The theme of this year’s Anglican Evangelical Assembly was ‘Rightly handling the Word of Truth.’ The first speaker was Dr. J. I. Packer who presented the approach to Scripture that had been used in the past by Evangelicals in which the Bible is treated as God’s Word written—the objective revealed truth of God—and men are directed to understand that truth with the help of the Holy Spirit and to apply it to their contemporary situations. That is Dr. Packer’s own position as he had stated it 30 years ago in Fundamentalism and the Word of God. He contrasted it with some contemporary approaches to Scripture.
The other speaker was Dr. John Goldingay of St. John’s College, Nottingham, who spoke on the interpretation of Scripture. He emphasized the diversity and complexity of material in the Bible as coming from the differing standpoints, backgrounds and proclivities of the authors. Also we and the Bible have separate histories and we tend to interpret the Bible from the position we occupy, e.g. middle class, white and protestant. We should not be content with such an interpretation but must open our understanding to truth with wider horizons. We do this, he said, by learning from other interpretations, from liberation theology, from radicals, from the reformers and so on. All this, he supposed, would help us to understand the diversity of Scripture better, for Scripture speaks with more than one voice on many questions.
Dr. David Samuel reported on the Assembly in Cross + Way which is the little quarterly publication of the Church Society (Whitefield House, 186 Kennington Park Road, London SE11 4BT , L1.50 p.a.) . He wrote in the Spring 1986 edition:
“We must point out that the Evangelical approach to the Scriptures has always pre-supposed the objective and unitary nature of God’s Word written, i.e. that the message and truth of the Bible are one message and one truth because it is inspired by the one mind of the Holy Spirit, however diverse the individual human authors and their backgrounds might h ave been. Because of this supernatural element, the limitations and “horizons” of the human authors did not hamper the essential unity and harmony of Scripture as a whole. The new interpretation and approach, put forward at this Assembly and elsewhere, lays greatest emphasis upon the human authorship , its diversity and heterogeneity, with the result that Scripture is fragmented and is often made to speak with several different voices which do not necessarily agree with each other.
“This diversity is compounded when our partial standpoints and horizons are added to those of the authors of Scripture. The corrective that is advocated, viz, seeking to widen our horizons by learning from all and sundry, seems to be a counsel of confusion. Surely, the only proper path to the interpretation of Scripture is to seek the mind of the Holy Spirit who is the true author of all Scripture [2 Tim. 3:16]. If people are conscious of their spiritual condition, they do not approach Scripture, primarily, as middle class, white protestants but as sinners in need of God’s grace. If they come full (i.e. simply as middle class, white, protestants or anything else like that) they will go away empty, but if they come empty (needing Christ and His grace, which is what the Bible is all about) they will go away full.
“If we do not keep before us the view of Scripture as essentially supernatural –inspired by the one mind of the Holy Spirit and likewise interpreted properly only in its true sense by the same Spirit to those whom He enlightens then we shall inevitably get lost in the labyrinth of pluralism that now seems to dominate current thinking on this subject. Would it not be better to acknowledge that the new approach to understanding and interpreting the Bible is radically different and marks a new departure? Its compatibility and continuity with Evangelicalism is nowhere evident.”
Reprinted from the “News and Comment” column of the July, 1986 Banner of Truth, lain H. Murray, Editor.
