In applying Scripture to this changed and changing milieu of our own times, the following principles must ever be borne in mind. Faithful discipleship to Christ must be held to involve conscientious acceptance of all that Scripture teaches. The authority of Scripture and the authority of Christ are one. That's one of the key paragraphs in the Chicago Statement on Biblical Application and their introduction section. If you're reading along at home, it's under the subheading of Approaching Contemporary Problems. I know you're reading along at home like any good student would. This is the Faith Debate on News Radio 930 WFMD. Joined this week by David Forsey, a pastor in the area of a house church. You can connect with him by connecting with me. I'm Troy Skinner, pastor of Household of Faith in Christ online at HouseholdofFaithinChrist.com. and you can connect with David through me because, well, he's not cool like me and doesn't have a website, but. I accept that assessment. I'm not even cool like me and I have a website, so I'm not sure how that happened. But anyway, seriously, and you can connect with the show and everything else. It's a one-stop shop, householdoffaithinchrist.com. So I don't think there's any fodder for discussion on that first one, right? So. We should accept what scripture teaches. All of scripture is authoritative. We should accept all of it and. Yeah, and when we're looking at Scripture and its authoritativeness, we are grappling with the authority of Christ Himself, because He is the Word. Yeah, I'm down. So we've got no fodder for discussion or debate on that one. All right, well. Number two. Try again. Second, since all Scripture is ultimately the product of a single mind, that of God the Holy Spirit, we're going to have to push back on this a little bit. Any appearance of self-contradiction should therefore be judged illusory. These are good words. I almost need to get out of your thesaurus and dictionary. Or your Scrabble board, right? Hang on to these words, these are good Scrabble words. The internal harmony of Scripture is axiomatic. So I agree with the spirit of this, but you know what I'm gonna push back, right? Did you catch it, that first line? Since all Scripture is ultimately the product of a single mind, that of God the Holy Spirit. Are they somehow forgetting that it also involves human authors and their minds? Ah, that's interesting. Well, I thought you were going to take issue with the non-inclusiveness of the Father and the Son in that first part. That of God the Holy Spirit, right? Yeah. Right. That's true as well. Although the Godhead, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, are of one mind. Right. I would rather say the mind of God. Yeah, that of God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Maybe they could have said all three. That would have been better. I would have liked it. But ultimately the product of a single mind. I'm fine with that if they had added like a parenthetical statement, right? Working through men that he carried along by his spirit, like something like that, I would have liked better. Maybe it's saying, you know, it's all God approved. It's all God's word, and so therefore, if you're reading the first page or the last page, it's the same deity author. Right, yeah. Right, the same. It wasn't, none of it is. that greater or lesser depending on who the human author was. And that's why you're not going to find contradiction. And if you think you've found something that appears to be a contradiction, it's illusory. It's illusory. It's an illusion. You know why? Because the internal harmony of scripture is axiomatic. Help me with that one. It all works. It's all working around the same thing. You know, it's an axiom. It's a given. It's a known truth. OK. All right. It is. For example, it's axiomatic that only women can have children. OK. I agree. It doesn't feel axiomatic these days, but I'm telling you, it's axiomatic. It's a given. Right. That's what axiomatic. That's how I understand axiomatic. Thank you. Third. The differences between the successive stages of God's revelatory program must be kept in view. Some of God's requirements of his people in pre-New Testament times were temporary. However, we must also seek to discern the abiding moral and spiritual principles which bear on our lives today. I think what they're saying here is certain parts of what God had to reveal to us at particular moments in human history, we're addressing primarily circumstances on the ground at that moment. They have broad eternal applications, but we can't forget what the original application was. And now that we have the New Testament and we can look back on what was written in Old Testament times, we have additional insight. I think that's what they're saying. So we don't have to offer animal sacrifices anymore? Or is it saying we're not all supposed to take our only son to the mountain? Right, and this is them, I think, piggybacking on that second point where they're saying there's no contradictions and somebody's going to say, well, how come In the New Testament, it did away with, well, it didn't really do away with, it's no longer, and so in that sense it's been done away, but it's been fulfilled and no longer required because that to which it was pointing has arrived. So it's not contradictory, it's saying, we're heading to Miami, we're driving to Miami, and then you're in Miami and say, oh, you said you were driving to Miami. Which is it? You driving to Miami or are you in Miami? Huh? Huh? Huh? It's not a contradiction. You've fulfilled your mission. You've arrived in Miami. By