An Outline of an Anglican Life (Tarsitano, 1994)/Lesson Six

This is the enhanced reading edition of Lesson Six of Louis R. Tarsitano's An Outline of an Anglican Life: Lessons in the Faith and Practice of the Anglican Church (Classical Anglican Press, 1994), proofread against the printed text and presented with descriptive section headings, internal links, and editorial notes. Tarsitano's own words are retained throughout; editorial additions are clearly distinguished. The author's endnotes, printed at the back of the book, appear here as footnotes at the places where he set their markers.

What are the Holy Scriptures?

The Holy Scriptures ("scripture" means "something written") are the written record of God's revelation of himself to mankind. The Anglican Branch of the Church attests, as do all the true branches of the Church of Christ, that:

In the name of Holy Scriptures we do understand those canonical Books of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church (Article VI, "Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation," BCP 603, including a list of the books).

It is an indication of how definitive the Holy Scriptures are for the Anglican Church that all of our Articles of Religion are derived from the Bible, and that three key Articles focus entirely on Scripture: Article VI, already mentioned; Article VII, "Of the Old Testament" (BCP 604); and Article XX, "Of the Authority of the Church" (BCP 607).

Why are the Holy Scriptures called "the Bible"?

The Holy Scriptures are a collection of books begun by Moses around 1500 B.C. and concluded by the Apostles and their assistants at about the end of the first century after the birth of Christ. One of the Greek names for the Scriptures is "the books" (ta biblia). This Greek word became a singular noun (the Bible), meaning the Book of all books, because as a collection "Holy Scripture contained all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation" (Article VI).

[Note that the traditional, historic, mainstream Christian approach to the Bible and its dates will be used throughout this lesson. While faithful Christians may reasonably disagree about fine points of dating (putting the events of the Bible into a historical context with the history of the rest of the world), Christians may not deny the reality of God's mighty acts in history as recorded in the Bible (e.g., Creation, the Exodus, the miracles, the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection).]

Scholarship, Modernism, and the Bible

The Bible is God's record of himself for the sake of man, and "If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son" (1 John 5:9).

Our contemporary attempts to read the Bible are made more difficult by the uncritical acceptance of certain errors made in the seminaries and universities of the nineteenth century. One of these errors is the "cult of scholarship," While a knowledge of history, languages, and cultures is very useful in studying the Bible, the Bible was originally written down for nomads, shepherds, farmers, fishermen, and all sorts of ordinary people. A committee of scholars is not necessary to interpret "Thou shalt not steal," or "Go, and sin no more." Any faithful person, willing to invest the time, can learn to understand God's Word in the Bible quite plainly. Too often, complaints about the Bible's "difficulty" are really only excuses for disobeying the clear commandments of God.

Another important error is the so-called "historical-critical method," which rests on the premise that anything we cannot see happening around us in the world today could not have happened in the past. This approach ultimately voids the Christian religion, since the basis of Christianity is the uniqueness of all personalities (beginning with the Three Persons who created us) and the unique intervention of God's mercy into the history of man. Creation is a unique event. The parting of the Red Sea to save the Israelites fleeing Egypt happened only once, at the precise moment of their greatest need. The birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ are singular events that have no comparison: otherwise there would be other "saviors" than our Lord.

There remain many practitioners of this nineteenth century method of reading the Bible (the so-called "modernists"), and they often denounce those who don't accept their opinions as "irrational" or "fundamentalists." But the religion they attack is no "ism"; it is exactly what has been known as Christianity in virtually all times and all places, especially in the Apostolic and undivided Church. And there can be nothing "irrational" about accepting God's testimony about himself, unless the very existence of God is denied beforehand, despite all of the evidence that supports him. The statement, "there cannot be miracles," does not refute them, but only expresses the non-Christian religion of the speaker.

The errors of the modernists are nothing new. Towards the end of the second century, St. Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyons and one of our first theologians, wrote: "When the heretics are refuted from the Scriptures they turn to accusing the Scriptures themselves, as if there were something amiss with them" (Adversus Haereses, III).

