The Canon of Scripture

[Guest]

2 Timothy 4:13 When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments.

Were these words inspired by God? Or were they just a simple request Paul made of Timothy?

Do they have a deep spiritual meaning to the spiritually discerning?

I've thought of this passage as well when it comes to issues surrounding inspiration and inerrancy, etc. If one would be strict about it, it would mean God really wanted us to know that Paul needed his winter coat and his notebooks (?). Would this be to show us Paul is "like" other people (the rest of us) who may need a warm jacket when it's cold outside? and who might forget or need some of our notes or notebooks?

This sounds kind of silly to me.

Rather, I see in the Bible a wide variety of types of literature which also includes "personal notes" as we see in this text. I doubt that God "decreed" that we had to know Paul needed his stuff or that there is any special spiritual inner-meaning to the fact that he did, lol

The Bible is a human and a divine product and needs proper interpretation, imo. Here's a statement I've used on the Bible:

"The Bible is the record of those who experienced the God of the Bible; and then, they wrote about it."

What I think anyway,
Rick

[Guest]

P.S., Paidion,

How do you define verbal inspiration? (and were you referring to plenary (full) verbal inspiration)? To me the inspiration of the Bible means that the words are inspired by God (though "personal notes" like above don't exactly fit into this inspired category). "Personal notes" don't take away from or add anything to the divinely inspired sections of Scripture. This might make me sound like a "liberal" but I feel the old modernist Liberals Vs. Fundamentalists "inerrancy & inspiration" debates are basically, quite outdated. Also, I suppose I don't believe in "plenary" inspiration but this is no threat to my faith or belief in what the Bible says (some fundamentalists might ask if I think descended from a monkey at this point, lol) <sigh>

Put another way, just because I don't see Paul's personal notes or greetings (like in Romans 16) as "divinely inspired"...they don't go against, and do not contradict, the obvious inspired (teaching, prophetic, etc.) sections in the Bible either, lol

I don't need a "wooden standard" in order to believe what the Bible says (though I have been accused of being a liberal, bless their hearts)....

I listened to and typed this out from an N.T. Wright lecture at Yale: "So What?" (posted on the Calv/Arm/Open board. Might be pertinent to this discussion):

"Many of us grew up being taught to read the Bible in one or both of two ways.

"On the one hand there was the devotional reading: A passage each morning, and one prayed and listened to hear something that 'God was saying to me today' through it. The historical and literary setting was quite unimportant; what mattered was 'What does this say to me today?'. Now that's a venerable and not unimportant practise. But if it's divorced from other readings of Scripture it can become not only self-centered but also dangerously arbitrary. God doesn't deceive people but people can be, and often are, self-deceived. Detached devotional reading gets you so far but you can easily get stuck.

"On the other hand there was 'the Bible as proof texts'. Some classical instances come to mind; The Westminster Confession of Faith, for example, with its doctrinal statements and its big biblical footnotes. That encouraged a mentality which thought of the Bible as an unsorted collection of data, belonging in principle to a unified dogmatic theology; as though God had given us the Bible like a jig-saw puzzle in a box all shaken up into bits, needing to be assembled into a single picture which, whatever it was going to look like, sure as anything wouldn’t look like what we actually have from Genesis to Revelation.

"Within modernist Christianity this took, very broadly speaking, two forms: The evangelical form, in which the game was to get every single piece into the picture somewhere in order to to get one great big unified picture and: The liberal form, in which you were allowed to play chess with the pieces, letting one piece take another piece and so, removing it from the board (the audience laughs). The goal was still the same though the method was different."

I really like what Wright says on this stuff....ok, sorry if I got off-topic,
Enuf from me, thanks,
Rick

[Guest]

STEVE,

My default position is that the apostles words are for the entire world unless the context makes it clear that the comments are meant just for that culture.
Jesus said "the one who receives whomever i send receives me , and the one who receives me receives him who sent me." John 13.20

I agree, Amen...I must say!
Rick

[Guest]

Many Christian sisters do so, but probably more than 90% don't. They find a way to explain away that instruction.

Although, if the covering of the head is actually our long hair, then probably close to 90% of the women in the church would be obeying the command.

