Should We Be Reading the Bible with a Literary Model or Reportage Model?

I have numerous examples that a literary model follows the evidence of Scripture whereas a more reportage model, one that stems from what I would say is a modern view of what Scripture should look like if it is true, held by both fundamentalists and liberals alike, leads to either a blind eye to what the text is doing or a rejection of the text as being false.

One only has to look at an example found in the Old Testament Synoptics. In 1 Chronicles 17:14, the author draws from 2 Samuel 7:16 in order to use God's speech to David through the prophet Nathan to say something about the temple instead of the original statement which was about the Davidic Dynasty. The two texts are as follows.

ונאמן ביתך וממלכתך עד עולם לפניך כסאך יהיה נכון עד עולם

"But I will establish your house and your kingdom forever before you, your throne will be established forever." (2 Sam 7:16)

והעמדתיהו בביתי ובמלכותי עד העולם וכסאו יהיה נכון עד עולם

"But I will cause him to stand over My house and over My kingdom forever, and his throne will be established forever. 

Now, some of these are just word variation and an updating of grammar from older to later Hebrew. However, notice the change of the pronouns. This is not a different conversation had at a different time. It is the same conversation with this variation added by the author of Chronicles. It is added for the purpose of uniting God's kingdom, as represented by His temple, with David's kingdom, represented here still by keeping the pronoun on the word "throne," as it also appears in 2 Samuel 7:16.

Now, if we were to read the Bible on the reportage model, we would have to conclude that someone is in error, as many liberals do, or try and argue that these are two different conversations, as some fundamentalists do. Neither of these is acceptable. The Chronicler is not mistaken. He either has the text of 2 Samuel in front of him or has a photographic memory. This is made clear by the detailed accuracy to the text when he uses it without variation. Hence, he means to change the pronouns from "your," referring to David, to "My," referring to God. This is consistent with a literary reading of the Bible. The Chronicler and the Deuteronomic Historian have two different purposes in communicating what they do. Hence, there is purposeful variation, not error, because good literature that is derivative of an established literature adapts that literature to a further need of its audience, and therefore, communicates a different message to meet that need. 

The people of God needed to know if God would still be with them as a people, which is what the temple represented. The promise given to David provides the opportunity to bring out the fact that God's original promise to perpetuate the rule of David was, in fact, also a promise that God's presence would remain with His people through David's rule forever. 

If one demands that the literature take a photograph of the conversation in words then he is left with wondering whether the Bible is accurate. However, if one understands that God speaks through literary devices just as well as through a more exacting report, then the artistry of the Scripture comes alive, and the message is highlighted by the differences.

Hence, something like the Sermon of the Mount/Plain in Matthew and Luke do not have to match one another in their details, precisely, because one has a particular message communicated by those details and the other has a different, yet compatible, message it wants to communicate through the recasting of details.  

One can also see from above that not all of the details are changed. Most are kept in the larger narrative. It is only a detail here or there that is altered to highlight or emphasize the particular direction the author wants to take the message of the narrative. Likewise, a literary reading does not mean that one will not find tons of details that accord with the historical verification of other texts and archaeological data. Often it is in the real details that are selected by an author that need little or not change at all. It is just that there are quite a few cases when an author takes literary license to alter a detail in some way in order to communicate the intended message (as pretty much all derivative literature does).

Either way, a reportage model is untenable here.

 

Fallacies in Grudem's Lexicographical Method

I just wanted to make a couple notes here, as I think they are instructive. Grudem, as many older scholars, tends to employ a variety of fallacies in their word studies. I wanted to note a couple here in his recent argument to extend the reasons for divorce and remarriage.

He argues that τοιούτοις found in 1 Corinthians 7:15 only appears once in the NT, so he had to go and find examples in secular Greek of the word in order to obtain knowledge as to how the word commonly functioned in those texts. 

First, let me say that this statement might be a bit deceiving. When Grudem says that it only appears once in the NT, what he means is that the word in its neuter, plural, dative form only appears once. That seems to suggest that Grudem wants to argue that its gender, number, and case have something to do with its semantic range. I think that is a fallacy commonly deployed by scholars in thinking that somehow if a dative is used, for instance, the word suddenly means something different than if it is found in a different case. Imagine if I were to suggest that the word "house" means something different when in the dative "I live in a house" versus the accusative "I bought a house." These are different statements because of the surrounding context, not because the case changes the meaning of the word.

If we remove the case as a factor, the word actually appears 16 times in the NT. If we remove number as a factor (again, does "house" change its essential meaning in the plural or does the plural merely increase the number of whatever "house" means?), there are 32 uses in the NT. Remove gender and it moves up to 55 occurrences. With the article, there are 27 occurrences. Remove all and there are 9 occurrences in 1 Corinthians alone. So there are a lot more instances of the word that allow us to see its unmarked meaning.

Second to this, how the word is used in secular Greek cannot tell us how Paul is using it in a particular context. The question is not how others have used the word, even if the word carries some heavily nuanced idea that indicates something other than its context specifically references (which I don't agree that it does). 

Third, words don't carry all of the meaning these word studies tend to pour into them. They have very basic meanings in and of themselves and any referent assigned to the word, such as Grudem does here, is a lexical fallacy I call "illegitimate referential transference," where references found in other texts is being assigned as part of the meaning of the word that it carries into foreign texts, often ignoring the referents found in that foreign context or adding to them, again, as Grudem does here. 