Finally, of all the branches of the catholic Church, the Anglican branch is the most dedicated to the exclusive use of the Bible for doctrine, discipline, and worship (see Articles VI and XX again). If "fundamentalism" is defined as loyalty to the God-given fundamentals of the Christian Faith as revealed in the Scriptures, then we are a "fundamentalist" Church.

Why do we say that the Holy Scriptures contain all things necessary for salvation?

We say this because, while the knowledge that mankind can obtain on its own is limited to what can be learned from the world around us, God is not confined to this world (review Lesson Two: The Doctrine of God). God is the Creator of the world and lives without it. The only sure information we can have about God is the information that God himself provides from outside the limits of the world. This information is called "revelation," and it is contained exclusively in the Bible, as agreed to and attested by the undivided Church (notice that Article XX teaches that the Church's authority depends on her being "a witness and keeper of Holy Writ," BCP 607). In revelation, God does not promise us all of the information about himself that we might like to possess, but he does promise us all the information that we need for salvation, and the hope of our complete knowledge of him at the time of his own choosing (see John 21:25; 1 Corinthians 13:12).

What do we call the agreement and testimony of the Church to the Scriptures?

The witness of the undivided Church that certain inspired writings are the self-revelation of God in this world is called "the Canon of Scripture."

"Canon" comes from a Greek word meaning a "measuring stick" or "rule." It comes from an even older word in Hebrew that means "cane" or "stick" (compare "sugar cane"). The Hebrews used notched sticks, as other ancient peoples did, to keep tallies. They used sticks driven into the ground to mark boundaries (see Deuteronomy 27:17). The Greeks developed this practice further, using precisely measured sticks as standards of measurement. The Canon of Scripture sets the boundaries of the Holy Scriptures: no other writings may be included or taught as necessary for salvation. The Canon of Scripture keeps precise count of how many sacred books there really are. The Canon of Scripture is the standard of teaching, provided by God and adopted by the Church, for anyone who wishes to teach the revelation of God.

What is revelation?

This is the wrong question. The right one is, "Who is Revelation?" And the right answer is, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is Revelation.

St. John's Gospel begins, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1). Jesus Christ is the Word of God. In the Greek, John has written that Jesus is the Logos of God. This is a difficult word to translate into English, but "Word" is a very good translation, as long as we understand that it means everything that we associate with "words": knowledge, expression, reason, understanding, will, truth, logic, commandment, and the power of God's commandment to cause things to be: "All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made" (John 1:3). Jesus Christ is God's Word of power: "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light" (Genesis 1:3).

All "words," all communication, reason, logic, thought, are the creatures of God, except for his uncreated Word: his only-begotten Son. Jesus Christ is the source of all words and all meaning. Thus, for example, lying is a sin, not simply because lies hurt others, but because lies are a rejection of the Word of Truth of God: the perversion of the image and likeness of a truthful God in the life of sinful men. Moreover, Jesus Christ is the content and fulfillment of God's expression of himself to mankind, given first, indirectly, by the power of the Holy Ghost through the prophets; given finally, directly, also by the Holy Ghost, in the Incarnation:

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high (Hebrews 1:1-3).

Jesus Christ is "the Alpha and the Omega" (the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet), the beginning and the end, the completeness of all truth (of any kind, in any area of thought, study, or endeavor), and the fullness of all knowledge of God (Revelation 22:13; see also Isaiah 41:4, 44:6). Nothing can be true that does not agree with the Word of Jesus Christ. In heaven itself, Jesus Christ's "name is called The Word of God" (Revelation 19:13). Jesus, as the Father's revelation of his good will, is the means of mankind's salvation, both in his deeds and in his teaching: "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17).

Because Jesus Christ is the Word of God, the entirety of the Scriptures, both the Old and the New Testaments, is the record of God the Son, as the revelation of the Father, before and after his becoming flesh (see again 1 John 5:9). No one can know God without knowing Jesus Christ: "neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him" (Matthew 11:27). The revelation of God in the Old Testament and the promises God made there were all the Gospel (meaning the "good news") of Jesus Christ: "And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed" (Galatians 3:8; and review Article VII, BCP 604). The Jews still call the Ten Commandments the "Ten Words" of God, and the entire New Testament demonstrates that Jesus Christ is the living commandment of God the Father in all things (see John 4:34).

