The Word and the Spirit

A while ago I visited a church that has since become my home church here in Oxford. I had almost settled into another church, having gone several times and liking it quite well—it was a friendly, Bible-teaching church. But this new one went beyond being “good” and meeting certain checklist-type qualifications. The difference, I think, was a vibrancy of worship, spontaneity of expression, and an openness to the Holy Spirit. These church members were clearly excited to be in the presence of God.

I’ve been thinking for a while about the role of the Spirit in the Church, in Christian community, and in individual Christian growth. This is rather natural for someone who belongs to a very charismatic church back home, and yet by natural disposition is not particularly charismatic, but more of a staid, intellectual, Reformed-theology sort of believer. By natural disposition, I said: by faith and experience I tend to favor more responsive forms of Christian expression. But anyway, for someone who is interested in theology and Biblical exegesis, Church of the Highlands is a mildly unexpected church to gravitate towards. There is teaching, of course, sound and Biblical, but more in the form of anecdote and application; the sermons are very seeker-friendly.

I’ve wondered if it is the right church for me many times (knowing, all along, that finding a church to fit my predispositions is much less important than growing to into a good fit for the Christian community in which I find myself). I self-identify as a (non-Roman) Catholic, (non-Eastern) Orthodox, Reformed Charismatic…so finding a church to “suit” me is a bit beside the point. There are three main reasons I remain with Church of the Highlands. The first and simplest is that it was God Who brought me there, and He has yet to say leave. The second is that I believe in the vision of this church: its seeker-friendly atmosphere is not a weakness of critically examining the Word, but rather an intentional strength enabling it to live the Great Commission better, in my opinion, than any other church I’ve encountered. The third reason is that I do not go to church for a Bible lesson; I go to church for the expression of the community that is the Body. And, I think, the purest expression of that community is worship…Scripture reading can and should be done as part of a personal lifestyle. Truly, the same can be said of worship (and by worship here I specifically mean worship by praising) but the Body worshipping together is a big part of what it’s all about; teaching and study are more a means to an end, the end being worship in all its multihued shapes. I can learn Biblical truth from the Bible itself, or Christian authors, or Christian friends…sometimes even a non-Christian source will hammer home a transcendent truth. Worshipping together, however, is harder to manage alone.

But this post is not about why I stay with Highlands. It’s more about what I’ve learned here, or what I’m in the process of learning. I went to a church I liked, but not in an impassioned way, for several weeks. And let me say here I don’t mean to belittle this church, or imply it’s not as good as any other specific church; the fact that it didn’t provoke a certain sort of response in me says much more about me than it does about the church. But, even before I arrived in Oxford I wondered what short of church I should go to, having been told several time there was no shortage of good churches here.

Part of me wanted to attend a high-church Anglican service regularly. But this was for purely aesthetic reasons, those of a nostalgic medieval English history student. For while I theoretically value liturgy-heavy styles, and even enjoy them…for me it’s the enjoyment of an opera or museum, not of a worship service.
However, I ended up getting several recommendations for good churches and liked the one I visited first. Its focus, I was told by more than one person, was on “teaching the Word.” The other church I was most interested in (having not gone yet) was a vibrant community, but not as interested in Bible teaching. Now, before I even checked out this other church I had preconceived notions about it. “Not as into teaching the Word” translated, to me, as indicating one of the liberal, ungrounded, wishy-washy churches that were more about emotion and friendliness than the Truth. I was, it turned out, wrong.

A dichotomy between passionate worship and a firm stance on the Bible, on Truth, does seem to often exist. That common divide between “worshippers in Spirit” and “worshippers in Truth” which should be no divide at all. Church of the Highlands bridges this perceived gap quite well, particularly in the pastor’s own vision and teaching (though as a congregation, my amateur opinion is that it inclines more towards the “worshippers in Spirit” side). Sure, the teaching may not be as “rigorous” as elsewhere, but teaching the essentials and “mere Christianity” should never be undervalued, especially in a culture that either knows them so poorly or ignores them for the sake of fierce debate about non-essentials. The practicality of truth to relevant circumstances is also of great benefit, a benefit that is sometimes absent in the more “rigorous” teaching circles. Still, my college ministry bridged this gap so well that it was not visible, at least to me. In my opinion—having not given it all that much analysis—this was due to Grace Campus Ministries’ focus on Grace and Community.

Still, even though I’ve experienced communities where the dichotomy between Spirit and Truth was not painfully visible, I’ve realized that I nevertheless expect it. And so, having not visited St. Aldate’s, I assigned it to the “Spirit” side, and felt St Ebbe’s fit comfortably on the “truth” side of things. But I visited St Aldate’s, recognizing a desire for community-worship that I cannot manufacture alone. Even before I stepped in, I had half decided to go to Aldate’s regularly, even if the teaching wasn’t great.

For, as I said above, I look for worship more than teaching in a church. Maybe this is because I’m a better student than I am a worshipper, and I need more guidance in the latter. But beyond that, I honestly think that the sermon part of a service is of secondary importance to the worship, and not just for me. This is not because I undervalue teaching—but, as I mentioned before, a lot of teaching should go on throughout daily life. We all have the Bible, and if we fail to read it on our own, fail to discuss it with our friends, fail to seek out an explanation from those wiser than us, then surely we need a preacher to do our work for us. But a preacher is not a necessary role in a church—a pastor, on the other hand, is. We have blurred those roles into a semblance of a single role, but they of course have quite difference job descriptions and callings.

I think describing Ebbe’s as focused on “teaching the Word” is a confusing label. Sure, each sermon I’ve heard there was based on a Bible passage—but so was the message at Aldate’s. And the messages at Ebbe’s were more historical and cultural studies than a deep exegesis of the passages…good and true and useful points, but nothing I couldn’t get reading the passage alone; less, I think, than I would get from discussing the passage with friends. That’s not to say they were at all bad sermons; it’s just that reading a passage and giving an introductory explanation of it is not the only way to “teach the Word” (a tangential note: our evangelical terminology seems to confuse the Bible with the Word, Who is Christ—the Bible being God’s Holy Scriptures, but not a fourth person of the Quadrinity, as a friend expressed to me a little while ago. This distinction will be fleshed out a bit more below). It is good for young Christians, perhaps (but then again so is application), but it’s doing the believers’ work for them. Better, I think, to meditate on a passage, study it, pray over it, consult concordances or supplemental material if need be, and let the Spirit illuminate it for you; other believers can check or correct your understanding later.

This does imply the danger of an individual’s false interpretation of Scripture. We can’t have every trying to find out for themselves what the Bible “means,” can we? Of course we can, if we trust the Spirit, the role of Christ’s Body, and the life of Christ within each believer. Of course, mistakes will be made—but with preachers “teaching the Word,” mistakes and false interpretations also occur. If Christians are taught to diligently and critically read the Bible, rather than merely passively receive a sermon, they will be less likely to make serious errors.

It seems that in some churches that focus on “teaching the Word rigorously,” the Bible at times becomes less than living and active, less of a companion to a Christian’s daily walk. You get some nice, occasionally insightful, oft-times quaint “lessons,” and perhaps some doctrine, but little application or relevance or introduction to the role of the Spirit. I think this derives from mildly contrasting views of Scripture itself. Both sides would agree that “all Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, correcting, rebuking, and training in righteousness,” but one would equate the Word of God exclusively with the Bible; the other would see the Bible as one of the key ways God reveals His Word (His expressed and knowable will) to His people.

One of the friends who seemed to favor Ebbe’s helped provoke these thoughts a couple weeks before I visited Aldate’s. We agree about many theological particulars, but it became clear we have slightly different views of the Bible and how it relates to the Church, among other distinctions. Both of us agree that every word, in the original manuscripts, is fully inspired of God and its meanings are absolutely true. Where differ seems to be about how the Spirit of God relates to or uses the Scriptures.

I won’t attempt to provide an exhaustive argument on either side, but basically he thinks that the Spirit confirms and elucidates only what is in the Bible; I tend to favor the view that God is not limited by the Bible, and although God never contradicts His Own words, He is free to tell us things outside of the 66 Books we have—for example, God could tell me to go get in my car and go for a long drive, though the concept is found nowhere from Genesis to Revelation. That’s an over-simplistic example, but basically I think we have a genuine relationship with God of a sort (potentially) deeper and fuller than we have with people, and that this would be impossible if God were limited by a book the size of the Bible—or even one the size of Gibbons “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” A book all about a finite mortal—or the intimate relationship between two finite mortals—would be longer than the Bible; a book, no matter how long, would never fully express an infinite God. John says as much at the end of his Gospel account: “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” Were the things He did that were not recorded less true than those recorded? Of course not. God does not, I firmly believe, cripple His ability to relate to His children by restricting expression of His will to a few hundred chapters of script. Many of which, incidentally (one thinks of long portions of Levitical Law and already-fulfilled prophecy) are not immediately applicable to us, unless we wrench them out of context. Again (to belabor the point), the intended meaning of much of Scripture should not be completely divorced from its context—we cannot claim for ourselves everything God said to Abraham, Moses, and Elijah…He shows us something of Himself through these stories which are not of us, but it is Himself, rather than the events recounted, that is the unchanging timeless point. Elevating the Bible to be the source of all spiritual truth we can know leads, almost invariably, to taking such passages out of context to fit them to a current situation…for if we believe God only speaks to us through the Bible, we must frantically search for something in the Bible vaguely reminiscent of what God is saying now, or else disregard altogether the Voice we hear as something sent to deceive us.

