Berean or Beratin'                                                                  

by Norm Miller                                                                                             Vol. XIII, No. 7, August 2000
 

"The criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ" is the statement that provided much debate in Orlando regarding the revised Baptist Faith and Message. Editorials and news articles leading up to the Convention, as well as after, charged that the BFM study committee and the SBC had elevated the Bible above Jesus Christ. As if that were possible.

Understanding where many of those opposed to the revised BFM were coming from is easy: the long-running influence of neo-orthodox and liberal theology as espoused by former professors in SBC seminaries. Whether taught by such professors, or taught by pastors who were taught by such professors, many Moderates come by their theology somewhat honestly.

Liberalism fostered the 1963 revision of the BFM (and the 1979 SBC conservative resurgence). My own father, the late Eldridge Miller, heard the hallway talk at Conventions that led up to that revision. He said some of the proponents who wanted the nonsensical "criterion" statement also wanted a couple of other statements in the preamble. Conservatives wanted the 1963 preamble to say: "The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired..." The rest of the statement, he told me, was proffered by the Modernists: "... and is the record of God's revelation of Himself to man."

How subtle the difference is. The latter statement sounded orthodox to the uninitiated. And the Modernists could then say that the Bible is just a book, a mere record of God's revelation and not, in and of itself, actual revelation.

Dad told me the Modernists had influence in the placing of commas around the clause that follows the word "truth" in the following statement from the '63 preamble describing the Bible: "It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter." Remove the commas, and "Without any mixture of error" applies to the entire statement about the Bible. As adopted in 1963, however, "Without any mixture of error" applies only to the "truth" that is found in the Bible. Again, a very subtle difference. But what a vast theological distinction two commas make.

The debate in Orlando wasn't theologically much different than that which surrounded the 1963 revision. The shoe was just on the other foot, and conservative theology was afoot.

Sadly, some people [still] don't get it. They just don't understand that the only place to learn about Jesus is from the Scriptures that are a witness to Him. What other source is there? As was oft' noted from the platform in Orlando, subjectivism is the only other source. Such subjectivism is akin to the Mormons' "burning in the bosom" for which they advise their would-be converts to pray. It may be that some Mormons are not Mormons at all but are victims of chronic acid reflux. Silly, huh? So is a theology which argues that the Living Word would say anything contrary to His written Word.

"Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true" (Acts 17:11).

Even the Apostle Paul--one who said he got his revelation from Jesus Christ--had his teachings scrutinized by a "more sure word of prophecy." The Bereans took no one's word for it. And such a practice is deemed by Scripture as "noble."

[Norm Miller is Communications Coordinator for the SBCV.]