In his public preaching and earthly ministry, Jesus Christ personally warranted the truth and authority of the Old Testament (Matthew 5:17-18, where "the law and the prophets" is the Jewish term for the Old Testament); he opened Scriptures to his disciples' understanding (Luke 24:13-35,45-48); and he guaranteed the preservation of the Gospel he taught in the New Testament by promise of the Holy Ghost (John 14:16-17,26; 16:13-15).

God's Word Written

The Scriptures are truly, then, "God's Word Written": the outward and visible sign (because created words are signs or symbols), given for our learning, of the Truth (the Living Word) of God (see Romans 15:4). It is the same Christ we receive when we read the Holy Scriptures in faith that we receive in the Holy Communion. It is the truth that is contained in the Holy Scriptures, the person of Jesus Christ, that is the content of the life of Christ's Body the Church. Thus, St John wrote not only for himself, but for all the human beings chosen by God to set down the Holy Scriptures:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full (1 John 1:1-4).

We can see clearly, then, that Revelation is the expression of the goodness and good will of the Father, through the Son who is his Word, by the graceful power of the Holy Ghost acting upon mankind to receive God's Truth.

What is the Old Testament?

The Old Testament is the written record of God's revelations and promises made to the Hebrew people and the Jewish Church in preparation for the coming of Jesus Christ to be the Savior of the whole world. It is called the "Old Testament" (see 2 Corinthians 3:14 for the Biblical use of the name) because its heart is the Covenant (testament, God-given relationship) between God and the Children of Israel, who were the descendants of his servant Abraham, who was chosen in his turn from among the descendants of Adam and Eve.

The Old Testament records God's creation of the world. It recounts man's first sin and mankind's need for a Savior. It contains God's promise of salvation, his promise to put away sin and its effects forever, all to be fulfilled in the New Testament of his Son. The Old Testament includes the history of Israel as a nation; the Law of God and the religious regulations given to the Jewish people; the books of the Prophets (those who "speak for" God), empowered by grace to say "Thus saith the Lord"; a hymnbook (the Psalter); wisdom literature (e.g., Proverbs); and even a love poem (the Song of Solomon).

Does a Christian need to know the Old Testament?

There is no greater error in Bible study than to assume that Christians do not need to know the Old Testament, or that we are not bound by its teaching.

The entire Bible is the Word of God, and we may not pick and choose what we will read or obey. Understanding the New Testament depends on our knowing the Old Testament. Christ repeatedly quotes from the Old Testament as the Word of God (as his own Word: e.g., the summary of the Law, Matthew 22:37-40, combining Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18). But we must not think that what Christ does not quote does not matter. Christ constantly assumes that his hearers are familiar with the Old Testament, and if we are to be his hearers and disciples, we must know the Old Testament as well. For example, it is impossible to understand Christ's ministry as Savior and Messiah without first knowing the Old Testament account of mankind's creation and fall in Genesis (see 1 Corinthians 15:20-23).

Sometimes the Old Testament is called "the Jewish Bible," but this name is only true if we mean by it that the Jewish people were God's chosen instrument for his revelation of himself to the whole world. The Chosen People are the means of the Old Testament revelation, and not its limit (see Genesis 22:18, and apply it to Deuteronomy 7:6-8). As Article VII (BCP 604) rightly teaches, except for the civil laws of the Kingdom of Israel, and except for the rules regarding ritual purity and temple worship (which were expressly done away with by God as no longer necessary after the sacrifice of his Son: see Matthew 27:51; Acts 10), all of the Old Testament remains binding on Christians as part of the moral law of God. As Christ himself tells us, before the New Testament was written, "the scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35).

What is the New Testament?

The New Testament is the written record of the fulfillment of God's promises made in the Old Testament, in the person of his Son Jesus Christ (see Isaiah 53:4-5; Luke 24:25-27; Acts 10:43; 1 Corinthians 15:3). This book takes its name from Christ's own words and from the new relationship with his Father that Christ provides in his own Blood (see Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 11:25; and 2 Corinthians 3:6).

The New Testament was written in a much shorter time than the Old, because it is the eyewitness account of the life and ministry of Christ (the Gospels), and of the teaching and deeds of his Apostles (Acts). The New Testament also contains the letters (epistles) of the Apostles, written to teach, encourage, or admonish the early Church. The New Testament ends with St. John's mystic vision of the end of the world and the Kingdom of Heaven (Revelation).

