Читать книгу Church Government According to the Bible - Simon V. Goncharenko - Страница 9

The Need for Understanding Foundational Theological Principles

To use the words of Rex A. Coivisto, “we all interpret the Bible if we read it. It would do us all well then to think about whether we are doing so appropriately or not.”133 Since it is a known fact that the Scriptures do not speak with equal clarity on all matters they touch upon, the concern of this chapter, therefore, is to discover and lay out a position on some hermeneutical principles common to the discussion of polity that can function as a theological paradigm for accurate exegesis of ecclesiological passages in the New Testament.134 Or, stated differently, what position should we take on the theological principles in question when approaching Scripture for the purpose of determining what it teaches about church polity?

The Genesis of the Following Six Guiding Theological Principles

I realize that the idea of a theological paradigm that guides Scriptural reading may cause some to cry, “FOUL!” How dare I suggest that we should approach Scripture with preconceived notions regarding what it says? Have we not all been taught to come to the Bible with open minds and hearts and let its message determine what we believe?

The answer to the last question is a resounding “Yes!” and at the same time, “Not exactly.” We all come to the Bible with some preconceived notions about it, which themselves may or may not be based on Scripture.135 For example, when reading the Bible, everyone is guided by one of two theological presuppositions regarding its inerrancy and infallibility. One either assumes that it is, in fact, inerrant—containing no alleged error in doctrine, history, chronology, or physics, and infallible—or it is not. Much of one’s interpretation of and general attitude towards Scripture is going to depend on this theological presupposition regarding its trustworthiness. Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard put it this way: “Though we must always submit to the teachings of the Bible as our sole and final authority, our actual pre-understanding of the Bible as God’s revelation guides our interpretation of its pages” and “our commitment to the authority of the Bible derives from our prior conviction of its truthfulness.”136

Furthermore, we all are steeped in some type of tradition that also affects the way we read and interpret the Bible. Brown is right in stating that none of us can practice the “leapfrog” model of interpretation, which claims the ability to go directly to the Bible, uninfluenced by tradition. He believes that no one approaches the Bible free of denominational or theological presuppositions or unaffected by our contemporary situation, arguing,

When it comes to the theological or denominational presuppositions, Lutherans tend to read the Bible in the light of the interpretive principle of justification by faith, Presbyterians in terms of the sovereignty of God. The sect groups read it from the perspective of their own practices, which may range from snake handling to speaking in tongues. Liberal Protestants find the Bible a handbook for social justice, while conservatives find it depicting an everlasting hell fire designed for liberals . . . From the contemporary situation standpoint, Americans in East Lansing hear Rom 13 in a different way from Germans in East Berlin. When Mississippi Senators and Afrikaner nationalists read Paul’s speech on Mars Hill, they draw different conclusions about racial discrimination than do natives of Indonesia or Ghana who read the same passage . . . No one is trying to be dishonest. Everyone claims to be hearing the word of God. But the indisputable fact of the matter is that Lutherans, Presbyterians, sectarians, liberals, conservatives, Lansingites, East Berliners, southern Americans, southern Afrikaners, Indonesians, and Ghanaians all read the same Scripture and hear different things.137

Fee similarly argues that it is simply impossible for us to not bring our own experience of faith and church to biblical texts.138 “Presuppositionless understanding,” according to Schneiders’ blunt assessment, “is a figment of the imagination of nineteenth-century historicism.”139 Likewise, Fred H. Klooster concludes that “presuppositionless exegesis is impossible.”140

The issue of the “hermeneutical circle” or “spiral,” as it is sometimes called, needs to be mentioned in passing here insofar as it pertains to our present discussion. “Hermeneutical circle” assumes that understanding a whole stretch of language or literature depends on a grasp of its component parts, while comprehension of these smaller units likewise depends on an understanding of the total import of the whole.141 Admittedly, there is an inevitable circularity in interpretation.142

When we posit the requirement of faith to understand the Bible fully and then look to the Bible to understand God’s self-revelation in Christ in whom we have faith, the process has a definite circularity to it.143 Recognizing the role of our pre-understanding, however, does not doom us to a closed circle—that we find in the text what we want to find in the text. The honest, active interpreter remains open to change, even to a significant transformation of pre-understandings.144

Hence, the important thing is not whether we come to the Bible with total neutrality (none of us really do), but whether our guiding theological presuppositions conform to Scripture. Klooster correctly concludes that “a sound biblical hermeneutic demands that one approach Scripture with a pre-understanding that is wholly consonant with it.”145 When our presuppositions are not formed by Scripture, then we are left with some sort of tradition setting itself up to be normative and irreformable over the Scriptures, to use Lane’s words.146

One final explanation regarding the origin of the following principles may be appropriate before delving into the principles themselves. In other words, from where did they originate? Were they randomly picked with the purpose of ultimately “conforming” polity passages to our own theological system, or was there more objectivity to it?

