Returning to Biblical Authority in the Church

It seems that the notion that the scriptures are authoritative for Christians is constantly under assault. It has been my concern that confidence in the Bible as the Word of God is continually being eroded to the point that people are beginning to wonder if any of the traditional Protestant confessional statements concerning the nature of scripture are still relevant for today. In liberal churches it has long become accepted that the Bible is not completely authoritative for Christians. That should be expected given the liberal belief that the bible contains errors and is self contradictory at points. What is really disheartening is the position that many conservative and Evangelical Christians are taking concerning the nature of biblical authority. While the newer positions among Evangelicals continue to affirm the trustworthiness of the scriptures, most of the time much effort is spent to deny that all of scripture is applicable to all believers. One of the most tragic positions taken by many contemporary Evangelicals is that the scriptures are culture and history bound and are therefore not always applicable to the contemporary context that we live in. To be certain,the biblical authors lived in specific historical situations and in some way reflected the cultures of their times. This cannot be denied. It is one thing to accept the fact that the biblical authors had specific viewpoints, it is quite another to assert that their historicity and cultural specificity have bearing on the doctrine of inspiration. I believe that God used the historical situations and cultural viewpoints of the biblical writers sovereignly to get across His viewpoint. Their cultural location in no way impairs on their ability to communicate God's truth to us. Thus while technically the notion of a Pauline theology is not inaccurate, in finality Paul's theology is God's theology because God shaped Paul in certain ways to be the vehicle of His truth. If Paul's cultural location and historicity prevents him from speaking to the whole church at all times, then we have a serious problem to address. How do we know which verses are universally binding and which ones are not? I submit to you that most of what is happening on the hermeneutical front is arbitrary. Thus we have elevated our opinions are theoretically equal with and pragmatically superior to that of the written Word. In much of the contemporary debate over the meaning and application of the scriptures to the Christian church, it is obvious that contemporary knowledge and contemporary cultural, philosophical, and scientific outlooks are given more weight than Christian scripture and time tested interpretation of it. If we are going to figure out how to apply Christian teaching in the Christian church we have to return to the belief that all scripture is relevant and binding on the church and just not the parts we want. For example, if the current secular epistemological framework lends to the conclusion that all behaviors are equally moral we must question that on the basis of what the scriptures teach and resist efforts to relativize morality for sake of being progressive. In all areas of life there is a final authority. Science has its methods that every scientist must use in order to conduct valid research. So for Christians, the final authority is the Word of God. Without that belief we might as well call ourselves some other name. Let's return to being confident in the Word of God and let's return to a belief that submission to the authority of scripture is an integral part of the Christian life.