Since Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises, and since he is, himself, the Word of God (the perfect and complete revelation of God); revelation is complete in this world with the closing of the Canon of the New Testament. We may learn more and more about God by studying the Holy Scriptures, gaining new insight into the gift of himself that God has given us, but no new revelation is possible according to God's own Word until after the Second Coming.

Anyone who claims a new revelation, who teaches anything other than what Christ has revealed, is to be counted accursed (Galatians 1:8-9). Christ has warranted the Scriptures himself (see Matthew 5:17-18), so that anyone who denies the Scriptures makes Christ a liar and denies him. The Holy Ghost is the protector of the truth Christ has delivered (see John 14:26); so that no claim of "spiritual experience" can take precedence over the revealed Truth of the Scriptures. "No man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed" (1 Corinthians 12:3), so no one who questions anything in the Holy Scriptures ever speaks by the Spirit of God. In fact, the test of whether a "spiritual experience" is of God or of the devil is the truth of Christ in the Scriptures (1 John 4:1-6). Anyone who tries to add or subtract from the Holy Scriptures will receive the horrible punishment promised at the end of the New Testament, in the Book of Revelation (Revelation 22:18-19).

In what languages were the Holy Scriptures written?

The Old Testament was written in Hebrew. A translation of the Old Testament into Greek was made in the second and third centuries B.C. by Jewish scholars, so that dispersed Jews and interested Gentiles could read it. Jewish tradition says that seventy-two scholars worked on this translation, so that it is called the Septuagint, from the Greek word for "seventy."

The New Testament as we have it today is written in Greek, the "universal language" of the time of our Lord. Tradition and scholars tell us that parts of the New Testament were first circulated in Aramaic or Hebrew, before the text took its final form.

There is a group of fourteen books, called the Apocrypha (from the Greek for "secret" or "non-canonical"), that were written between the Testaments in Hebrew or Greek. They are called "deuterocanonical" ("forming a second canon") because they are not universally accepted as part of the Bible. Roman Catholics read them as Scripture. Protestants, by and large, do not use them in Church at all. Anglicans, however, read them for instruction and historical interest, but do not use them for the proof of doctrine (see Article VI, BCP 604).

A few other items about translation may be useful. A complete translation of the Scriptures from the original languages is called a "version" (e.g., the King James Version). Traditionally, a group of scholars is required for a version, rather than a single translator. Putting the Scriptures into other words in order to indicate a particular interpretation of them is called a "paraphrase." Only "versions" approved by the Church's authorities may be used in church services. Thus, the King James Version is also called "the Authorized Version," meaning that it was prepared and authorized for use in Anglican Churches.

Also note that the chapter and verse divisions used in printed Bibles are not part of the original or the manuscript (handwritten) texts. The chapter divisions were added in the thirteenth century by a Cardinal Hugo, in order to make it easier to refer to different sections of the text. The end of one chapter and the beginning of another do not necessarily mean a change in thought by the original writer. The same is true of the verse divisions, which first appeared in the English Bible in the sixteenth century.

When was the Bible translated into English?

Parts of the Bible were translated into Old English (Anglo-Saxon) before the Norman Conquest (1066). The first complete translation was into Middle English in the fourteenth century by John Wyclif and his followers. This translation was in manuscript, and based on the Latin version known as the Vulgate (made in the fourth century by St. Jerome, in the common or "vulgar" Latin).

In the sixteenth century, William Tyndale translated the New Testament and the first five books of the Old Testament (the Books of Moses, or the Pentateuch) from the original Greek and Hebrew. His work formed the basis of the 1535 Coverdale Bible, which was the first complete printed Bible in English. This Bible was the basis of the Great Bible of 1539, used in the 1549 Book of Common Prayer. The Psalms printed in today's Prayer Book are substantially from this translation. The Comfortable Words in the Communion service are either adapted from this translation, or a separate liturgical translation based on it.11 The most famous and scholarly version of the English Bible is the Authorized or King James Version of 1611, commissioned by King James I of England to end disputes in the Church of England over Bible translations. The King James is a translation from the original tongues, retaining the best phrasing of earlier versions when accurate. It became the standard Bible of English speaking non-Roman Christians.

