Because of my conviction, when I saw this book on the Koorong shelf I was interested to see what this says. This book was originally five lectures that Mark Thompson gave in August 2005 at Moore College. It deals with the major objections to this doctrine along with some responses and a strengthening of the doctrine.
Strong objections to this doctrine came during the reformation and then in the post-modern era. During the reformation, protestants were advocating for the common man to read the Bible for themselves. This upset the establishment as people then used this knowledge of the Bible to question the Church in Rome. With the rise of post-modernism, the very medium of understanding a text was up for grabs. This is because there is a perceived struggle with knowing an author's intent and the imprecise nature of words to explain reality means we can not really know the truth with a T, just our own truth.
The main objections revolve around difficult texts in scripture, our own sinfulness in knowing a transcendent God and the self-evident variations of traditions and Churches who all have the same text, and yet they are not uniformed in their belief and practice. This book deals with these objections, sharpening what the doctrine meant, ie it was never used to say there were no difficult texts, nor was it to say we can understand 100% of a transcendent God, only just we can understand what it says about God.
While we may fumble with words, trying to describe reality, we need to see that God doesn't have these limitations. In fact, He invented language, and it was there before the fall. We should be able to approach our text with confidence, knowing that God is a good communicator. We should also not underestimate the living and activeness of the text - with the help of the Holy Spirit, who inspired the text, is also at work in the believer to help them understand what He wrote.
In one summary statement, Thompson defines this doctrine as:
The clarity of Scripture is that quality of the biblical text that, as God’s communicative act, ensures its meaning is accessible to all who come to it in faith
and the whole book concludes with:
The practice of reading in the light of this confession will be serious and attentive. It will not be content with superficiality or with a uniform literalism that flattens the variety of genre and literary feature found throughout this text. It will take seriously the text we have (not pining for some ideal text beyond our reach) and expects that these very words have the power to cut deep and to heal profoundly even today. In short, a confession of the clarity of Scripture is an aspect of faith in a generous God who is willing and able to make himself and his purposes known. God has something to say and he is very good at saying it.
I appreciated this book, but understand some may not want to go through this. We should have confidence in our text, our daily reading and weekly small groups depend on this doctrine. In fact, I used this book, as well a chapter from DeYoungs Taking God at His Word to run a workshop at our church in November for our life group leaders. At the end, I had a few say something like:
- that we can all approach our text knowing it is going to speak to us;
- that our intellect is off the table, as everyone is just looking at the text in front of us and seeing what it says;
- that all members in the group can help each other confirm and affirm our faith
- we don't need our senior pastor, or a commentary, or podcast/sermon to tell us what the Bible says, we can read it for ourselves
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