Steve Chalke wants to start a global discussion about the Bible – see the video here or the document here. You may remember, he made his views on same-sex marriage clear last year, and I commented then that I didn’t agree with his understanding of Scripture. He’s gone one step further this time, but I don’t want to waste time discussing it here when others have already written an excellent response. The gist of it is basically that what Steve Chalke is proposing ultimately undermines confidence in the Bible, the opposite of what he was intending!
Over the past few weeks I’ve been studying the book of Hebrews as part of my college course. Hebrews is a difficult book (I remember reading it as a student and being baffled by much of it!), but it has some important things to say to us regarding how we understand Scripture. Hebrews is interesting because it’s preaching a sermon about Christ, but it uses exclusively Old Testament texts to talk about Christ (it hardly refers to his earthly ministry at all). As such it teaches us a lot about what it means to understand the Old Testament.
As we all know the best place to start is the beginning – this is how Hebrews kicks off:
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
So. God spoke to “our fathers”, i.e. the Jewish people, through the prophets – but recently he has spoken to us by “his Son”. What’s interesting here is that both the prophets and Jesus are counted as “God speaking”. As we will see, it’s not the case that Jesus is somehow a ‘superior’ revelation to the prophets per se, more that the Old Testament speaks of and points forward to Christ.
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