Fourth, the nine occurrences in 1 Corinthians (and frankly beyond) use an example group to represent a larger group who are identified as having the same characteristics as the example group. This means that our text here merely asserts that the cases in which an unbeliever divorces the believer is to allow it to occur. The other cases referred to with the term τοιούτοις refer to parallel cases where there is an unbeliever who divorces his believing spouse. It says nothing about the reverse at all. Such has to be read into the text.

Abuse and the Issue of Divorce and Remarriage

In light of Grudem altering his opinion on the matter, I thought I would clarify an issue. Many people use the abuse card to argue from emotion rather than revelation as to whether there are exceptions to divorce and remarriage.  So let's address whether abuse is a loophole to anything the Scripture says so as to imply that there maybe is a reason for divorce and remarriage. I have argued again and again that Scripture has no exceptions to its universal and absolute commands that no man is to separate/divorce what God has joined together. So where does the situation of abuse or a spouse threatening the life of the other factor into that?

Before we do, however, let me state that Grudem's lexicographical argument is fallacious. He commits an illegitimate referential transference that he deduces from perhaps an illegitimate totality transference, where he tries to assign some universal referent to the word τοιούτοις "in such cases" that is not bound by the context. The context is clear that "in cases like this" refers to any case where an unbeliever divorces a believer. It has nothing to do with what the believer is doing. Is the unbeliever "fleeing" (which is a ridiculous way of translating χωρίζω, the word for divorce here) because the believer is beating their spouse? That is hardly in view, and so τοιούτοις does not even refer to abuse when applied to its immediate referent much less one outside the parameters of the context. This is evangelical word fallacies run amok.  

1. It needs to be pointed out that divorce does not presuppose the possibility of remarriage. 1 Corinthians 7:10-11 very clearly argues against this idea that divorce and remarriage advocates constantly argue. So revelation is clear. All the worldly wisdom that is usually offered here is irrelevant.

2. Christ's statements are not situational. He is not addressing a particular instance of divorce and remarriage. He is answering a universal question, "Is there ANY reason a man can divorce his wife?" He clearly answers in the negative, which shocks everyone, from his disciples to the Shammaitic Pharisees who already have a very narrow view of divorce and remarriage (i.e., only in the case of adultery). So Christ's statements are meant to be understood universally and absolute as that is what the context indicates.

3. No one is at fault when he or she is divorced by the other person. The prohibition is that no Christian is to divorce, whether they are married to a believer or unbeliever; but one cannot control the actions of a spouse who is disobedient to Christ.

4. The question then becomes, What is marriage? To which I would answer that marriage is a Suzerain-Vassal covenant, where the male, as the stronger party, agrees to provide for and protect the female who is the weaker party in exchange for becoming one with that male and offering up tribute to him. What this looks like in practical terms is that the male provides food, shelter, clothing, and sexual relations in the hopes of having a child (Exod 21:10-11). She provides him tribute by becoming a worker at home/manager of the household and sexual tribute also in the hopes of children (1 Cor 7:3-5; Titus 2:4-5; 1 Tim 5:14). Romantic, I know, but that is the core of a biblical marriage, not the entirety of what it may yield.

5. This means that divorce is when one of the parties permanently and intentionally breaks the covenant agreement so that their part of the covenant is no longer being met, i.e., they have withdrawn their part of the agreement. An official certificate is merely the solidification of one's intention to make it permanently so, but it is possible for many to attempt to draw all of the benefits out of the other person who may be still keeping their end of the bargain, and this is truly an evil, as the one has divorced the other even while receiving the benefits of a broken covenant with him or her. In other words, even though he or she has divorced his or her spouse, he or she still wants the benefits of marriage.

6. What this means is that someone threatening the life of their spouse, almost always the husband, has divorced his wife, even if he lives with her. This is not agreeing to live with the person and keep his end of the covenant, and so it is not what Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians 7:12-16, where he addresses the unbeliever's willingness to "live with" the believer. "Live with" designates the keeping of the covenant bargain. It is not merely to live in the house with the person while the covenant is broken. That's a roommate, not a spouse. So any unrepentant physical abuse of a partner (and I don't merely mean that the husband says he's sorry after every time he beats her--I mean real repentance with actions taken to prevent it from happening again) is, in fact, the man divorcing the woman. The bargain was for him to protect her in the same way that a nation protects a weaker nation. If that larger nation turned against the weaker, it would be understood that the larger nation has broken the covenant and is no longer observing it.

7. Hence, being divorced, the wife is free to leave or let him go. This has nothing to do with her divorcing him. He has divorced her. It also has nothing to do with remarrying, as she is still one flesh with her husband even though they may be divorced, as both Jesus and Paul teach.


Hence, physical abuse that threatens rather than protects the spouse (i.e., not verbal abuse, which is the spouse sinning but not a physical threat) is divorce. The question is whether the wife wishes to seek reconciliation after removing herself from the situation, or remain unmarried/celibate, as both Jesus and Paul would argue in the case of anyone who was divorced.

So Grudem's argument is unnecessary and this is not an exception to the rule. The female believer is not divorcing an abusive man, who the Bible assumes is not a Christian in obedience to the Word, and therefore, an unbeliever (no Christian beats his wife, as this has made him one who has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever-- 1 Tim 5:8 certainly applies). The unbeliever/apostate has divorced his wife by physically threatening her life. The commands of 1 Corinthians 7 apply. She can let the divorce stand and move out, but she must remain unmarried/celibate because she is still one flesh with a man with whom she was once married. To be joined to another is adultery.