The process of compiling the principles outlined below was neither random nor prejudiced. In reading through the various models of church polity, I found that they depend largely on their understanding of the six guiding theological principles that formed the nucleus of this work. The position that each of us takes with regard to these guiding principles, therefore, affects our understanding of church polity. These six guiding theological principles deal with (1) the relationship between Scripture and tradition; (2) literal versus allegorical readings of the Bible; (3) the timing of the origin of the church; (4) the nature of the New Testament offices of apostle and prophet; (5) the relationship between the New Testament offices of elder, overseer, and pastor; and (6) the connection between interpretation and application of biblical passages. Each of the principles is either directly drawn from or indirectly sanctioned by the word of God and enjoys the support of not just one stray verse, but a number of related passages.

Six Guiding Foundational Theological Principles

Listed below is a position on the six principles that is closely linked with the word of God and will serve as a springboard for subsequent inquiry into the most biblically defensible model of church polity.

First Principle: The Supremacy of Scripture

The first principle delineates the supremacy of Scripture over human traditions, including the church, reason, and experience. In saying this, I do not deny the value of tradition, the community within which we live and develop our interpretation of Scripture, our ability to reason, or our personal experiences. Each is valuable and helpful in its own right, though with various degrees of import. None of them, however, can enjoy the same level of authority as the word of God.

Since we have already discussed the role of tradition in our understanding of Scripture, it may be helpful to pick up the discussion where we left it and add to it here. William Kiffin, a seventeenth-century British theologian, ably outlined the importance of careful and complete obedience to the Lord exactly as prescribed in Scripture, especially in those areas where it may be “enhanced” by human traditions:

If the Conquest of an Enemy against the Command of his General, cost a Roman Gentleman his life, though his own Father were the Judge: If the killing of a Lion contrary to the Laws of the Kings Hunting (though to rescue the King himself) cost a poor Persian his Head: If the Architect that brought not the same (but as he judged a fitter) piece of Timber than he was commanded, to a Roman Consul, was rewarded with a bundle of Rods: If Nadab and Abihu came to a Tragical [sic.] end for their prohibited service, in offering not the same that was commanded, but strange fire before the Lord, what shall we say to such as mix their Inventions with the Sacred Institutions and Prescripts of the Great Sovereign? . . . And may it not be truly said that whoever Practices any Institution otherwise than as was appointed by the Supreme Law-giver does not Honour the Ordinance, but an Idol of his own making? Mixtures are useful for two purposes; viz. either to slaken and abate something that is excessive, or to supply something that is deficient: and so all Heterogeneous mixtures do plainly intimate, either a Viciousness to be Corrected, or a Defect to be Supplyed [sic.]. Now it is no less than Blasphemy to charge either of these upon the Pure and Perfect Word of God, and any Glosses that take away or diminish the force of it, or human Traditions that argue any defect, are equally dangerous and impious. To stamp anything of a humane Original with a Divine Character, and father it upon God, is one of the highest and most daring Presumptions the Pride of man can aspire unto, and is provided against by special prohibitions and threatening.147

Later, Kiffin emphasizes again the high import that the Scripture places on meticulous compliance with its propositions:

. . . if Military Commanders expect a punctual and regular Obedience from their Soldiers; and severely punish such as break their Array, or quit their Stations; The Lord (who is a Jealous God with respect to his Worship, and positive Institutions) will call any, that presume to break the Order he has prescribed, to a severe account.148

But what is tradition?149 Fee identifies at least five levels of tradition, which we may acknowledge, embrace, reject, or utilize, consciously or otherwise:

“Tradition” tends to have five distinct nuances, which can be illustrated in the following nearly impossible sentence: The New Testament documents record the tradition (1) of Christ and the apostles, which early church tradition (2) understood to be inspired and authoritative Scripture; the later church codified tradition (3) so that it became equally authoritative with Scripture, an understanding which those within the evangelical tradition (4) reject, but who nonetheless frequently interpret Scripture through the lenses of their own personal and theological traditions (5).150

It is tradition in the third sense with which I am mainly concerned in this section. This is the tradition found especially in the Roman Catholic communion, where church tradition holds an official and authoritative role in the church’s life, equal to Scripture itself.151 The official Roman Catholic position is that the Spirit’s activity did not cease when the last New Testament book was completed, but that he also makes his will known through the traditions of the living organism that is the church.152

Before engaging in any further discussion of this topic, a short historical overview of the relationship between Scripture and tradition may be helpful. Following the establishment of the New Testament church,

. . . well into the second century, the Old Testament remained the early Christians’ only authorized text, but the needs of churches and the assaults of heretics led to a relatively rapid formation of the canon of the New Testament by the late second century and its fixation by the mid-fourth. The essential criterion was that these writings contain authentic apostolic tradition.153

Thus, the earliest view of the relationship between Scripture, tradition, and church may be called the coincidence view: that the church teaches what the apostles taught, which it receives from the apostolic Scriptures and from the apostolic tradition.154 During this period, Scripture, tradition, and church were assumed to teach one apostolic message.155

There is no conflict between them, and the whole Christian message is found in each.156 This approach proved extremely useful to Irenaeus157 and Tertullian158 in their struggle against the Gnostics who appealed to their own Scriptures and to their own secret traditions. In his response, which provided the most effective answer to Gnostic heresy, Irenaeus claimed that the apostles’ teaching, found in their genuine writings, was handed down in an open public tradition of teaching in those churches which they had founded, where it was still taught.159

