Scripture, Authority, Inspiration and Culture
by Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch:
Some recent articles I did on the role of women in leadership (in the church and at home), and on head coverings, not surprisingly unleashed a torrent of heated debate. While such issues are certainly important, they are, in a sense, secondary matters, not matters of salvation.
I tried to argue that there may be a bit of room to move in some of these debates, and good Christians can and do differ on these matters. I also said I would need to write much more on such topics before proper debate could ensue. But despite such pleas, sure enough, the pro and con camps started to weigh in straight away!
Some folks just love to enter into debates about their pet topics it seems, no matter how much you ask for them to wait until a proper introductory piece is written to allow for proper discussion! Anyway, I want to address some of the comments made there, and some broader considerations.
Some of the comments were rather worrying indeed, since they reflected a rather poor view of Scripture and our understanding of inspiration. So here I want to briefly discuss some of these rather large topics. Again, with whole libraries already out there on such complex issues, a short article like this can barely do it justice.
But I want to look at how the issue of cultural accommodation fits into our view of Scripture, the authority of the Bible, and the doctrine of inspiration. That the 66 books of the Bible are divinely inspired is a given for all biblical Christians.
Related Posts
Tags
Share This
