The Authority of Scripture

Anglican Bishop N. T. Wright unpacks this phrase, “the authority of scripture” in a recent book (2011) entitled “Scripture and the Authority of God”, subtitled “How to read the Bible today”.

It is certainly true that for all churches, the Bible is very important; the Bible’s authority is prominent in doctrinal statements, and the western mind in the modern world has set it up to be the answer book of religious information to guide our views and actions, to check on how we are doing compared to the other guy who doesn’t pay heed to the Bible.  Too many of us have used “the authority of scripture” to prove ourselves right and others wrong.

If we look at 2 Timothy 3:17, we see the purpose to be “so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work”; that’s quite different than being thoroughly equipped to prove me right and you wrong.

Wright says “As I have argued in this book, ‘the authority of scripture’ is really a shorthand for ‘the authority of God exercised through scripture’”.

“The whole of my argument so far leads to the following major conclusion: that the shorthand phrase ‘the authority of scripture’, when unpacked, offers a picture of God’s sovereign and saving plan for the entire cosmos, dramatically inaugurated by Jesus himself, and now to be implemented through the Spirit-led life of the church precisely as the scripture-reading community.”

He continues: “We read scripture in order to be refreshed in our memory and understanding of the story within which we ourselves are actors, to be reminded where it has come from and where it is going to, and hence what our own part within it ought to be.”

“’The authority of scripture’ refers not least to God’s work through scripture to reveal Jesus, to speak in life-changing power to the hearts and minds of individuals, and to transform them by the Spirit’s healing love.”

“In other words, if we are to be true, at the deepest level, to what scriptural authority really means, we must understand it like this: God is at work, through scripture (in other words, through the Spirit who is at work as people read, study, teach, and preach scripture) to energize, enable, and direct the outgoing mission of the church, genuinely anticipating the time when all things will be made new in Christ.”

Hmmm, that’s quite different from using the Bible to give me authority to do what I want to do and to give me the authority to judge someone else who sees things differently.  Something to think about.