the way, you ever been to Miami? I don't know. If I go to a foreign country, I'm telling you, the street signs are in Spanish and it's like, seriously. Sounds like an experience. Yeah. You don't have to go to Cuba. You just visit Miami. At least parts of it. Fourth, we're making good time on this one, huh? Fourth, the church is, okay here's another word for you, is it neither or neither? Neither. Fourth, the church is neither a source of infallible information about God apart from scripture, Nor is it in any of its modes or means of self-expression an infallible interpreter of Scripture. The Church is under the Bible, not over it. Scripture as we have it is both sufficient and perspicuous. In other words, glad they're doing that, right? It is both sufficient, or it is complete, rather. It is complete and clear. So perspicuous is clear. So the Church isn't the source of infallible information about God apart from Scripture. Right. Now, they're speaking against some of the Roman Catholic stuff, I think, is what they're getting at here, right? Sure. Sola Scriptura kind of stuff. So this is all Reformation kind of language. Yeah. Nor is it in any of its modes or means of self-expression, meaning the church, an infallible interpreter of Scripture. So the church isn't the infallible interpreter of Scripture. We can make mistakes as the church. Sure. Again, Roman Catholics are really cringing right now. They're not happy with this. Yeah, maybe not. The Church is under the Bible, not over it. Scripture, as we have it, is both sufficient and perspicuous. Word of the week, perspicuous. Clear. In other words, complete and clear. It was nice of them to make it clear. They could have done that with the affirmations and denials that we're struggling with over the last four weeks, you know? All right, so we're about a third of the way through the show and we're about almost halfway through what we wanted to get through. So we're making good time, we're in good shape. Fifth. I do have maybe a question, maybe a comment about the last one. Okay. So maybe part of the issue So, right, the early church, right, is the, there were people in the early church, apostles in the early church. You're talking about the first century, basically. Right, yeah, yeah. Okay. Who, when the, you know, the original receivers of the Great Commission were around. The original Dirty Dozen. Yeah, that's it. They, God, they were the ones, you know, primarily through whom, you know, and at that time, through whom the mind of God worked to bring parts of Scripture, right, what we call the New Testament, into being, right? And so, So I think that's where the hang-up is probably for some people. But even they could make a mistake, not when they're writing Scripture, because they're writing it under the superintendents and by the illumination being carried along by the Spirit of God. And so that's infallible. But outside of the inscripturated writings, they made mistakes. I mean, famously, Paul calls Peter out for just such a mistake. We read about it in the book of Galatians. Absolutely. So they could make mistakes outside of what's now Scripture. And so I'm not sure if that's what you're... Yeah, I guess I'm saying, you know, that I guess is sort of where the, you know, some people feel like the church can still add to Scripture or have equal I'm not saying that I agree with that position, because I don't, but you know, I think that's where, like, the Roman Catholic Church goes. The Church has to make these hard calls. Right. And sometimes we get them wrong because we're not properly understanding and applying Scripture the way that we should. Right. when we get it right, it's because we agree with Scripture, not because we've decided for ourselves that we've got it right. Yeah. So I think that there's got to be some ultimate pecking order, some hierarchy of ultimate authority. And they're arguing here, the ultimate authority is not the Church. The ultimate authority is God and His Word. Right. And you and I, as Protestants, we're agreeing with that 100%. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. All right. The fifth element Fifth, it is a mistake of method to relativize biblical teaching. I should've done my vocal calisthenics before this. These are tough words to pronounce, you know? This is a serious introduction. Man, and woman, no offense taken, right? Okay, or meant, rather. Intended, that's what I was going for. Fifth, it is a mistake of method to relativize biblical teaching to the cultural axioms, there's that word again, assumptions and paradigms of this or any age. Our calling is not to set the Bible straight, but to allow scripture to set us straight. If I wanted to have fun, I would have asked you, so is it, how do you pronounce, is it paradigms or paradigms? I'll just stick with paradigms for this one. So are they saying that scripture, there aren't things that are wrong in scripture because they were written in a different time, or that there are things that are written in a different time that are no longer applicable? Yeah, I think what they're speaking against here, to put it in more of the common vernacular and kind of push backwards, look, they didn't even know about homosexuality back then. Or, they were such a backwards, backwoods, hick, patriarchal society that they had such a diminished view of women that... You can't take what Paul wrote in the New Testament seriously, because he was a man of his time. I think they're speaking against that. Yes, he was a man of his time, but when he's writing what we now have as the Scripture, he's not just writing it