Euangelion
American Mega-Pastor Andy Stanley has courted controversy with a tweet he put out:
“Why we must teach the next generation the FOUNDATION of our faith is a an EVENT not a BOOK”
Strictly speaking, Stanley is right. According to Scripture the foundation of our faith is Jesus Christ. As Paul says, “For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 3:11 NIV).
So Scripture is definitely not the center/foundation of our faith. Nor is a doctrine of Scripture, not even inerrancy, not even …. the CSBI is the center of our faith. John the Evangelist does not say that the Word became a Book. Nor did the risen Jesus teach his apostles that all authority is given to the books that you will write. God is our authority, the Bible is authoritative because, to quote the WCF/1689LBC, it is the Holy Spirit speaking in it, and because it testifies to Jesus Christ who has all authority.
However, this does not mean that Scripture is unimportant, optional, or negotiable. Scripture acquires its authority from the one who speaks in it and through it! What is more the Bible is not simply the record of revelation, attesting to the acts of God in history (a la G. Ernest Wright, Oscar Cullman, and Wolfhart Pannenberg), but it also gives us the divinely intended meaning of the event. So one cannot divorce the events of redemptive history from the biblical canon, not because of epistemology (the basis and authority of knowledge), but because of hermeneutics (an event’s meaning and significance is canonical). So the Exodus, as a historical event, was not a mere transmigration of a nomadic people from one ancient kingdom to the plains of Canaan. No, according to the Book of Exodus, it was the act where the God of the patriarchs remembered his promises to them and delivered Israel out of slavery in Egypt, so that they would be his people, a kingdom of priests.
So Andy Stanley is right about the foundation, but wrong about revelation and scripture.
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