A Note on Divorce and Remarriage

One may make the argument that if one is divorced that implies that one is allowed to remarry. The argument is that marriage to an individual is the only obstacle in the way of remarrying. Since one is no longer married, then one is single. If one is single, one can marry.

There are a couple of problems with this. First is the definition of "married." If one means by "married" that the two are seen as married by the state or community, or have an official piece of paper stating their marriage, etc. then marriage can be dissolved, whether it is legitimately upon a biblical basis or not. One who is divorced because they simply don't feel like being married anymore is technically single, and if single, can be remarried. This would wipe out Jesus' argument if it was about marriage.

Jesus', and Paul's, argument, however, is about being bound in one flesh to another to whom one made the marriage commitment, not merely one who is currently committed to a spouse. In other words, it is not about the acknowledgment of the community or state with official contracts, but the state of being bound in one flesh with an individual in a marriage commitment that was made at any time to that individual.

Jesus and Paul argue that what God has joined together is not to be separated/divorced by human beings, and hence, to divorce is a sin that disobeys Jesus' command. To further remarry while one is bound in one flesh to one to whom he or she has been married is a further sin of adultery, as the spouse with whom one is bound in single flesh is not a singular man or woman, but a single entity of one flesh. They are not free to marry anyone because they are only made a single male or female again when one part of the whole, the male or female part of the one-flesh union, has died.

Furthermore, if it was true that what is viewed as a legitimate reason to divorce, based on abandonment, for instance, freed one to remarry without committing adultery then both the divorced woman, who has been abandoned now by her husband, and the man who marries her, would not be said to be committing adultery. Yet, Jesus says that they are (Matt 5:32; Luke 16:18). 

Hence, remarriage is never permitted while the other partner lives (1 Cor 7:39; Rom 7:1-3). A civil divorce does nothing but disobey Jesus and confuse people's obligations to God and one another.

The Errors of Errancy, Part III: The Epistemic Impossibility of Didactic Errancy

I will now turn to the claims of what I call "Didactic Errancy," that is, the form of errancy that argues that the ideas the human authors intend to communicate as true in Scripture, whether theological or ethical, are actually false or immoral in comparison to modern moral sensibilities or other scriptural texts thought to contradict them. Yet, these errantists maintain, the Bible is still, or can become, God's Word to us in that it can still communicate truth and good to us.

These two ideas, however, cannot exist together. Instead, I will argue that it is impossible for both of these ideas to be true, and that the Didactic Errantist, logically speaking, is forced to choose one or the other. Either the Bible is God's Word that can communicate truth and good to us, and can only do so as being fully inerrant in all that it intends to communicate as true, or that it may contain even a single theological or ethical error somewhere within it, and therefore, cannot communicate anything to us concerning the knowledge of what is true or good.

This may seem like quite a task I have set before myself in showing this, but actually it is only a matter of common sense put plainly and briefly.

Imagine that I have a bucket full of bird feathers. Each is a different size and color. My task is to identify which ones belong to a particular species of bird. The problem is that I have never seen a bird of any type before at all. I now must somehow discover which feathers go to which birds without having any knowledge of these birds other than the feathers I have before me. I then hand the bucket to a hundred other people who have no knowledge of birds either. They pick out the feathers they find to be the most beautiful. At the end of the day, each has a different pile of feathers from everyone else, and each claims that their feathers must belong to the bird. The problem is that there is no way to confirm if anyone or everyone is right. The mere choosing of feathers based upon each individual's preferences has not yielded any more information about the specific bird than anyone had before.

This is the situation created by saying that the Bible consists of human words that contain the Word of God, but some of it reflects merely the words of men that do not accurately reflect the truth and goodness of God and His will. Imagine now that the feathers are theology and morals, and it is the responsibility of each individual or community of individuals to figure out which theology and morals accurately describe the character and will of a Being that no one has any confirmed knowledge of apart from that revelation As personal preference/intuition failed to give any knowledge to the participants attempting to place the right feather with the right bird, one is left with the same amount of information about God, His character and will after he reads the Bible as he has before he reads it. It, therefore, has failed to communicate anything about God or His will at all, and therefore, cannot exist as any sort of Word of God to humanity at all.

What people really mean by the statement that the Bible becomes God's Word to us is merely that they are God's Word to us, and the Bible, in so far as it affirms their own beliefs and morals concerning God, is God's Word. But this is God communicating not through the Bible, but through them. The Bible has merely stumbled upon what they already "knew" through personal preference, and thus, can be confirmed by them to be the Word of God in those places. Where it disagrees with their own theology and morality, it is to be rejected as consisting of erroneous or immoral human ideas that are merely the social and communal husk that must now be removed by the modern human, who apparently is more intuitive than the ancient religious individual so as to be able to discern between the human errors and divine truths that the ancient authors were not able to accomplish.

However, if the Bible is left to the group or individual to decide what is true or good, then the Bible can confirm nothing, and is useless as to providing any sort of knowledge about God. It has failed to communicate any knowledge about Him or His will, and should be rejected as being the Word of God at all.