alone. Right? Yeah. God's writing it, right? I mean, in and through him, carrying him along. So yeah, they're saying, look, you can't just say, that's for back then. I mean, that's like thousands of years ago. You kidding me? That's for back then, it's not for now. I think that's what they're talking about. And those principles that people, you know, where those things that Paul says that are so direct, right, are, you can take those and you can see that all of Scripture is consistent with that in principle. Absolutely. And Scripture goes back to the beginning of time. Right. And so we're talking about from the beginning of time to Paul, Scripture is consistent on all of those principles, that He is expounding, that He's telling us in a way that us Westerners have a tendency to better understand. And I think—maybe we'll get into this on the other ones, I don't know—but I think, just a quick addendum to that—see, I'm using their big fancy words now myself. Nice, nice. Addendum. I think it is important for us to understand those times. So like if you're reading the Old Testament and you're talking about, let's say, legal code, and what that legal code meant in that society for a legitimately unique nation state in human history, and what it meant for them in that context, and then to draw from that context principles that then fit into our context, that I think is appropriate. I don't think they're getting into all of that, but I think that we can make a mistake by saying everything now is exactly like it was back then. Well, that's foolish. We need to understand the context when it was originally written and how it would have been received and understood and how it was intended by the author for that time. Because then the principles will be more clear. Exactly. And then we know how to apply those principles that were intended then for how they're intended now. It's the same principle, but the application might be slightly different. Yeah. I would argue. Anyway. Sixth. Application of biblical principles to life is always conditioned by the limits of our factual knowledge. Disagreement will not necessarily imply uncertainty about the principles to be applied. Yeah. I mean, we can only know what we know. We don't know what we don't know. So sometimes we're going to apply the principles and sometimes make mistakes because we only know what we know. because we don't know the full historical context. Yeah, we're finite. We don't know everything that was true. Sure. We don't know everything is true about our time in history right in this moment, much less 2,000 years ago or 3,000 years ago or what have you, right? Yeah. So there can be some disagreement among people who are serious students of the Bible that doesn't automatically apply that there's uncertainty about the principles. Right? We're disagreeing a little bit, but God's Word is certain our inadequacy isn't an inadequacy of the Scripture. It's our inadequacy. It's not the Scripture's inadequacy. That's how I'm understanding it. Yes. Yeah, that's a good point for them to make. Seventh, heaven. Application of biblical principles to life requires awareness that within the limits set by the moral laws of God are areas of liberty. Christians whose theologies agree in substance may have differences due to personal or cultural factors that rightly affect their scale of values. So the application of biblical principles, we're saying that we might agree to disagree on some of these things, but as we're grappling with these principles and we're trying to apply them in our real life, we should be aware that there are some limits. that are set by the moral laws of God. So I'm trying to clarify this. I think I'm muddying it. Requires awareness that within the limits set by the moral laws of God are areas of liberty. So this is an argument against legalism, right? The words on the page say, the black print says, therefore, bang. It's like, yeah, but you're missing the context, you're missing, right? I think that's what they're speaking against there. I'm saying that these principles may look somewhat different in their application in varying cultures. Right. OK. And I think that's right. So I don't see any reason to disagree with that, right? Do you? No, I don't see any reason to disagree with it. I think that we have to be wary of excusing, and I'm not saying that this is what they're doing, but we need to make sure we don't open that door to say, well, you know, it's a different culture and so it's okay. Right. You know, and stretching those principles beyond their actual allowances because of, you know, quote, cultural differences. Yeah, and they're trying to address that both this idea, they have theologies that agree in substance. So like the core, the substance, we're not, those are non-negotiable. Right. But how we're going to specifically apply them in a particular cultural context, but you're not going to change what's undeniably God's truth. But exactly how to live that out in certain circumstances, there might be some room for disagreeing. It doesn't mean that one of the people or both of the people that are disagreeing are wrong. We could be both wrong, but we're going to give ourselves some grace and some room there because we don't know all the facts because we're finite. Number eight, application of scripture to life requires the unction of the Holy Spirit. Humble recognition that there is always more to be learned is the only healthy frame of mind. application of Scripture to life requires the unction. I would say that the best, fullest, most beneficial application of Scripture requires the unction