In time, the coincidence view gave way to the supplementary view: that tradition is needed to supplement Scripture by providing teaching not found in Scripture.160 In the fourth century, Saint Basil of Caesarea became one of the first to apply such a method in his defense of the deity of the Holy Spirit when he stated that some Christian beliefs are not found in Scripture.161 To count as authentic apostolic tradition, such fathers as Saint Augustine162 and Saint Vincent of Lerins163 in the fifth century West required that these be recognized and practiced throughout the whole church. Dale Johnson provides a helpful synopsis of the development of tradition during this particular period:

Tradition is a weed in the Christian garden. It germinated in the rocky soil of the church fathers, some of whom watered it. The Bishop of Rome sometimes fertilized this tender houseplant called tradition, and it eventually grew into the theological equivalent of kudzu. The growth of tradition as a coordinate source of authority, however, did not emerge from a church council or papal pronouncement. It grew out of a process, not an event. The history of the early church and the development of tradition are so closely intertwined that it is nearly impossible to separate them. This happened in part because the canon of Scripture was not fully recognized for the first few centuries of the Church.164

In the Middle Ages, this approach resulted in the emergence of unscriptural doctrines, such as indulgences and Mariology.165 It is these extra-biblical doctrines, which were held and promoted on the same level as those found in Scripture, that played a major role in the monstrous abuses by the Catholic Church of its power over the lives of men and prompted Martin Luther to revolt against Rome’s view of tradition. In Lane’s opinion, it was not justification by faith alone that lay at the center of Reformation, but rather the relationship between Scripture and the church, with the key question being: “Does the gospel define the church or vice versa?”166 One can certainly see how the other issues raised by the Reformers may ultimately trace back to this crucial point.

Luther’s battle cry, therefore, soon became one the distinguishing feature of the Protestant Reformation from which its other distinctions ultimately originated, was his emphasis on sola Scriptura. In fact, it was from this principle that the rest of Luther’s “solas” ultimately originated. As one of the most important priorities of his life’s work, Luther’s focus on Scripture alone is ever-present in his writings, for as The Babylonian Captivity of the Church affirms, “what is asserted without the Scriptures or proven revelation may be held as an opinion, but need not be believed.”167 Calvin similarly asserted:

For the truth is vindicated in opposition to every doubt, when, unsupported by foreign aid, it has its sole sufficiency in itself. How peculiarly this property belongs to Scripture appears from this, that no human writings, however skillfully composed, are at all capable of affecting us in a similar way. Read Demosthenes or Cicero, read Plato, Aristotle, or any other of that class: you will, I admit, feel wonderfully allured, pleased, moved, enchanted; but turn from them to the reading of the Sacred Volume, and whether you will or not, it will so affect you, so pierce your heart, so work its way into your very marrow, that, in comparison of the impression so produced, that of orators and philosophers will almost disappear; making it manifest that in the Sacred Volume there is a truth divine, a something which makes it immeasurably superior to all the gifts and graces attainable by man.168

What this meant was that all church teaching, including the teachings of the early fathers, needed to be tested by Scripture.

In reaction to the Reformation tide, the Roman Catholic Council of Trent in 1546 issued its Decree Concerning the Edition and the Use of Sacred Books. It stated that “the truth and discipline [of the gospel] are contained in the written books and in unwritten traditions—those unwritten traditions, that is, which were either received by the apostles from the mouth of Christ himself, or were received from the apostles (having been dictated by the Holy Spirit) and have come down even to us, having been transmitted as it were hand by hand.”169 Furthermore, Scripture and tradition were to be venerated “with equal affection of piety and reverence.”170 The First Vatican Ecumenical Council completed this line of thought when it declared the church’s teaching office to be centered in an infallible papacy.171 The notion of tradition’s equality with Scripture was further upheld at the Second Vatican Council in 1962–1965.172

While outlining the danger of elevating tradition to the same level as Scripture, the first theological principle is not meant to reject the importance or validity of tradition. Lane is absolutely right when he states that “we must honour our theological forbears and listen with respect to the voice of the past, but we are not bound to it.”173 For “Tradition is worthy of respect,” he goes on, “but is subject to the word of God in the Scriptures.”174

Hence, what the first principle advocates is Scripture’s superiority over tradition.175 John Calvin so fervently affirmed this principle that he included it as part of the title of the seventh chapter of the first book of the Institutes of the Christian Tradition: “It is a Wicked Falsehood that Its [Scripture’s] Credibility Depends on the Judgment of the Church.” He then ends the second section of the same chapter with these words: “Indeed, Scripture exhibits fully as clear evidence of its own truth as white and black things do of their color, or sweet and bitter things do of their taste.”176 Several hundred years later, John Webster reiterated the same idea, writing that “Scripture is not the word of the church, the church is the church of the Word.”177 The Bible must remain “the decisive and final authority, the norm by which all the teaching of tradition and the church is to be tested.”178 Webster masterfully sets straight the proper biblical relationship between church and Scripture when he states: