The sovereignty of God revealed in His working out of redemption, some times even miraculously. In all the literature of Scripture students must see how sovereignly God has planned and guided the events of history to fulfill His purpose so that, for example, the signifIcance of Joseph lies not primarily in his triumph over temptation (though that certainly is a lesson we must glean) but in God’s overarching purpose of preparing, protecting and providing for a chosen people from whom His Son should one day be born.

2. The Grace of God revealed in the history of redemption. Students must see that God in His dealings with His people was a God with a gracious saving purpose. His mighty acts, which did not destroy (except in cases of disobedience) but saved; hence they were acts of grace. Adam was saved out of Eden; Noah was saved from the flood; Abraham was saved from a surrounding idolatrous people; Isaac was saved from the knife; Jacob was saved from the wrath of a brother Esau; Joseph was saved from his plotting brothers; Moses was saved from death in the river; Israel was saved from Pharaoh; David was saved from the spear of Saul and the plotting of his own son; the dispersed tribes of Judah and Benjamin were saved from certain death through queen Esther; Baby Jesus was saved from the knife of Herod. And through it all was the sovereign and gracious guiding of our God to fulfill His divine purpose. 3. The design of God revealed in His covenantal method of uniting His Church to Jesus Christ. Students must see that God, in achieving the whole purpose of redemption, worked with a people whom He called His own. He guided the events of their lives with such precision and love that in many cases He had an answer to their problems all prepared before they even laid their petitions before Him. Students must also see that God’s method is covenantal to this day. Galatians 3:26–29 says: “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Those who become Christ’s by faith, enter into a covenantal relationship with Him and all belong to the family of God. The Church of Jesus Christ is not called a collection of individuals but rather a BODY.

These three unifying themes of Scripture run through all of Scripture—history, poetry, prophecy, wisdom literature. and the epistles. They must be pointed out and stressed and applied in every lesson. This perspective will teach children the (a) progressive development in Scripture and the (b) unity of Scripture from being taught either in (a) isolation from their immediate and overall context or (b) simply for their moral lessons even though those lessons are important and must be applied.

The “new hermeneutics” – This broad perspective is important too because of the point at which we stand in the church’s history. There are theologians among us who are abusing the truth that Scripture is “redemptive history,” that all Scripture “testifies” to Jesus Christ. This abuse is cloaked in the prestigious term called the “new hermeneutics.” The “new hermeneutic” people insist that, since Jesus Christ is the central message of Scripture, the details of Scripture are really irrelevant. They insist for example. that it is irrelevant to the central message of Scripture whether or not the account of creation and the fall is historical in all its details. They maintain that these chapters teach that in the beginning all was “good” and evil sprang up from somewhere but it is not necessary to “press” the language of Scripture and insist that a serpent actually spoke and the woman actually took forbidden fruit. They further insist that the account of Eve being taken from Adam’s side intends only to teach the close-relatedness of man to woman but we must not “press” the details of an actual divine surgery. Along the same lines, they rationalize away as many literal descriptions of Biblical events as they are unable to accept. They claim to accept basic historicity or essential historicity of the Scriptures. By this they mean that they accept basic truths of Scripture but they cannot accept the Biblical narrative as a literal description of the events.

Even when confronted with the fact that Jesus and Paul, for example, in the New Testament, accepted a literal interpretation of Genesis 1–11, they admit that Jesus and Paul did hold to a literal Genesis 1–11 but that Jesus and Paul were not aware of our “modern scientific observations” and hence they cannot help us on this point! And with this basic approach (hermeneutic) they continue to march through the Scriptures, cutting here, slicing there, some at a faster pace than others. Some have already arrived at the historic events of the incarnation and resurrection and they are willing to accept the fact of a nebulous type of a redemption, but are unwilling to press Scripture on the literal description of a virgin birth and an open tomb. Others will not go that far but they do admit that this is where their position must lead them if they are to be consistent.

The new hermeneutics people have a convenient analogy which they like to use to illustrate their approach to Scripture—the analogy of a photograph and a painting. They point out that a photograph is an exact reproduction of the event being photographed while a painting of the same event is an artist’s conception of the event portrayed. They say that the record of Biblical events (and they do not agree on how many and which ones) must be viewed as a painting and not as a photograph. Such hermeneutics obviously ends in a hopeless relativism and subjectivism.

When we speak of the proponents of this new hermeneutical approach we are not talking about the dead and dying liberal churches of America, but we are referring to the spiritual leaders at home and abroad who call themselves “Reformed” and who have already scored telling victories among us. Dr. Harry Boer in his article entitled “The Infallibility of the Bible and Higher Criticism” in the March, 1976 issue of the Reformed Journal is one who reflects the very approach to Scripture which has been described above.

The Los Angeles Times of May 3, 1976, in an enlightening article entitled “Bible’s Accuracy: An Old Debate Reborn,” quotes at length from Dr. Harry Boer’s Reformed Journal article of March, 1976, placing Dr. Boer on the side of those contesting the inerrancy of Holy Scriptures. In another article entitled “Conflict Over Authority of the Bible Heats Up,” in the same issue of the Los Angeles Times, Harold Lindsell, current editor of Christianity Today, founder and former faculty member of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, is quoted from his new book, The Battle for the Bible (Word), “I do not for one moment concede that. . anyone can claim the evangelical badge once he has abandoned inerrancy” (italics mine–LVH). Well—if a theologian cannot even qualify for the broad description of “evangelical” once he has abandoned “inerrancy,” how, for the sake of honesty, can such theologians continue to operate under the banner called “Reformed”? To settle this is the challenge and duty which faces all those in the Reformed community who believe, from the bottom of their hearts, in the absolute “inerrancy” of the Word of God. II Peter 1:21 says, “For no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit.”

For this reason it is absolutely essential in feeding the lambs, that we teach them the whole perspective of a sovereign God who has guided and continues to guide every event of history to fulfill His purpose. We must continue to stress His literal gracious acts in His intimate and loving covenantal dealings with His people from the beginning to the end of the age as well as His judgment to those who refuse to bow. Only then can we build the church.