In my last post, I described how I ended up prioritizing a doctrinal statement and why I’m beginning with church history rather than Scripture to build one. I want to flesh out these thoughts a bit more.

If the Bible is my authority (which it is), then everything I do should be in submission to that book. I believe it is completely true. Why? For the same reason I believe it’s authoritative: I believe God wrote it. No, I don’t mean God’s disembodied hand appeared and took up a pen. I believe He worked through people to produce His words, faithfully. The ancients had a metaphor that I like: it was like music played by a divine performer on a human instrument. It carries the unique qualities of the human author, but it is controlled by (and its truth is secured by) the divine author.

So if God authored the Bible, what it describes must be true. What it commands must be His command, therefore it must be right. His imperatives are the most important imperatives. What it leaves out, God chose to leave out. What it emphasizes, God chose to emphasize.

In the modern era, we read books in order to take from them or critique them. We sit in judgment on them. We listen for things we like or appreciate or find useful, and we reject whatever seems bad, poor, or untrue. That’s good critical thinking. You must determine for yourself what is true, good, and beautiful and leave the rest.

But if the Bible is God’s book, my relationship with it changes. It’s still very much like any other book in that it has stories, words, characters, themes, etc. But it’s different in that I must not come to judge but to be judged. I come not to take but to be taken. I come not to sift, approve, and condemn, but to be sifted, be approved, be condemned.

So my job when I read the Bible is to read open-handedly. Let the Bible tell me what is true, what is important. Let the Bible tell me what I ought to do. It’s too easy to formulate your plans on your own and then look for vindication or validation from Scripture. That’s not a terrible idea; if you’re testing something to know whether it is worthy, that’s fantastic. It’s when you are looking to justify yourself, to add a little divine endorsement—that’s when you’re using the Bible. I don’t think you ought to “use” God’s Word. It is useful, but it’s not your widget.

Now, if I want to take the Bible seriously (and I do) that means I have to make decisions about what I’m hearing. I have to make decisions like “was that command for them or for everyone?” and “if this verse says x and that verse says y, how do I hold these truths together?” They are not questions that give me power over the text. But they are questions that mobilize my response to the text. That I am in control over. That I must do.

So this means I’m engaged in theology. I take theology to be the next step beyond repetition and affirmation. I’ve been told that theology is any response to revelation, and I’m ok with that definition for the most part, but for my purposes here I want to say that it’s an engaged response. It’s not merely accepting, although that is, indeed, the foundation of a right response. God wants you to accept this map of reality, to obey these commands, to love what He loves, and that requires more than mere affirmation.

So now I’m a Baptist doing theology. Everyone does theology, but paying attention and striving to do it well is more like what we normally think of as theology.

There’s an old saying: “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” On the face of it, I agree. But too often I have heard this phrase used to undermine theology. As though “God said it” were merely a matter of saying “amen” and everything else works out on its own. God said it, I believe it, therefore I meditate on it. God said it, I believe it, therefore I wrestle with it. God said it, I believe it, therefore I’m trying to change. God said it, I believe it, therefore we have to work this out.

Ok, so hopefully you see that being a good Baptist means doing theology for yourself, that taking the Bible seriously means doing more than simply affirming. So why did I start with historical creeds?

That’s the question I want to pick up next time.