Furthermore, to speak of a document that is unreliable even in one idea it seeks to communicate, since one cannot know which idea that may be (and it could be any of them), as the Word of God would mean that any errant document that may contain truth or error in terms of its ideas is the Word of God, which means that everything that communicates, from Shakespeare to Harry Potter, from Pastors to Plumbers, from Handel's Messiah to Baby Shark, is the Word of God, which is to say that nothing is really the Word of God anymore than anything else is. It is the individual or community preferences, the zeitgeist, that is the Word of God that must then judge all other claims, whether made of the Bible or the Bhagavad Gita,  as to whether it accurately reflects God and His will.

Yet, none of this has provided any more knowledge of God than one had before. Everyone is just guessing, and this is evident in the fact that theology and morals do not just change from generation to generation but from community to community and indivudal to individual, and not just in small variation but in absolute contradiction to where the good and loving deity in one group is a horrible monster in another, and as some have often put it, "in one culture they love their neighbors and in others they eat them." All believe in human flourishing, but how that should be accomplished is where further knowledge is needed. To some people human flourishing means save the Jews and to others it means exterminate them. If one preaches that Christ is the only way of salvation and all are damned outside of Him, but inclusivism is true, then that person has oppressed others by causing them grief if they should not accept the exclusive claim. If, however, inclusivism and universalism are false, then one has damned men by preaching that Christ is not the only way and has become a murderer. If homosexuality can be good, then others saying it is the judgment of God is evil, and if it is evil, then others saying it is good are participating in that evil. There are a billion and one things that are not just inconsistent but absolutely cancel one another out, and are necessary to know if one is to do what is loving and right and worship the true God. And yet, none of this knowledge is available to humanity by any intuitive means, since all of these ideas gained from intuition and feeling contradict one another.

What is needed, therefore, if God is to communicate anything about Himself and His will for mankind is a reliable, external Word of God that can verify truth claims concerning theology and morality, and the Bible is only that if it is reliable in all that it says without one single error in what it intends to communicate as true. Hence, either it is the inerrant Word of God through the words of men, or it is the erroneous words of men about God that may or may not have stumbled upon something true about God but can never be confirmed by anyone or anything that it actually has.

Didactic Errantism, therefore, fails to provide a logical basis for its claims. It is forced to choose between the Bible as not fully reliable in everything it intends to communicate as true and therefore not the Word of God at all (which I would still argue is something impossible for it to claim since no knowledge of these things is possible apart from an external reliable revelation from God), or that it is the Word of God in its entirety, completely reliable in all that it intends to convey as true, and therefore, to be honored exclusively as the guide by which all ideas gained from the zeitgeist or other documents are to be judged as true or false.

Has the Creation Mandate Been Replaced by the Gospel Mandate?

I often hear the idea that the creation mandate in Genesis 1:28 was for the OT Israelites, but that mandate has now been replaced by the gospel mandate. The argument is usually something like this: The OT emphasizes the physical aspect of the kingdom and is therefore entered by physical birth, whereas the NT emphasizes the spiritual aspect and is entered by a spiritual birth. Hence, we obey the creation mandate that was once given to literally make children by obeying the gospel mandate now that is given to make spiritual children.

There are a few problems with this line of thinking. The first is the divorce of the two as though the one is not an extension of the other. It should seem obvious that to have spiritual children born of the gospel, one actually needs people to exist first in order to make them into children born of the gospel. This means that to join God in being creational is more than having children, but it is not less than having children.

The second problem with this argument is that the creation mandate is not given to Israel alone. In fact, it is given to mankind in general. The fact that God reveals His will at creation (what I call a priority argument) even in the descriptive, as affirmed by Jesus' use of the narrative, is especially true in the prescriptive command given in the creation mandate. It means that this is God's will for all mankind for the entire time during the creation process. Hence, it is repeated again after the flood to Noah, and is meant to exist as a foundation for all other ethics God expects mankind to follow. Humanity in general, however, fails to follow God's will, but Christians, as restored humanity, certainly should.

The third problem is that all biblical ethics are rooted in the creation mandate as it is applied to the physical world, not just spiritual realities alone. Sexual immorality has to do directly with whether a sexual act is ordered for childbirth. However, if the physical aspect of the creation mandate no longer applies, then neither should any prohibition against sexual immorality and Christians should feel free to indulge.

Likewise, there is no need to preserve physical life in any way, since the goal of filling up the earth physically no longer applies. Hence, feeding and sheltering the poor, refraining from murder, stealing, and all of the injustices that have to do with preserving physical life in the law, which is all of the moral and civil commands, are no longer necessary observances. Abortion would be fine. This, of course, would be absurd.

Instead, the church grows through birth and rebirth, and one must occur in order for the other to occur as well. As an example, the Shaker movement (as cultic as they were) once existed in the thousands with 18 different communities throughout the country. They were, however, a celibate movement that believed that the creation mandate had been fulfilled, and that the community should grow through the preaching of the gospel, i.e., just concentrating on making spiritual children. They now exist only in one small village with their remaining members dying out.

The creation mandate has not been replaced by the gospel. It has been established by the gospel. The gospel is the final means through which the earth can forever be filled with covenant children but the obedience to the creation mandate is the first and necessary means that allows those children to receive the gospel in the first place.

The Errors of Errancy, Part II: Misunderstanding the Purposes of Language and Literature in Detailed Errancy

Due to the fact that Errantists make the assumption that an inerrant Scripture equates to omniscience reflected in its details, the idea is often assumed that literature must convey its inerrant message(s) through factually inerrant details.

