Saturday, December 26, 2020

Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth-2 Timothy 2:15

This is an often overlooked verse of Scripture, which is interesting given how it's about Scripture.

There is a common attitude among Evangelical Christians that goes "how dare you suggest some parts of Scripture are more important then others", they feel the integrity of Scripture considers it important they label all Scripture equally as authoritative for every purpose.

In the same Epistle chapter 3 verse 16 Paul says all Scripture is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction in righteousness.  But maybe those should be "or" rather then "and", the KJV uses neither.

As charming an Ideal as it is to try and treat every single obscure statement of Scripture as being equally as important as what Jesus said on The Cross or Moses on Mt Sinai, that's incredibly unhelpful.  The Bible is a big book, you can in theory read all of it in a few days if you really pushed yourself, or played an audio book version at double speed.  But you are not going to properly consume it or understand it that way.  So at the very least we should maybe give new Christians some guidelines to what they need to read first.

To a certain extent I think Christians should consider even the least of the New Testament higher priority then even the most vital parts of the Hebrew Bible (commonly called the "Old Testament").  That stuff is all important but Christians should always be reading it through a New Testament filter.

Top priority should be the life story, teachings and example of Jesus.  We get that in the 4 Gospels and very beginning of Acts (where many Bibles have the words of Jesus in Red) and then the entire Book of Revelation.  

Then next under Jesus in Authority would be the 12 Disciples, and almost about equal with them the Beloved Disciple/Bethany Siblings and maybe also the Maternal half siblings of Jesus.  We get their teachings in the first 15 Chapters of Acts and the General Epistles, and also arguably the narrative voices of Matthew, Mark (who wrote what Peter preached) and the Fourth Gospel.

The rest of the New Testament is basically Paul.  It might concern you that I'm aiding and abetting the Anti-Paul cultists by categorizing him as the least authoritative New Testament voice, but it's consistent with Paul's own claims, he defined himself as the least of the Apostles in 1 Corinthians 15:9.

Judaism traditionally divides the Hebrew Bible into three categories, The Law or Torah which is the Pentateuch the Five Books of Moses.  And then The Prophets and The Writings.  New Testament references commonly taken as referring to the "Old Testament" as a whole are actually just saying The Law and The Prophets.

Now The New Testament is arguably including in the Prophets some material the traditional Jewish reckoning does not, Jesus calls both Daniel and Jonah Prophets, and Peter calls David a Prophet in Acts 2, Davidic Psalms are the most commonly quoted Psalms in the New Testament, but not the only ones, for example Asaph's are quoted and there is justification for labeling him a Prophet as well based on comparing 1 Samuel 1:9 to 2 Chronicles 29:30.

But the New Testament never actually unambiguously quotes the post Torah historical books.  It alludes to history from them, and quotes Psalms they also quote, and Elijah once, but that's it, their overall narrative voice isn't endorsed at all.  They are important for providing context, but perhaps they shouldn't be viewed uncritically as history books.  I have a prior post on comparing Chronicles to Samuel-Kings.

And I have also discussed how the New Testament speaks rather dismissively of Solomon, so perhaps the writings attributed to Solomon should be ranked at the very bottom?

This post isn't me arguing anything should be thrown out.  But when dealing with things like apparent contradictions we should consider who said the verse in question and for what purpose.

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