Yesterday on the Journey I opened up this topic of whether we would say that the Scriptures are infallible or inerrant. I talk about this a bit in the book, Reading Scripture Like the Early Church, but I didn't want to get too deep into it, even in the book because it eventually will boil down to a person's definitions of these two English words, and of course you know the Bible was not written in English. In any case, we talked about it some yesterday, and no doubt it will come up again as we continue on the Journey.
For the moment I want to point out something I meant to point out yesterday but I think I somehow skipped over it. When we were talking about the Greek word for "surprised" or "amazed" and I said that it has a range of meaning that can encompass the whole gamut from mildly surprised ("hmmm... didn't see that coming" ) to wildly amazed ("holy crap what is going on here?!" ) - so the Greek word itself doesn't really help us solve the question of whether Zechariah was deaf.
Here's what I should have pointed out - for those who hold to a doctrine of inerrancy, they will often miss the forest of meaning by obsessing over the trees of the Greek words. They will often make the mistake that if they can nail down the ONE meaning of that Greek word elsewhere, then it must mean that here in this place, too. They assume that - quite apart from context - the same Greek word has to mean the same single English word every place it comes up. That may be overstating it, but it is a tendency for those who believe in inerrancy.
I would love to hear from you all what your thoughts are on this topic...
To start, I think we should begin with the assumption that we should all think of the Scriptures as infallible - inspired by God, authoritative, and trustworthy. So we should begin with that common ground. Now what do you think?
Dear friends - Please take 10 minutes to watch this personal update from me:
I'm back, up and running, and ready to go - I should have a new JOURNEY episode within the next week or so - and because you are my loyal peeps, here is an exclusive, just-for-you, behind the scenes SNEAK PEEK into my new office:
I mentioned in The Journey that I wrote a song based on Isaiah 2, which is one of my favorite OT passages:
In days to come, the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest mountain, and raised above the hills.
All nations shall stream toward it. Many peoples shall come and say:
“Come, let us go up to the Lord’s mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, That he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths.” For from Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations, and set terms for many peoples.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again. House of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!
I hope you like the song!
St. Albert the Great - teacher and mentor of St. Thomas Aquinas
The Original Church
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The problem with us men is that often we don't have the wisdom to be a father until we're a grandfather.
This may sounds like some ironic statement that makes you nod your head in agreement but shrug your shoulders in resignation, thinking, well there's nothing we can do about that. But the practical application of that is that it demonstrates how important it is for kids to grow up around their grandparents. But as in our culture the family becomes ever more fractured and spread out, that is harder and harder to do.
Lately I've been thinking that part of the problem is the whole concept of college. It used to be that everyone thought a person had to go to college to make a good living. Not only is that not the case (truck drivers make more money than I do) but now college has gone from useless to actually ruining our kids. But when I went to college, what you were supposed to do is figure out what career you wanted (as if anyone knows that at age 18) and then go away to the college ...