As argued previously, this is not true if the details are not the message. What I will argue here, therefore, is that labeling details as "errant" or "inerrant" misunderstands that language and literature purposely communicates with details irrespective of whether they accord with reality or not, precisely, because the speaker/writer has no purpose to teach his audience about the factual or non-factual nature of those details.

For instance, when one person agrees to meet for a hike "at sunrise tomorrow," the factual message that they intend to communicate is the specific time the sun will be visible from their geographical location. When the sun is visible from any geographical point varies, and so can be refuted by someone in another geographic location as being a time that is not completely true, and the actual language used assumes that the sun is moving around the earth rather than vice versa. These are factual errors if taken out and examined as individual propositions that the speakers intended to communicate as true. However, given that most of us have used this language, we know the minds of the speakers did not intend to communicate whether the sun revolves around the earth or whether the time the sun was visible is factually correct for the entire globe. In fact, the speaker, and the recipient, of the language know that what is said does not intend to say anything about the truth or falsehood of the detail at all. They merely have used the technically incorrect language to communicate successfully.

This is true even in contexts where each individual may actually believe that the sun moves around the earth. The intention of the statement remains the same. In fact, because both participants in the conversation already believe that the sun moves around the earth, there is no reason to attempt to communicate the truth or falsehood of that idea to the other anyway. It is merely assumed by the language that is used to communicate something else entirely.

I have used this example numerous times, but let's return to it once more. When a mother reads the story of the Three Little Pigs to her children, the children might object that it is riddled with factual errors. Pigs don't build advanced shelters, wolves are not so powerful as to be able to blow them over, and animals don't talk. We are left with two ideas, therefore, about the author. One who does not understand the above, and therefore, does not understand how literature conveys truth, might conclude that the author is either ignorant or a deceiver. He either mistakenly believes that pigs talk and wolves blow over houses like superman, or he may simply be a liar who wants his culture to believe myths that are verifiably untrue. However, most of us realize that the author intends to communicate something else entirely from the details he uses as merely a means to communicate them. The story clearly means to say that one should build his life out of things that will last its trials, perhaps, including death itself. If asked whether the story of the Three Little Pigs is true, therefore, every Christian should answer in the affirmative. This can only be true, however, if one understands what the author intends.

This is also true in variations within literature. When two conversations have different details, the immediate question of the reader should be, "What is the author doing? What does he intend to convey with the change he has made?" rather than, "Looks like these accounts contradict one another so that the author made a mistake."

Imagine evaluating whether West Side Story was accurate by comparing details to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. If details are to be evaluated by comparing the later version with the former, one would have to conclude that the author of West Side Story was mistaken. Yet, this is the usual schtick of modern scholarship when it evaluates biblical books that contain variation in their details.

As an example, Luke has Christ saying, "Blessed are the poor" in his account whereas Matthew has Christ saying, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." One is in the sermon Jesus gives on a plain and one on a mount/hill. Although the latter can be worked out in various ways to literally be true in their details, such is not necessary. Luke has a plain because he wants to communicate throughout his Gospel how Christ comes down to the poor and lowly. Matthew has a mountain to communicate Christ's Messianic Kingship who speaks with authority and needs to be obeyed by anyone claiming to be His disciple. Luke's "Blessed are the poor" contributes to the message he wants to communicate in his Gospel. Matthew's "Blessed are the poor in spirit," i.e., those who humble themselves to the teaching of Christ, contributes to the message he wants to convey in his Gospel. What Jesus actually said on that particular occasion, or where He actually said it, is not the point of the message, and so the details are used by authors as a means to communicate the larger inspired message that takes from Jesus' words given on a specific occasion, or many different specific occasions, in order to teach what Jesus taught, or now teaches, to and through His disciples.

The Gospels do not contain variation because they are making mistakes. I have tried to point out numerous times that these authors usually have these texts right in front of them and are purposely reappropriating them in order to expand or explore one of the facets of Jesus' teaching in terms of its applications.

This is also true when speech is placed in narrative. Although some may think inerrancy requires God to zap the conversations into the head of the author, this again assumes omniscience and may be counterproductive toward the purpose of the narrative message. This is often why there is variation when speech is repeated or recorded a second time. The point is not to relate the details, since that is not often the purpose in communication unless one is attempting to write a strict and literal history of the events, but rather to use details and occasions for conversations as ways to contribute to the overall story or message of the narrative.

Calling such things "error," yet again, is a category error itself. Language cannot be in error, and so if the author intends to communicate larger ideas or historical events through variation and change of the details, then he merely uses a common convention to all well written literature, and should be commended for his artistry in crafting the details around the message(s) he actually desires to communicate. It is up to the audience to refrain from getting caught up in questions concerning the details that the author never sought to address.

What this all means is that details that the author does not intend to communicate are merely a part of the language he uses to communicate whatever he does intend to say. As such, the position of detailed errancy has nothing to do with whether the Scripture is inerrant at all.

The Errors of Errancy, Part I: The Assumption of the Necessity of Omniscience in Detailed Errancy

There are two main versions of errancy. The most common is what I call detailed errancy. This view has to do with factual errors in the details. These errors include statements that we now have concluded are false due to further scientific evidence or historical errors that archaeology or other written texts (including other biblical texts) dispute and are thought to be more accurate. Under the second category falls biblical texts that are thought to be contradictory with one another when one compares the details and one text says something that appears to contradict the other.

Detailed errancy, however, is a fallacious idea that neither understands the necessity of the human witness in his own language nor the artistry of literature.

Let me draw out the first objection I have to detailed errancy by pointing out that one of its core assumptions is that the text, if it comes from God, must be omniscient or reflect omniscience. If God knows all things, it is argued, then certainly He would not make any scientific or historical errors in His Word. 

This assumption carries with it a few more assumptions. The first is deals with a misunderstanding of the doctrine of inspiration held by the church.  The Bible is only God’s Word, but it is God’s Word in and through human words. This is an important point because the Bible is God communicating X through Y, not X directly. There is good reason for this that we will explore in a moment, but the distinction is extremely important, and not one often made by those who have a view that God destroys or sets aside the human element in order to preserve the purity of everything that is said, including the details. This assumption has yet other assumptions, but one of the most crucial is the idea that God desires to communicate all of the details He uses in Scripture as literal, individual truths within themselves. What this means is that if God says that He created the Bible in seven days, then it must be both the theological message He means to communicate and the detailed means through which He communicates it that must accord with reality. Many in church history once pushed back against Copernicus for arguing that the center of the solar system was the sun and not the earth, since the Bible presents the sun as moving around the earth, as many ancients believed. Many see the error of committing this specific fallacy today, but continue to apply this same reasoning to other textual details. 

What I wish to argue, instead, is that the assumption of omniscience in the details is an absurd idea that would prevent God from ever communicating to finite beings at all. First, the idea that God can communicate to finite beings omnisciently presupposes a far lesser deity than the one communicated in Scripture. I truly believe that when people think that God can communicate omnisciently to finite men they are completely unaware of the infinite complexity between the knowledge of God and the knowledge of human beings. This is not to even consider the idea that many believe the type of knowledge God has, which is thought to be archetypal, is not even a knowledge that finite creatures are capable of possessing, as many argue that the knowledge of creatures is ectypal. Not everyone agrees that God has a different kind of knowledge than human beings, but all agree by virtue of logic that the knowledge God has must be so perfect that its complexity is incomprehensible to the human mind. It would be like a rocket scientist explaining advanced mathematical formulations to a toddler, or perhaps, an infant. 

Furthermore, language itself is a convention of creatures. A Being so advanced as God, who is also the only necessary Being, would have no spoken language Himself. Spoken language is a finite tool itself created for the purpose of communication with or between creatures. This means that language, in order to communicate, must take reflect the finite mind of the creatures using it by reflecting its limitations. In other words, language, in order to fulfill its functional role of communicating with and between finite creatures must use the finite knowledge of those creatures in order for communication to take place. These observations, in turn, mean two things: (1) that it is impossible for language to be omniscient, since it itself is finite, (2) that it is impossible to have both a reflection of omniscience and for it to fulfill its role as a tool to communicate with beings, and (3) that it is, therefore, impossible for God to communicate with finite beings with any language other than one that reflects the finitude, and therefore, limited knowledge of the finite recipients. In other words, the argument that if the Bible is God’s Word it would be or reflect omniscience is false. Instead, it is the contrary that logic establishes. If the Bible is God’s Word, and God actually means to communicate, it will reflect the limitations of the knowledge of its human recipients at the time of its authorship.

This is not an argument for “why” the Bible is God’s Word, as it merely argues that if it is, it would not look any different in its details than any document written by human beings that is not God’s Word. The difference between the two might be discerned by numerous other means, but cannot be distinguished by the logically absurd objection often proposed by errantists above.

Let us turn now, however, to the second assumption, since many might say that this proves that the Bible is in error. By its very nature it must be, they might conclude from what I argued above. My contention, however, is that calling details in literature that seeks to communicate other things beside those details “errors” is a category confusion. Communication is only in error when the thing that one seeks to communicate are factually incorrect. Human language, especially when wielding the art of literature as its chosen vehicle of communication, uses its limited knowledge of details all of the time to communicate something other than those details.

What the errantist often does when he approaches the Bible is dissect the detail out of the context where it exists to communicate something else, interprets that detail as the fact that the author, and therefore, God, meant to communicate, and then concludes that the Bible is in error.

Could not God correct the details sufficiently, even if not exhaustively, in order to display His advanced knowledge? This question assumes what the purposes of God are in communicating to human beings, and that such detailed correction accomplishes the goal of communication rather than prevents it. First, the goal of God is not to prove that He has advanced knowledge, but requires faith as an act of submission to Himself. Since the primary problem of mankind is the sin of self-exaltation, God would be perpetuating the problem by attempting to get the consent of a human being by submitting to his criteria for following God. Even when God did prove Himself to men, it does not yield genuine belief and submission, but only further hubris on the part of those who are not regenerated. Second to this, to whom would God be proving He has advanced knowledge? People who will live a few hundred years past His immediate audience in the ancient world, people who will live two thousand years beyond them, ten thousand years, a million years from them? This objection usually assumes that what humans believe today is factually correct and that our knowledge has no more need of correction in the future, an illogical sentiment not shared by any philosopher or scientist that I know of. Science consists of conclusions based on the probability of data we have currently. It does not claim that we have certain knowledge of anything, as one would have to be omniscient in order to know such a thing. But since man will never obtain omniscience there is no generation in the past, present, or future that God could relate the absolute accuracy of knowledge, and have it verified by his finite recipients that would not likely be imperfect, and therefore, contain some error in it. God could relate an imperfect or false knowledge of a future generation (why He would do this or what generation He would choose is unclear), but that would also be in error, and it would actually be God communicating an error, i.e., lying, which is contrary to His nature, since the error would be the thing that God means to communicate. It is, therefore, contrary to God’s purposes in creating a humble and submissive faith in mankind as well as posits an evil in asking God to go against His nature and speak error, or it asks God to communicate from His omniscience, which we have already established is impossible, as a language that reflects omniscience cannot communicate to finite beings, nor has the capability of communicating omniscient information by its very nature. What God must do to communicate to all generations would be to communicate to ancient culture and allow successive generations to access the language of those generations. That is what He appears to have done.

