{"id":49884,"date":"2018-08-21T05:52:58","date_gmt":"2018-08-21T09:52:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=49884"},"modified":"2018-08-19T06:53:45","modified_gmt":"2018-08-19T10:53:45","slug":"the-bible-shows-us-how-to-do-theology-rather-than-telling-us-what-to-believe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/08\/the-bible-shows-us-how-to-do-theology-rather-than-telling-us-what-to-believe.html","title":{"rendered":"The Bible Shows Us How to Do Theology, Rather than Telling Us What to Believe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

In a recent blog post, Pete Enns wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Not all biblical writers were on the same page when it came to describing what God is like and what it means to believe in this God.<\/p>\n

And the reason why we see these differences is because\u2014just like every other human\u2014biblical writers lived in different times and places, under different circumstances, asking different questions and seeking different answers.<\/p>\n

To put it another way, their life experiences led them to think of God and faith differently. That\u2019s why the Bible gives us such varying\u2014even conflicting<\/a>\u2014portraits of God\u2026<\/p>\n

The question for us is not to decide which of these portraits is right, but to acknowledge and embrace Scripture as reflecting the varying voices of a people on a centuries-long journey of faith, of discovering what God is like\u2014and adapting their thinking accordingly.<\/p>\n

Frankly, watching this sort of thing happening in the Bible is a lot of what makes it interesting for me to keep reading.\u00a0It reflects back to us our own experience of adapting our thinking of God to account for our\u00a0experiences\u00a0of God in the world.<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

That is how a faith tradition survives. By adapting. not by standing still.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019ve long thought that the Biblical material makes better sense, for those interested in contemporary theological and practical application, if it is considered not as something that seeks to provide definitive and final answers that must then be repeated in perpetuity thereafter, but as providing an example of how it is appropriate for a faith community to apply and adapt the heritage that it inherits.<\/p>\n

I think my first exploration of that idea in print was probably the article I published in Irish Theological Quarterly<\/em><\/a>\u00a0back in 1998, with the title \u201cChange in Christology: New Testament Models and the Contemporary Task.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0You can read it online in Butler University\u2019s repository of its professors\u2019 scholarly work<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Of related interest, see Vance Morgan\u2019s post on commiting to wrestle with rather than believe stories in perpetuity<\/a>, as well as this new book:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/eerdword.com\/2018\/08\/06\/meet-this-book-an-introduction-to-the-scriptures-of-israel-history-and-theology\/<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a recent blog post, Pete Enns wrote: Not all biblical writers were on the same page when it came to describing what God is like and what it means to believe in this God. And the reason why we see these differences is because\u2014just like every other human\u2014biblical writers lived in different times and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":37066,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,101],"tags":[1140,1148,1712,1858,8983,12508],"class_list":["post-49884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible","category-theology","tag-bible","tag-biblical","tag-change","tag-christology","tag-pete-enns","tag-theology"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Bible Shows Us How to Do Theology, Rather than Telling Us What to Believe<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In a recent blog post, Pete Enns wrote: Not all biblical writers were on the same page when it came to describing what God is like and what it means to\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/08\/the-bible-shows-us-how-to-do-theology-rather-than-telling-us-what-to-believe.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Bible Shows Us How to Do Theology, Rather than Telling Us What to Believe\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In a recent blog post, Pete Enns wrote: Not all biblical writers were on the same page when it came to describing what God is like and what it means to\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/08\/the-bible-shows-us-how-to-do-theology-rather-than-telling-us-what-to-believe.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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