A Good Old-Fashioned Book Burning

[Shane R]

After my younger daughter was born, my parents finally visited us in VA. Dad loaded up pretty much anything that he thought was mine that was still in storage at their house (except the comic books - he likes those). There was a laundry basket of old books. Among them was my complete set of Gospel Advocate NT commentaries.

Initially I just left them in my garage but eventually curiosity got the best of me and I decided to revisit that peculiar CoC mode of thought. I looked at a handful of them a little bit over the course of a few weeks but the one I really recall was the volume on Mark. I was doing some sermon prep and decided to read the whole section that was prescribed in the lectionary. It was mind numbing and I came to realize that the author had no real understanding of the broad picture of the Gospel. He was so bogged down in making a comment about each individual verse that he missed the point of the paragraphs. And don't get me started on the total lack of real understanding of the underlying Greek text in that series. I came to the conclusion that those volumes would never be useful to me again and were only wasting space in my house.

Then I thought what to do with them? I considered selling them on Ebay for $50-60 but I couldn't in good conscience pass on such a wealth of ignorance. So I burned them in my fire-pit one night! I recently uncovered a copy of the book that was prepared for the original Guardian of Truth foundation lectures. That one is probably going to have the same end unless I run across a colleague who is trying to study the Campbellites sometime soon.

[Ivy]

That must have been so satisfying, Shane.

[ena]

It was mind numbing and I came to realize that the author had no real understanding of the broad picture of the Gospel. He was so bogged down in making a comment about each individual verse that he missed the point of the paragraphs.

Verse by verse study which is common in the CoC can be dangerous. The danger is: do you understand what the author is tying to say. A classic example is in 1 Corinthians where Paul is criticizing for turning the Lord's supper into a meal and not sharing with poorer members. This got converted into no kitchens in the church building in some churches. Did not early Christians meet in homes sometimes. All Paul was saying don't disrespect Jesus with your Lord's Supper. Church as such was probably an outgrowth from synagog worship. The near total lack of any Greek knowledge at all in my church was amazing. I have dealt with Greek and Hebrew words using an Exhaustive Concordance since I was a teenager. You don't even need to know Greek or Hebrew alphabet because they use ours to attempt to duplicate sounds. The word Greek psalmos translated as psalms occurs Eph 5:19 and Col 3:16 as in singing in psalms and spiritual songs. Literally means to sing with striking strings probably a lyre. I have heard a sermon using these two verses saying that they show instrumental music is not used. James Strong lists it as number 5568. I also find agreement with Vines's. Both scholars agree. Every Greek word is numbered in Strong's. See link below. These verses are listed.

http://biblehub.com/greek/5568.htm

[B.H.]

In the book of James it uses the word for synagoge for meeting when it discusses not showing favoritism to the rich at the assembly.

[Shane R]

It was mind numbing and I came to realize that the author had no real understanding of the broad picture of the Gospel. He was so bogged down in making a comment about each individual verse that he missed the point of the paragraphs.

Verse by verse study which is common in the CoC can be dangerous. . . I have dealt with Greek and Hebrew words using an Exhaustive Concordance since I was a teenager. You don't even need to know Greek or Hebrew alphabet because they use ours to attempt to duplicate sounds.

You've made a great point about the anti-intellectual and faux scholarship prevalent in the CoC. I went to one of their little summer "preacher training schools" years ago and one lesson was how to do a word study. We were all given a copy of Cruden's concordance that we could take home with us when we graduated. We were then taught to look up the word you wanted to study and read the NT verses that it appears in. There are several flaws with this approach: 1)Cruden's is based on the KJV 2)some of the KJV words are hopelessly archaic and have shifted meaning in surprising ways such that, without a proper context, you may come away with a totally wrong idea of how the word is being used - an example is 'prevent' 3)the KJV is inconsistent in how it translated a particular Greek word - the translators worked in committees and were assigned blocks of text to work through; there was no attempt to synchronize the results from one committee to the next (if you get an actual 1611, you will quickly notice the spelling is not even synchronized) 4)some of the English words represent more than one Greek word - the classic example is 'love.'

Serious word study must include a consideration of the original text. Most seminary instructors would probably say that it must begin with the original text.

As an aside, the HCSB did something really revolutionary when it was first developed by running the translations through a computer program to synchronize the English translation across committees and books. This yielded a Bible that I thought was a rather refreshing read in its early permutations. I used to send them to the Philippines now and then because it was much easier for their preachers to make sense of with their typically broken or pidginized form of English. Unfortunately, the HCSB has already revised twice in its life cycle and each time it has moved away from the very features that made it distinctive in the first place. The newest edition has all but stripped away the features that made it stand out.

[B.H.]

Cruden's isn't an exhaustive concordance like Strong's is.

[Ivy]

The concordances!!!! Ah, I remember those. They were supposed to make you feel like you actually understood the bible languages.

[FinallyFree]

I think the lack of Greek knowledge must be more common in NICOC’s. I know CofC universities teach Greek for Bible majors. I have attended CofC’s where the ministers were working on or had their Ph.D.

[KLP]

I was recently reading a preacher's defense for NOT preaching verse-by-verse. I am curious why we put such much into his strident defense and even a bit of attack on those that do preach verse-by-verse.

http://www.graceky.org/about/beliefs/wh ... y-he-does/

Many times the emphasis on preaching verse by verse through books of the Bible is driven by a belief that Bible information is the key to changing lives. Paul tells us that knowledge alone puffs up, but love edifies (cf. 1 Cor. 8:1). Not always, but many times the preachers and churches that are characterized by verse by verse preaching through books of the Bible are heavy on information or Bible facts, and much lighter on how those Bible truths apply to your life. I think that Bible application is the key to changing lives. Sheer volume of Bible information is not what changes lives. In-depth Greek or Hebrew word studies are not what changes lives. Understanding how to apply God’s Word practically in our everyday lives is what produces a love and passion for changing & growing.

He included a quote from another preacher

If spiritual maturity were synonymous with information transfer, or more specifically, Bible content transfer, then thoroughly covering Bible material would be fine. But it’s not. And you know that. I know that. Everybody I know knows that. You and I know that Bible knowledge can lead to pride; the antithesis of spiritual maturity (I Cor. 8:1). It’s interesting that the group who knew the Old Testament Scriptures best were the very ones who considered Jesus a blasphemer and arranged for His crucifixion. Knowing isn’t enough.

[Shane R]

I think the lack of Greek knowledge must be more common in NICOC’s. I know CofC universities teach Greek for Bible majors. I have attended CofC’s where the ministers were working on or had their Ph.D.

I think you are correct. NIs were still living on the fundamentalist fringe long after the mainstream churches had begun to reevaluate positions like anti-intellectualism. If you think about the precarious position they place themselves in, arguing that every man is equally capable of rightly understanding the Bible (even though no one actually believes that - it's all lip-service), they can't embrace the original language texts because that would be a terse admission that the translation might be deficient and/or misleading or that the church is needed to act as a corrective to faulty interpretation; and then they are treading ground that they lambast Roman Catholics for standing on. For many, going to the colleges was an early warning sign of a forming class of professional clergy and an impending 'pastor system' (which was true even though they still refuse to acknowledge that).

Also, for a time, Florida College was the only institution that NI students were encouraged to attend. It was, until recently, a junior college. And all of the faculty had to conform to a certain mode of thought. It was an echo chamber more so than any liberal Ivy league college. Does anyone else remember the years long dust-up over Shane Scott teaching the days of Genesis one were not to be understood as 24 hr. periods down there in the early 2000s?