Other translations in English are available, of course. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, for example, the Revised Standard Version appeared, as an attempt to update the King James. The Jerusalem Bible of the 1960s is an English translation of a modern French version. Unfortunately, most "modern" translations, especially those since 1960, are really paraphrases: attempts to make the Bible fit certain theories of scholarship or theology. In most ways, the King James is still the best available English version of the Scriptures.

How were the Scriptures produced?

Much of the material in the Bible was originally transmitted by word of mouth, before it was written down. Moses, for example, lived centuries after the events he recounts in Genesis. Moses, of course, also wrote about contemporary or recent events, using his own or others' eye-witness testimony. We also know for example, that the writer (by Jewish tradition the Prophet Jeremiah) of the Books of Kings used previously written sources in his work: he tells us so repeatedly (e.g., 1 Kings 11:41).

What complicates matters some (for us, but not for God), is the way the ancient people wrote. As do many modern executives, ancient writers often dictated their works to secretaries or assistants. So, for example, the writings of the Prophets were just as likely to be written down by their followers, as by the prophets themselves (see Jeremiah 36:1-2,4,6).

The writing down of the New Testament began with St. Paul and his letters (epistles), which often bear the name of his secretary at the end (see Romans 16:22, compare 1 Corinthians 16:21). The Gospels were written down towards the end of the lives of the Apostles. A written record was necessary to preserve their eye-witness testimony against their deaths from persecution or old age. St. Irenaeus, who was a disciple of St. Polycarp, who was a disciple of St. John, tells us that St. Matthew wrote his Gospel first in the language of his own Jewish people, then in Greek. St. Mark, who was an assistant of St. Peter, wrote down Peter's preaching of the Gospel. St. Luke, an associate of St. Paul, wrote down Paul's preaching (as well as the Acts, a history of the early Church). St. John, with the help of his assistants, produced his Gospel while living in Ephesus (Adversus Haereses, III.i).

All of the books of the New Testament rest on Apostolic authority, just as all the books of the Old Testament rest on the authority of the men chosen by God and inspired by the Holy Ghost to write his Word (2 Peter 1:21). This authority did not come from the men themselves, but from the Holy Ghost, so that our opinions about them and their religious experiences, or any lapses in time between events and their recording of them, have no real bearing on the validity or accuracy of the Scriptures. God is able to have his Word written down as he chooses, or God is not God.

The Closing of the Canon

The Canon of the Old Testament was closed (in the sense that the known canon was publicly attested to by the Jewish authorities) around the end of the first century. The canonical writings of the New Testament appear to have been finished by the end of the first century as well. By the end of the second century, the Church has basically agreed to the Canon of the New Testament as it is today (see the Muratorian Fragment: a list of New Testament books). Certainly by the fourth century the list was complete and final, since St. Athanasius gives the same list of New Testament books that we use today in his Easter Letter of 367.

How many books are there in the Bible?

Here is an easy way to remember. There are 39 books in the Old Testament. There are 27 (3 x 9) books in the New Testament. There are 14 (2 x 7) books in the Apocrypha.

What is inspiration?

Inspiration is the work of the Holy Ghost: the giving of life. The word "inspiration" comes from the Latin word "to breathe," "to breathe into," as does the word "spirit." Just as he breathed life into Adam's body (Genesis 2:7), the Holy Ghost breathes into ordinary human words the life of Jesus Christ, so that they can be the Living Word of God:

All scripture is given by inspiration of God [literally, is "God-breathed"], and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

Only that which is perfect can make the godly perfect. The Holy Scriptures are perfect in the same way that the Holy Communion is perfect: they are the God-given means, empowered by the Holy Ghost, for the reception by grace and faith of the Perfect Word of God, Jesus Christ.

And just as the Holy Communion is received within the fellowship of the Church, so also are the Holy Scriptures:

We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: knowing this first that, no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost (2 Peter 1:19-21).

and

I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ (Galatians 1:11-12).