Furthermore, I have already laid out the reason why God correcting incorrect details that are believed by His finite, human authors/recipients works against communication rather than with it.

In conclusion, the argument for detailed errancy is illogical. Details, as a part of language/communication used to convey other concepts, cannot be in error, since they are not what is meant to be communicated, and assigning the category of “factually erroneous” to language makes no sense since all language uses what would be considered factual errors to communicate if those details were to be extracted from it and evaluated as individual propositions in their own right.

Loving One Another Financially, Part IV: Hospitality

There are those Christians who are just passing through that the church has obligation to provide for as well.

Although we often think the word "hospitality" in Scripture refers to being inviting to guests one has over for dinner or an event, it actually refers to much more than this.

Throughout Scripture, hospitality is seen as providing for every need of a Christian traveler. These needs include protection from any outside hostilities, as we see in the Sodom and Gomorrah story as well as the story of the Levite and his concubine in Judges. It is displayed as providing food, bathing, and rest in the story of Abraham when he greets the three men who are traveling; and is found in numerous other stories throughout Scripture as well. From these examples, we see that it can include food, drink, shelter, a place to sleep, a bath, protection from harm, etc. 

We are told that Christians are to practice hospitality (Rom 12:13; 1 Pet 1:9; 1 Tim 5:10), and that some have even provided for the needs of angels without knowing it (Heb 13:2). 

This means that they are usually strangers (Matt 25:38). Now, that needs some explaining. In the early church, "strangers" refers to fellow Christians who are traveling from other churches and are confirmed by those churches as such, not just some people off of the street who may be lying in order to do harm to your family. 

Although one can extend it to fellow confirmed Christians who are traveling for any reason, it may specifically refer to those who are traveling for the purpose of missionary activity/doing ministry.

Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are, who testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God. For they have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth. (3 John 6-8)

The Didache argued the following in Chapter 12:

BUT let every one that cometh in the name of the Lord be received, but afterward, when ye have put him to the test, ye shall know him; [for ye shall have understanding] right and left. If he who comes is a traveller, help him to the best of your ability; but he shall only stay with you for two or three days, if there be necessity. But if, being an artisan, he wishes to settle among you, let him work and so eat; but if he have no handicraft, provide, according to your understanding, that no idler live with you as a Christian. Then if he will not act according to this, he is a Christ-trafficker; beware of such.

In other words, if someone is taking advantage and plans on just living off of the goodness of other Christians, he is to be avoided.

Chapter 11 also speaks to the fact that the early Christians did not give them money, but provisions. Strangers coming and asking for money were to be rejected.

So the church has an obligation to take care of other Christians in the larger body of Christ as well. This is done via sharing provisions and one's household with others who are confirmed good-standing members of good-standing churches, and often because they are traveling for ministry (even though, again, Christian love may extend to showing hospitality for any traveling reason as it does in the OT as well).

Loving One Another Financially, Part III: A Note on Widows and Orphans in Their Troubles

James 1:27 states, Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their adversity and to keep oneself unstained by the world. 

This verse is often understood as being two different groups of people, i.e., one group of orphans and one group of widows.

We read it this way because our culture tends to associate the word "orphan" with someone who has no parents. That, however, is not the biblical idea. Of course, one who has no parents is an orphan, but orphans are actually anyone who has no father.

In fact, the word ὀρφανός "orphan" actually means "fatherless," not "parentless." This is because it refers to children who have lost the financial support of a father.

The OT often mentions widows and orphans together (Exod 22:22; Deut 10:18; 14:29;  16:11; Ps 68:5, etc.). 

This likely means, then, that James is talking about a family that has lost its father. There is no income, and so the family's very existence is threatened. James argues that pure and undefiled religion finds its expression in two things: the financial care of a family that has lost the financial support of a father and the holiness to which God calls His people to live out.

Paul's advice in 1 Timothy is for younger widows to remarry, and for older widows to be supported by the church if there is no one else to support them. However, even younger widows (and their children) in the meantime must be supported until then. This is what James refers to as τῇ θλίψει αὐτῶν "in their trouble," or "tribulation."


 

Loving One Anothe Financially, Part II: Fathers and Mothers in Need

This second installment will discuss the obligation the church has toward elders and widows who once served the church but can no longer do so.

The best place to go for this instruction is 1 Timothy 5, so we will turn there and discuss a few issues.

One of the issues I first want to bring up is that Paul presents the local church as a household. The larger church universal would be an extended family, but the local church is one’s immediate family. 

In 3:14–15, Paul states:

Although I hope to come to you soon, I am writing you these things so that if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.