I see another issue in this example in regards to inspiration and following Jesus with the commands of Scripture. There are ladies that KNOW without a doubt that they are obeying Jesus by putting a cloth over their heads. And there are ladies that KNOW that they are obeying Jesus by having their long hair as a covering. And there are ladies that KNOW that they are obeying Jesus by having shorter hair, but being under their "head covering" who is their husband and authority. Which one really is obeying Jesus?

Same with war. There are Christian men fighting in Iraq who KNOW they are obeying Jesus by submitting to the governing authorities and killing the insurgents. There are Christian men here who KNOW they are obeying Jesus by never considering defending themselves, their wives, or their children. There are Christian men here who KNOW that they are obeying Jesus by not protecting themselves, but protecting others that God has placed in their care.

Which one is really obeying Jesus? It does seem, like either you or Rick said, that in order to have a verbal plenary inspired Bible that we also need a verbal plenary inspired interpretation of some things (not all things, in my opinion, but some).

Are these things that aren't necessarily quite as clear just issues of conscience?

If the entirety of the Bible is literally God-breathed, then we need to know what God meant when He said things. Of course, the typical answer is that that is why we have the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth --- but what about when the Holy Spirit "leads" two people into opposing truths about the same verse? Which seems to happen often.

Anyway... just some thoughts that popped into my head as I was reading through the posts.

-Rachel

[_Paidion]

Rick:

How do you define verbal inspiration?

I've never tried to define it.

The expression itself suggest that not only were the writers inspired, but the words themselves. That concept leads to a number of questions:

1. Which words were inspired? The Greek and Hebrew words?

2. Some of the words in the original manuscripts have been miscopied. Are the mistakes inspired as well?

3. What about passages which are known to have been added centuries later such as I John 5:7 in the King James? Those words "made" the Bible, through a copyist writing another copyist's notes into the text.
Since they are in the Bible, (at least some Bibles), have they been inspired?

4. If God "wrote the Bible" as some claim, why was the whole Bible not written in the same style? Rather all parts reflect the style of the human writers as well as the values and customs of the time periods during which the writers lived. I know that many who hold to verbal inspiration do not accept the "verbal dictation" theory. Yet, even in their case, some of the same difficulties seem to present themselves.

5. Are some or all translations of the Bible verbally inspired? So many of them contain parts which reflect the personal philosophy and theology of the translators. Some passages are translated in one translation with a meaning opposite to those in another translation.

6. Some say that the Bible was verbally inspired only in the original manuscripts. But the original manuscripts were not preserved, and so no one can consult them. So how are God's purposes served by having inspired words which no longer exist?

I think it was the writers who were inspired, and not the words. I think the words "Every writing (in the Hebrew canon) is God-breathed" refers to God breathing His thoughts into the writers.

I think the idea that inspiration ceased with the completion of the manuscripts of the Bible, has led modern Christians to discredit, or at least disregard, any writings outside the "canon" such as the apostle Clement's letter to the Corinthians. Even if we are sure that such writings (or writers) are not inspired, we surely could read them in the same way as we read modern Christian writers. In my opinion, first and second century writers who were in the main church of the day, were in a better position to understand the meaning of the NT writings that we are in our day.

Thank you, Rachel, for expressing your views re Paul's teaching on the headcovering. If "ARE SURE" is substituted for "KNOW" in what you wrote, then I concur.

[Guest]

If "ARE SURE" is substituted for "KNOW" in what you wrote, then I concur.

Yes, that's the feel I was going for in "know." That they are convinced in their own hearts that what they are doing is following Jesus' commands.

[Guest]

Thank you all for your posts. I have much personal study to do on this issue and will probably leave my posting at that for now. Perhaps there will be questions I come up with along the way that I will want to throw out there to get input on. This is such a huge subject, but I am somehow compelled to dig through it. I felt like on my last post my tone could have been taken as a little edgy toward the Scriptures and I can guarantee you that is not where I am at! I used this forum to formulate my thoughts that Ihave had about this over the years and I guess I was in some sense playing, for lack of better terms, "devil's advocate." If anyone has anything else they would like to weigh in on I will be checking back. Thanks again for your insights.

Ryan

P.S. Thank you Paidion for that quote from John. That is very helpful.

[Guest]

What do you think of this quote:
“Protestants have a fallible interpretation of a fallible canon of infallible books.” It is from the author of this article.
D.