WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE BIBLICAL?

Dr. Gentry and Wellum ask an insightful question in their book, Kingdom Through Covenant [1]. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE BIBLICAL?   This is a massively important question.  From a practitioner's point of view it requires an answer.   How often has someone supported a book, a movie, or some Christian media presentation suggesting that it is very good because it is biblical!

Unfortunately many books that have been 'biblical books' recommended to me were books that quoted Bible verses.  I've been told about speakers who were biblical and found that they quoted the Bible.  Point:  Quoting the Bible does not allow a commendation of being biblical!

These authors pose the same question.  "What does it mean to be 'biblical?'"   In essence they write that to be biblical requires the answer to three main questions.  They are:

1. How do we approach Scripture?
2. How do we interpret Scripture?
3. How do we draw our theological conclusions for Scripture?

"At the heart of Christian theology is the attempt to be biblical, to 'take every thought captive to obey Christ' (2 Cor. 10:5, ESV)."  Stated otherwise, in order to be biblical one must "(1) take seriously what Scripture claims to be; and (2) interpret Scripture in light of what it actually is as God's unfolding revelation across time."  It must be interpreted across three horizons: "textual, epochal, and canonical."

Textual means that we discern God's intent through the author by examining the text in "its historical setting, understanding the rules of language . . .."  The epochal horizon refers to where the text sits in relation to the unfolding of God's plan.  I understand this to mean that although it is critical to ascertain the message precisely as it would have been understood by its early recipients, it is also necessary to see the passage not as an end, but a means to end.  This point reminds us that revelation is progressive.  To consider the canonical horizon is to see that the Bible is also one Book.  This is to know the Big Story -- the mega-narrative.

To be biblical, then, according to Gentry and Wellum, is to understand the texts of Scripture "as God intended and 'on its own terms.'"

So what do we do with this?  Answer: Before we suggest that a movie, a book, a bible study, a sermon or talk is biblical we have to ask a further question: Does this present correctly interpret the Bible?  If texts are removed from contexts, if promises given to a specific group of people are embraced as one's own without warrant, etc. etc. then it cannot be biblical.  We require that all books, sermons, talks, media presentations purporting to be biblical have done their “. . . best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15, NIV).

Quoting the Bible doesn't make it biblical, handling the Bible correctly makes it biblical.

​

Jim

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1. Gentry, Peter John, Kingdom Through Covenants by Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum, Crossway, Wheaton Illinois, 2012, Pages 81-100