In 3:5, Paul parallels a man’s household and management thereof as a microcosm of the larger church of God over which an elder is placed. This is consistent with the way Paul will present elders in 1 Timothy as those who have a paternal role over the church, taking upon the role of a father who teaches, oversees provisions, and disciplines in his own family.

In Chapter 5, Paul divides up older widows, i.e., elder widows so to speak (“elder” in sense that they took upon a motherly role in the church as an example of the godly motherhood Paul mentions as the path of salvation for women in 2:15), and elders, and argues that the household of God needs to provide a specific portion of “honor” to each of them. The term “honor” in reference to financial support is clearly in view in light of v. 4, which talks about the alternate means of taking care of widows by their children and grandchildren “repaying the what is owed,” v. 5 talks about the widow who has no financial support from family and so is “truly in need,” and v. 16 that talks about the church being alleviated from the burden of the young widow’s need when she remarries. Likewise, v. 18 states, “For the scripture says, ‘Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain’, and, ‘The worker deserves his pay’.”

 This is parallel to Paul’s argument concerning the support the apostles receive in 1 Corinthians 9:1–12.

Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? If I am not an apostle to others, at least I am to you, for you are the confirming sign of my apostleship in the Lord. This is my defense to those who examine me. Do we not have the right to financial support? Do we not have the right to the company of a believing wife, like the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Cephas? Or do only Barnabas and I lack the right not to work? Who ever serves in the army at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its fruit? Who tends a flock and does not consume its milk? Am I saying these things only on the basis of common sense, or does the law not say this as well? For it is written in the law of Moses, “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.” God is not concerned here about oxen, is he? Or is he not surely speaking for our benefit? It was written for us, because the one plowing and threshing ought to work in hope of enjoying the harvest. If we sowed spiritual blessings among you, is it too much to reap material things from you? If others receive this right from you, are we not more deserving?

The elders, in the Pastorals, are taking over for the apostles, which is why Paul urges Timothy to set them up in every place. The apostles were only a temporary leadership in the church who laid its foundation, but the elders are the permanent fathers who should be supported by their family.

This is all corroborated by the fact that Paul is using the word “honor” in a context where mothers and fathers of the church are mentioned that echoes Jesus’ rebuke of the Pharisees in Mark 7:9–13, where Jesus extends honoring one’s father and other to the obligation to financially support them (τίμα in 7:10 is said to extend to ὠφεληθῇς v. 11). The word τίμα “honor” does not mean “financial support,” so Paul is clearly drawing from the Markan teaching of Jesus, which means he also sees honor as financial support and the older widow as a mother and the elder as a father. We’ll return to the implications of this in a moment.

The point here is simply that “honor” refers to financial support, and that this text allows us to see what God requires of His households in terms of their obligations to their spiritual parental figures.

Since Paul presents these two as mothers and fathers of the church, which is the household of God, it is important to contrast what is done by many churches versus what God wills us to do. Many churches have a business model and employee mentality when it comes to their elders. As a business, an employee provides labor as a product for which he is paid. When he no longer provides that product, the business has no more contractual obligation to him. Unfortunately, many a pastor has found himself impoverished when he grows old or sick. If we understand that the church is a household, one’s immediate family, then what both Jesus says of the Pharisees’ wickedness in not taking financial care of their parents, and what Paul says of the man who does not take care of his own household as someone who is considered worse than an unbeliever and that he has denied the faith should make us cringe at the thought of God’s wrath coming upon such churches as these. 

The family model, however, is one where obedient children/family members take care of their fathers and mothers when they no longer have support from their normative means. 

Now, this is important to understand. The widow here represents the parent who is no longer parenting the church. Her past works are looked at. Everything is about what she has done, not what she is doing. The elder represents the parent/father who is currently parenting. This does not mean that one does not provide for an elder who is no longer parenting just because it only mentions widows. It mentions widows because she no longer has support as one who had parented the church.

Now, one can become Pharisaical about this and try to get around it by saying that it only technically says “widows,” so the family of God has no obligation to fathers who become old or sick and can no longer parent, but one ought to be very cautious at going down this line of thought. The Scripture of the Law doesn’t technically say that “honor” means financial support of your parents is required. Jesus argues that the principle behind the command does. In the same way that He argues that the principles behind the laws concerning murder, adultery, and lying extend to obligations concerning one’s slanderous words, lustful thoughts, divorce and remarriage, and promises, even though the original laws don’t technically spell those out. The Pharisees are condemned by Jesus as having a righteousness that will not enter the kingdom of God because one who looks to technicality when it comes to obedience doesn’t really want to obey God, and one who does not really want to obey God does not really know or love God, i.e., they have no genuine relationship with Him and so are told to depart from Jesus as those who are not known by Him.

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The principle behind taking care of widows as the maternal parent extends to the paternal parent as well when the other can no longer labor as a parent (i.e., because he can no longer labor). Hence, “honor” is appropriate for both parents who no longer parent, and it is the principle to which all who know and love God are called to fulfill to these parents who now or once raised them in the Lord and watched over their souls. Some believe “double honor” for the elder is always appropriate until the elder dies. I would argue that the difference is in whether the elder is parenting or has parented, and so “honor” is appropriate. Ultimately, I would leave it up to the individual church to decide which of those two they want to give as a child may decide to give more to their parents than just necessity, but not less. Hence, it certainly is true that “honor” should be given at the very least. To do otherwise on the foundation of technicality is to annul the Word of God for the sake of a wicked tradition.