It is within the Body of Christ that Jesus Christ lives in this world, and that his Word lives. It is within the Church, inspired by the Holy Ghost, who came in the outward sign of Pentecost, that the Scriptures are to be understood. But the Church does not control the Scriptures: the Scriptures control the life and teaching of the Church. If the Church should stray from the Scriptures (as some parts of the Church have from time to time: Article XIX, BCP 606), she would lose the power of Christ in her life and be liable to Christ's accusation: "Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God" (Matthew 22:29; see also, Matthew 15:3-6).

How does inspiration "work"?

Remember the Summary of the Law. Our Lord said:

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets (Matthew 22:37-40).

We know that "the Law and the Prophets" was a Jewish name for the Old Testament, all of the Bible in writing at the time of our Lord's earthly ministry. So the Bible hangs (depends) on loving God with all our hearts, souls, and minds. As we saw in Lesson Two ("The Doctrine of God"), love for God is itself a gift of God's grace, because God created us and loved us first (see 1 John 4:10,19). The inspiration of the Bible begins with God's reaching out by the power of the Holy Ghost to the human writer, followed by the writer's response (also in grace) with all his heart, and soul, and mind.

The inspiration of the Bible is not the same thing as the dictation of a letter to a secretary. Inspiration is the relationship between God and those he chooses to be his messengers and spokesmen, just as salvation is the relationship between God and the redeemed. God's messengers are not perfect as God is perfect. They have limitations based on who they are, and where and when they lived. They do not necessarily have to understand the full meaning of what God reveals to them and inspires them to write (see Daniel 8:15, 12:8-9; Zechariah 1:7-9; 1 Peter 1:10-12). The Old Testament writers could not have imagined the glory of Christ's birth, death, and resurrection as the fulfillment of the promises God made through them (see Isaiah 53:1-5).

When Jesus Christ came in the flesh, he could teach directly, as God himself, in the perfect relationship of the Trinity, without these limitations. He could make all things as clear as they can be for our imperfect human hearts, souls, and minds. But even Jesus Christ chose human spokesmen to write down his Gospel, promising the active presence of the Holy Ghost in the lives of his humanly limited Apostles and Evangelists (John 14:26). Their teaching, united to Christ as his Church (as the members of his Body), clarifies and completes the teaching of the Old Testament.

Is the Bible perfect or infallible?

The Bible is God's Word Written, and it is as perfect and infallible (without error) as Jesus Christ, God's Word made flesh, is perfect and infallible. God knows all things and is able to do all things; so God is able to express himself without error by any means he chooses.

Since the entire Bible is the Word of God, the Bible must be read in its entirety, as a whole. No part of the Bible may be set against another (see Article XX, BCP 607). Simply because we do not understand how all of the "parts" of the Bible go together, does not mean that God doesn't understand them. We cannot choose this sentence or that word out of the Bible, according to our own tastes or prejudices, and then claim we are teaching the Word of God.

Since most of us read the Bible in translation, we must also remember that the original text is the work of the Holy Ghost, and not every translation. We must also remember the possibilities of errors in the transmission of the text, due to mistakes by scribes (in manuscripts) or by printers. One famous early printed Bible (called "The Wicked Bible") gave the Seventh Commandment as "Thou shalt commit adultery." But even if that were the only copy of the Bible in the world, we could learn what God really taught and intended by studying the whole Bible. Similarly, variations in ancient manuscripts make no real difference in the Bible's doctrine.

How should we read the Bible?

We should read the Bible in the same way that it was written: with our whole hearts, whole souls, and whole minds, under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, and through the teaching of Jesus Christ and his Church. Before we read the Bible, we should always pray to God, whose Word it is, that his Son and the Holy Ghost will bring us to him.

We should begin our actual reading by trying to listen to God, rather than looking for ways to prove our own ideas or support our own prejudices (Psalm 46:10). We should use our minds, looking in the text for guidance about what kind of writing (genre) we are reading, remembering that the human authors, while inspired, use language in a human way.

For example, St. John tells us that the Book of Revelation is an account of a vision given to him by God (Revelation 1:9-11). Thousands of silly people have insisted that all of the Bible is strictly symbolic (including the parts that are history), except for this book whose author tells us clearly that it is symbolic. When the Psalmist uses a poetic image to tell us that Israel is the Vine that God has planted for himself (Psalm 80:8; in this case the image is a metaphor), any sensible person will understand from the context (the setting and the circumstances) that he is not saying that the Israelites were green and had leaves. On the other hand, when the Bible provides a straightforward account of an event, even a miraculous one, there is no reason to take it any other way than as a simple history of God's gracious action toward mankind.