of the Holy Spirit. But again, we talked about this, I think it was last week, that there is, I believe, in God's providence, there's what is called common grace, that even those who don't have the Holy Spirit can benefit from principles in the Bible. if you're not a follower of Christ, you could still read the Bible and get some good things out of it that you could apply in your life. Yeah, because you will be getting closer to the truth. Yes. And we also see, talking about today, a society can have foundational Christian values that they, you know, but they depart from the faith, but they're still benefiting from those foundational Christian values, you know, and it's not till there's a complete divorcing from those Christian values that they see the chaos and destruction. You can even see this inside the church with the unbelievers. Right, they profess Christ, but they're not actually following Jesus and you know outward appearances at first It looks like oh, they're a Christian you get to know better than they're not a Christian But they were learning things from going to church and reading the Bible and sitting in on prayer meetings and stuff They gained something from that even though they didn't have the Holy Spirit. Yeah, so yeah They might have gone a little bit Far in how they phrased that I agree with the sentiment though. So and Now there's a section here that's under the heading, New Vistas Along Old Paths. Interesting. The task to which Summit 3 addressed itself, so Summit 3, this is the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy, the Chicago Statement on Hermeneutics, and then the Chicago Statement on Biblical Application. That's number three. So this is number three, Summit 3, addressed itself, the task to which it addressed itself, is to apply the teaching of a trusted Bible to some of the most confused areas of modern life. Now, it's postmodern life, which is why some of it didn't feel all that relevant. The assumptions of liberalism relativize the Bible by absolutizing positions that run counter to biblical teaching. How are they defining liberalism? Well, I guess just of the times. Are they talking about classical liberalism or what we call the left today? What do they mean by liberalism? But either one, I suppose. Whatever assumptions we're bringing to the table. Theological liberalism was arising at the time or prevalent. So we don't want to absolutize our positions that run counter to biblical teaching. No duh. The only good way for church and community today lies along the old paths." Hmm. Yeah, I guess what we're meaning by that is that God is, He's unchanging, and He's revealed His truth from the beginning, but God can sometimes work in what feel to us to be new and wondrous ways. It would strike some as new paths. So, are they overstating? Is that what they say, what do they call it, new vistas? Yeah, new vistas along old paths. Okay, so same path, new, right, because if you're traveling along the same path, you'll have a, your view will change, the things that you see, right, things that you observe. And that's the kind of spirit that really animates what is today in political terms called the conservative movement, right? Yeah, uh-huh. Right, like we have new, there's new technologies, right? New tools, in essence, that we have. But you're going to use them to preserve the old paths. Right. The technology is the vista. The traditional values, right? And, you know, what we would say timeless biblical principles, right? Which we're doing, talking about the church and Christians in particular. And that's an important distinction. People pejoratively want to call somebody a conservative, like, oh, Oh, so you want to preserve, you know, chattel slavery, because that's what used to be, and you want to bring it. No, the conservative movement, I don't want to use the biblical conservative, the theologically conservative. God's principles are everlasting, eternal truths, right? And we want to hang on to those and preserve the practice of those things, institute those things. And yeah, the things that are bad, we want to get rid of the bad things. We're not trying to conserve or preserve those things. We want to preserve the glorious differences between male and female, that are timeless, glorious differences. And it will look different today than it has, but the principles are the same. Well, we made it through five shows, just the two of us, and we finished the biblical application stuff from the Chicago Statement. Is that exciting? That's an accomplishment. I'll give you a certificate. I'll put it on my fridge. Right along. Now, I wouldn't want to tear down the value of the things already on your fridge. There's no space. Yeah, there's no space. Anyway, thank you, David Forsey, for weathering this tough, big words, multi-syllabic thing that we've done the last month-plus on the faith debate. And thank you for slugging through it with us as the listener. We appreciate that. You can find us online at wfmd.com or householdoffaithinchrist.com. That's the name of my church. I'm Troy Skinner, and David Forsey is a pastor in the area, too. If you're looking for a church, you're looking for prayer, you want some guidance or whatever, We'd be more than happy to be there for you. And we appreciate you being there for us. So we'll do this again next week. I'm not sure what the topic's gonna be next week. I guess it'll be a surprise to all of us. Until then, 167 and a half hours from now, God bless. Past editions of this program are available in the audio vault at wfmd.com, a service of Holtz-Appel Heating and Air Conditioning.