Theological Fragments

Last month I wrote about how complicated reading scripture can be: there are language, culture, and literary barriers that can keep us from properly understanding the text. These obstacles can be discouraging—they can make it feel like we’re just not qualified to read and understand the Bible. However, our tradition, the Restoration Movement, is founded on the idea that every Christian can read the Bible for themselves. How can this be if there are so many obstacles before us? How is an average Christian to read the Bible without a seminary degree? Many people read the Bible with a certain approach, which I call “Dragnet” Reading: they’re looking for “just the facts, ma’am. Just the facts.” In Dragnet reading, you take a passage, chop it up, and mine it for the “facts” it contains. When you’ve figured out the facts in that passage, then you can say “This is what the passage means!” and move onto the next passage. For example, someone who is Dragnet-reading might read Leviticus 19:28 (...

"We beasts remember, even if dwarfs forget, that  Narnia was never right except when a Son of Adam was King."   (Trufflehunter,  Prince Caspian ) Last time, I talked about why God created the human race--to rule over the world on his behalf. This, of course, is a radical shift in how most of us were taught to think about the Christian life. We were taught that being a Christian means waiting for Heaven, not taking stewardship of the Earth. This shift in focus begs a question: what exactly is our relationship with creation in Scripture? Last time we looked at Genesis 1:26-28, where God declares that he has created humanity to rule the Earth. There we find God establishing an ecosystem between Heaven and Earth. God created the world, with its plants and animals, and he called it good. God loves his creation--you can see that in God's responses to Job, beginning in Job 38. He creates human beings--physical creatures with spiritual awareness, with the capacity t...