Faith, Reason, and Science

One especially troublesome passage for many people is the account of creation in Genesis. There is simply no valid reason, verifiable by the scientific method, not to take this account of the six days of creation literally (as is). The various "theories of evolution" are scientifically untestable, and have to be taken on faith themselves: a secular faith that decides ahead of time that God either does not exist, or that God could not do what he claims to have done in Genesis. Since the whole of the Bible rests on the real-world, real-time, observable proof of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (see 1 Corinthians 15:12-19); there is far more scientific reason to accept Genesis than any merely human theory or guess about the beginning of life.

Christianity is reason, because it is the truth about reality, so there can be no conflict between faith and reason. Faith makes reason possible, since faith provides the necessary information about the world from outside the closed-system of the world. Nor can there be any conflict between "science" (which is a system of observation and description, derived from such Biblical concepts as cause and effect) and "faith." Science describes the world, within the limits of current human skill. God explains the world by revelation. When "science shifts to explanations of the meanings of events (or the lack thereof), it ceases to be science and becomes merely another religion competing with the one true religion of Christianity (see Paul's admonition against "science falsely so called": 1 Timothy 6:20-21). The humanly manufactured "conflict" between faith and science is a desperate attempt to avoid the moral and spiritual obligations of revealed religion. It is as old as the serpent's question in the Garden: "Yea, hath God said?" (Genesis 3:1); and Christians have been coping with it since the beginning of the Church (see 1 Timothy 6:20-21 again).

"What Does It Say?"

Thus, the first and most important question about any Scriptural passage isn't "What does it mean?" or "What can we do with it?" The right question is, "What does it say?"

We begin to answer this question by making certain that we understand the words used (especially in terms of how they are used in the rest of Scripture, but also in their ordinary definitions). We continue by making certain that we are reading our passage in context (in terms of the larger passage or book that surrounds it, as well as in terms of the rest of the Bible). For example, just because the Bible tells us Judas hanged himself (Matthew 27:5), we must not jump to the conclusion that the Bible encourages suicide. From the words and the context, we look for clues as to what kind of literature we are reading (e.g., a poem, a prophesy, a hymn, a parable, a vision, a history). Then we look to the whole Bible again to see how God used the different kinds of literature to express his will.

When we have taken these basic steps, we will have a good idea about what the passage actually says. Some passages will be easier than others (see 2 Peter 3:15-16), but within the Church we have the advantage of two thousand years of work to answer the question, "What does God say?" And when we are reasonably certain that we know what a passage says, we will almost always have answered the question, "What does it mean?" as well. We should always begin by taking the writings of the Bible, in context, as plainly as possible, "for God is not the author of confusion, but of peace" (1 Corinthians 14:33). Biblical passages take on additional meaning, not by our giving free rein to our imagination (as if responding to the inkblots of a Rorschach test), but by their interconnection with the rest of the Bible. "What does God say?" is the indispensable tool for understanding "What does God mean?"

How is Scripture cited?

We cite Scripture by giving the book, the chapter, and the verse numbers. For example, St. Matthew 22:34-40, means St. Matthew's Gospel, the 22nd chapter, verses 34 to 40.

Are Bible study groups a good idea?

Yes, if they take place in the context of the life of the Church. Both private and group study of the Bible should take place under the pastoral care of a minister of the Gospel approved by the Church. Ask your pastor about any Bible study group before you join it, and always make sure that you bring any questions about your reading of the Bible to your pastor. He is trained to help you get the most out of your Bible reading. Remember: the mere sharing of private opinions on the Bible can degenerate into what one old priest called "antiphonal ignorance." Bible study is a systematic, careful effort to understand God more clearly, and not a competition to dazzle our friends with the fruits of our imagination.

Editorial Notes

Source: Louis R. Tarsitano, An Outline of an Anglican Life (Classical Anglican Press, 1994). Reproduced on AnglicanWiki by permission of Classical Anglican Press.