Biblical and Missional Foundations (Foundations Series 3 of 6)
Biblical Foundation
Our definition of theology is the application of God’s revelation in Scripture to all areas of life. So the role of the Bible in developing sound theology is essential.
To apply the Bible, we need to know the Bible. And to know the Bible, we need to study it. The Apostle Paul writes to his disciple Timothy, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15).
Notice how the Bible commends the people in the city of Berea who heard Paul’s teaching: “Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (Acts 17:11).
Following the example of the Bereans, we must test everything, including the great ecumenical creeds and historical confessions of faith, by studying the Scriptures.
The Westminster Confession (1646) warns about the danger of placing more value on the confessions and creeds from church councils than on the Bible: “All synods or councils, since the apostles’ times, whether general or particular, may err; and many have erred. Therefore, they are not to be made the rule of faith or practice; but to be used as a help in both.”
Martin Luther reflects this in his famous statement: “Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason—I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other—my conscience is captive to the Word of God.”
Likewise, Calvin echoes this sentiment: “Be this as it may, we shall never be able to distinguish between contradictory and dissenting councils, which have been many, unless we weigh them all in that balance for men and angels, I mean, the word of God.”
Any form of traditionalism that demands a total alignment with a theological tradition, divorced from a higher commitment to sola Scriptura, can lead to spiritual ruin.
However, it’s not enough to study and to understand Scripture. We must also learn how to apply it. Sola Scriptura refers not only to the authority and clarity of the Bible but also to its sufficiency and application to all of life. The Westminster Confession describes it this way:
The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture. (Italics ours)
Paul writes to Timothy about the sufficiency of Scripture: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:16).
Likewise, Peter describes the fullness of God’s revelation as including “all things that pertain to life and godliness” (2 Pet 1:3).
The doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture affirms that the Bible clearly teaches, either explicitly or implicitly, all God's truth necessary for our salvation and spiritual life.
This doesn’t mean the Bible has all truth. For example, the Scriptures don’t explain all the laws and principles of natural science such as physics, chemistry, and biology. The Bible is not a scientific textbook, but where it speaks to science, it speaks truthfully.
The doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture doesn’t discourage us from learning truth from the natural world. Instead, a biblical view of truth acknowledges all truth is God’s truth. If something is true, it’s because it is an accurate description of something God reveals or creates.
The fifth century theologian Augustine writes: “Nay, but let every good and true Christian understand that wherever truth may be found, it belongs to his Master…” Calvin agrees with this when he states: “All truth is from God; and consequently, if wicked men have said anything that is true and just, we ought not to reject it; for it has come from God.”
Therefore, we can and should recognize the riches of God’s truth revealed in his creation. But we must also affirm sola Scriptura, that the Bible alone gives us all the truth we need for our salvation and spiritual life.
Because the Bible is God’s inspired Word which includes an understandable and consistent set of truths, we can understand it on our own, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Nevertheless, affirming the sufficiency of Scripture and the work of the Holy Spirit doesn’t mean we don’t need pastors and teachers. In Ephesians 4:11-13, the Apostle Paul writes:
“It was [Christ] who gave some to be … pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all … become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”
Although the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit can give us salvation and spiritual life, God gives us pastors and teachers to help us mature spiritually in ways we could not without them. The writer of Hebrews challenges his readers who failed to become mature through their teachers’ instruction:
“For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food ... But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil (Heb. 5:12-14).”
Our goal in this series is to help you understand the biblical balance between the sufficiency of Scripture and the need for teachers to help you mature in Christ.
Missional Foundation
The Bible gives us more than just a consistent set of truths to help us develop our theology. It also gives us a unified, unfolding story to shape our theology. It's the story of God's mission.
Although the Bible comprises a wide variety of literature—including laws, history, prophecies, poetry, letters, and apocalyptic writings—at its core, it is one unfolding story with a beginning, middle, and end.
The Bible isn’t a hodge podge compilation of isolated facts we need to arrange into a coherent set of topics to understand it. Kevin Vanhoozer describes this traditional approach to theology when he writes, “For large swaths of the Western tradition, the task of theology consisted in mining propositional nuggets from the biblical deposit of truth.”
Similarly, Michael Goheen warns against the common danger of approaching the study of the Bible apart from understanding its overarching story:
We have fragmented the Bible into bits … moral bits, systematic-theological bits, devotional bits, narrative bits, and sermon bits. And when the Bible is broken up in this way there is no comprehensive grand narrative to withstand the power of the comprehensive humanist narrative that shapes our culture.
Therefore, it’s possible to master Christian doctrine and know all the stories in the Bible, but still miss what Edmund Clowney calls the Story in the stories:
It is possible to know Bible stories, yet miss the Bible story. The Bible is much more than William How stated: “a golden casket where gems of truth are stored.” It is more than a bewildering collection of oracles, proverbs, poems, architectural directions, annals, and prophecies. The Bible has a story line. It traces an unfolding drama ... The story is God’s story. It describes His work to rescue rebels from their folly, guilt, and ruin ... Only God’s revelation can build a story where the end is anticipated from the beginning, and where the guiding principle is not chance or fate, but a promise. Human authors may build fiction around a plot they have devised, but only God can shape history to a real and ultimate purpose.
Lesslie Newbigin was a twentieth-century British theologian and missionary to India. While in India, a Hindu leader admonished him for presenting the truths of Scripture apart from God’s unfolding mission in history:
I can’t understand why you missionaries present the Bible to us in India as a book of religion. It is not a book of religion—and anyway we have plenty of books of religion in India. We don’t need any more! I find in your Bible a unique interpretation of universal history, the history of the whole of creation and the history of the human race. And therefore a unique interpretation of the human person as a responsible actor in history. That is unique. There is nothing else in the whole religious literature of the world to put alongside it.
To understand the Bible, we must interpret it in light of God’s mission. At its heart, biblical theology is missional theology. Knowing this, we can understand how all the familiar bits and pieces fit into the grand narrative. We don't find God's mission in only a few New Testament passages. Instead, we find it throughout the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation.
God means for this revelation of his mission in Scripture to shape our theology, to draw us into its plot, and to compel us to align our life purpose with his.