on 11 January 2023
Dear all at IPC,
“Can you give me a verse that shows….?”
“Where in the bible does it directly say God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit?” “There is no verse in the bible that tells us to baptise Children?”
“Where does Jesus say anything about homosexuality?”
“Show me the verse! Show me the verse?”
These are often felt to be the definitive questions which show that we cannot prove our point from the Bible. It is sometimes pointed out we hold our positions because of tradition, our theological system, or possibly something even worse.
There are huge problems with this “show me a verse” approach, and to be honest even cursory thought shows the major problems with it. Take for example this: there is no instance of a woman taking the Lord’s Supper in the New Testament. (I’m grateful to Jonty Rhodes for pointing this out to me) No example and no command. So, should we stop women taking communion at IPC? I should perhaps add no one has ever made this argument to me in person.
It is here where I’ve been reminded just how very helpful is the Westminster Confession of Faith. In the first chapter on Scripture, Prof Donald Macleod says, “this chapter is the greatest single statement on scripture to be found anywhere in the English language…it’s a superb piece of prose, it’s a superb piece of theology, it’s superb pastoral counselling. It isn’t long, so read and digest it”.
The chapter goes through the doctrine of the bible – It’s Necessity, Inspiration, Authority, Perfection, Perspicuity (how clear it is) and Sufficiency but in 1:6 we are told – 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: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men.
The Westminster divines are arguing that when we come to the bible it requires us to be careful in our reading, thinking and preaching. Some things are ‘expressly set down in the bible’, that is they’ll be clear on the surface. But there will be other truths we come to ‘by good and necessary consequence and are deduced from the bible”
The Christian faith is not wooden, a “put your question in” machine and out pops a proof text. God has given a book with 35 human authors but one divine coherent mind. We are to let the clear parts of scriptures interpret those parts which are less clear. We are to seek to draw together and grapple with the parts of scripture which don’t seem to initially be teaching the same thing. We will have a collection of verses which when you read them together generates the truth. This doctrine coordinates all these verses together in a way that makes sense of them in a unified revelation. There are principles that can be directly derived from God’s Word.
What this tells us is that it may be that we don’t have a verse that explicitly tells us women can take the Lord’s Table or any host of issues, but by good and necessary consequence looking at what Scripture says about the nature of Communion we can give to women the Lord’s Supper. (Phew)
Integrating , consolidating and harmonising Scripture is part of our glorious task in living out the Christian faith. Having our minds formed by Scripture means that we have to recognise that we need help in this. We stand on the shoulders of giants in the history of the church and so we humbly come to the creeds and reformed confessions of the church. We love God’s Word, we delight to read it, but we recognise we are not the first ones to come to it. And we should refuse to be taken hostage by the ‘show me a verse’ warriors.
Your friend and minister,
Paul