My friend would say, however, that all we NEED to know is found within the Bible; I would respond yes, but all we NEED to know can be found in perhaps a dozen verses, and possibly less. My friend would say that we cannot be sure about the truth of any claim apart from the Bible; I would say we only know that Bible itself is true because of the Spirit and the Body which the Spirit used both to compile the Bible we have and to confirm its continual relevance. I believe the Bible because I know God; I don’t believe in God because I know the Bible. My friend would equate “God’s Word” precisely with the Old and New Testaments. I would describe the Testaments as definitely a true expression of God’s will, but I would equate God’s Word with His Son, the Logos, “the image of the invisible God,” and the “radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being.” I would also leave room for any revelation—natural, supernatural, common, specific—to be a portion of the Truth God is speaking constantly over Creation. Yes, such general revelations as the existence of fatherly love, or such specific revelations as Christ appearing in an unbeliever’s dream (such as has happened many, many times in modern Turkey, bringing in many new converts) are open to misinterpretations…but so is Romans 9, or Revelation pick-your-chapter, for that matter. I would say that a new convert in a jungle in the Amazon can grow, even lacking a Bible, through the ministrations of the indwelling Holy Spirit. My friend would say no, for healthy growth the new convert absolutely needs a copy of the Bible. We would agree that, if the Bible is available, failing to study it is a recipe for disaster—but I would point to my Amazonian or African tribesman, or the believers during the first couple hundred years of the Church who lacked an “official” canonical Word of God because it hadn’t been agreed upon, and say “don’t sell the Holy Spirit short, don’t overlook the relationship with a living and sovereign, intimate and personal God, don’t limit the work of Christ in any way.”

For the Gospel is not a collection of four books of the Bible. Christ is the Gospel, the Good News of God, as He is the Word and revealed Reason of God. It is a sad mis-emphasis to focus so much on the Bible that we downplay the very Gospel of Christ—it is the Gospel that saves, not the Bible. One of the great things about the Bible, though, is that it contains the Gospel account—it is perhaps the best tool for introducing the Gospel.

Enough of that. Let it suffice to sum up: I believe the Bible is the best single object for enabling Christian growth…but I would not call God or the Body of Christ “objects,” and would, in every circumstance I realize, seek to place no limitations on God’s relationship with His beloved. I realize I coming up against the Reformation cry of Sola Scriptura (in another post, I encountered the cry of Sola Fide, but I’ll ignore that one for now). I won’t try right now to place that mantra in context, and will offer no explicit opinions concerning its viability. But I do NOT think the Bible is exhaustively the Word of God; having only tasted the tip of the iceberg that is the weight of truth in the Bible, I still maintain that God is more talkative, more demonstrative, more involved than limiting Himself to the Bible. After all, the Bible itself speaks of Jesus Christ as the Word of God, which has more or less been the way I’ve tried to mean “the Word of God” throughout. What are we to make of that, really? Christ is the radiance of the invisible God; He fully encompasses what God is saying to His sons and daughters, in all the ways we can possibly understand it. The Bible, whether Greek or Vulgate, Hebrew or NIV, does NOT fully encompass God’s Word.

I hesitate to say this, but I actually think my view of the Bible places it in a more distinguished light than some Bible readers do (though not those who wrongly place it on near-equal footing with the members of the Trinity). I don’t look at the Bible as the culmination of what we are to know of God in this world (which is, I suppose, the understanding I am arguing against)…I see it as something MORE. For all the wisdom it contains, its purpose as I understand it is to point unfalteringly beyond itself—were the Bible to be given a voice, I think it would lament people coming to it to and settling down contentedly to fully understand it. We should come to the Bible to pass through it, into understanding of God, Who we can know much more about than the limited words found in the pages of the Bible. That’s what makes the Bible so great: it is an introduction to Someone much more expansive and limitless than itself.

It is like a key that unlocks a door into an ever-branching hallway: limiting our study to the key itself can make us ignore the Voice telling us where, when, and how to use it. It’s also like a prism that splits our one light of perception into a rainbow of knowing; it’s the tip of an iceberg that hints at unseen depths, the keyboard that plays a whole range of pieces all written by the same composer, it’s the 26 letters of an alphabet that enable an epic of expression, a code that makes a hitherto-unknown language fathomable. But more than these mysterious avenues of complexity that this one book can introduce, it is most like the letter of a Father to an estranged (and simple-minded) child, written in plain language but nevertheless hinting of the Father’s poetic mastery. And that is the true value and purpose of the Bible, introducing a Father to His children. The letter of introduction will never be forgotten, never be tossed aside, but it is only a starting point for the relationship, which will be filled with countless more words of love and wisdom from the Father to the child. It is a shame if the child never takes his eyes off that first letter—prized though it should be—and actually genuinely, intimately, interacts with his or her Father.

That was more of a tangent than I intended. But it applies to my original trajectory in this way: there are two sorts of teaching that are grounded in the Scriptures. One comes from my friend’s understanding of the Word, and is found at many good churches. When the Bible is the entirety of what we can know about God, though, a basic survey of a passage suffices; when it is a manual, a rule book, an exhaustive concordance, one needs to take no truly rigorous steps towards understanding relevance or application: the Bible, in brief, points mainly to itself.
The other sort of teaching, firmly grounded in the Bible and with a slightly modified understanding of “the Word of God, “can be found at Church of the Highlands, at Grace Campus Ministries, various other churches, the writings of Lewis and Chesterton. In its beginning steps it can merely be called “application,” but really I think it is about understanding the meaning and message contained in the Bible, and the interactive relationship it points to. This second sort of teaching, I firmly believe, has a bigger view of the Holy Bible.