My Death in Life

So I go to a Bible school. A pretty good one too. I'm a junior at Moody Bible Institute in Spokane, WA (a satellite from the main campus in Chicago). I'm rubbing elbows right now with people that will be leading entire congregations and ministries in the future. God has great plans for everyone in this school whether they end up in vocational ministry or not.

But here's a problem I've run into. In my Romans class we've been running into a problem that I believe we've been addressing on the surface but has roots in what we believe in regards to the Bible. Let me give you the problem that I'm struggling with on the two sides.

Side 1- The Bible is written by real people, in a real point in history, in a real geographic region with its circumstances of that time. Thus, the writers of the Bible are human. No different from you or I. Thus the writers can have mixed motives, they can have personal intentions and beliefs. I believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God, but I do believe that God used real people to write it. Did the authors of the Bible know that this was going to be considered Holy and the Authority of our faith after they wrote it?

Now some of you biblically-minded people might say, "Dude, what about the passages of scripture that affirm that it is inspired by God?" And I can see your point coming from 2 Timothy 3:16. Here's my problem that I'm still studying- what was Paul talking about? The New Testament didn't come until the council of Nicaea in 356 AD. According to Coffman's commentary on 2 Tim. 3:16 said that Paul is referring to sacred literature of the time that included even more than our Old Testament. Coffman also says that "'all Scripture' here means everything which, through the testimony of the Holy Spirit in the church, is recognized by the church as canonical"(Searchgodsword.org, [http://www.searchgodsword.org/com/bcc/view.cgi?book=2ti&chapter=003], Coffman refers to William Hendriksen's NT commentary on these points). I'm just too hesitant to ascribe to what Coffman (and Hendriksen, I think) says about what that means today. But I can continue this conversation in another post on the issue on inspiration, because that opens up so many more questions.

Side 2- The Bible was written by the most holy and God directed people ever. There is no hint of selfish intentions or hidden agendas or manipulation in any of their writing. We can model ourselves not only after Christ, but after men (specifically in the New Testament) as they were trying to follow God's will or conform themselves to Christ. Whatever they said or did it was for the best of others, and did not have ulterior motives.

On this side, here's an example from Romans class (you're getting top quality class discussion FO FREE!). We were talking about Paul writing Romans and in studying the context and using bits of Romans itself, we know that Paul was intending on stopping in Rome before he tried to head to Spain.
1st Debate- Was Paul using (or utilizing) the church in Rome to get to Spain and Romans was an theologically endowed sales pitch for the Romans support? Or was it really all for the Romans and the letter was strictly written with the best intentions all for the church in Rome.
2nd Debate- In Romans 1:8-15, was Paul, knowing that he was going to travel to Spain after he visited Rome, nervously writing this passage like he was trying to gain approval for a business proposal or a mission from a church or missions organization? Or "was it not nervousness but anxiousness, like a man proposing to his bride, for he uses phrases; 'for a long to see you'"?

These are real things that were brought up in class, though I may be polarizing the issues a bit to show the divisions seeping in the class. But my point is (and it's more evident in the 2nd debate) is we can't apply too much of ourselves into our interpretation. Behind all of these debates is an application of what we've come to learn and believe through our own lives. Now a lot of it might be universal- attitudes that the evangelical movement takes- but it's still a cultural and contemporary interpretation and to be honest, walking the line of being subjective (oh no!).

Like the answers to the debates, the answer to the two sides I've proposed is most likely somewhere in the middle. God uses normal people in extraordinary ways, that is the only thing I can be sure of. I don't know Paul or Moses, so I don't know what their intentions could have been. I just know that they were used by God to write the authority on God. How that came to be is between God and them.

All of this to say- be careful of when you interpret scripture. Don't over-romanticize when there is not much evidence to do so. I do believe that these were great men and did amazing things for the Kingdom of God. But in the end, they were still human, they were still men who had sinned and they are fallible (sorry to break it to you). The only person I can romanticize with a clear conscious is my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who was perfect in every way and is the Word of God and is infallible.