In preparing for a major preaching series in 1 Corinthians next year I'm immensely enjoying the book 'After Paul left Corinth - the influence of secular ethics and social change' by Bruce Winter.
In brief, Bruce is a (rigorous!) historian who has dredged all sorts of sources - both secular and biblical - for clues as to the cultural background of 1st century Corinth. All this to illuminate the issues Paul addresses in first Corinthians. And illuminating it certainly is!
As I'm reading, (and enjoying, and learning) I'm also grappling with the tension between the perspicuity and sufficiency of scripture on one hand, and the helpful illumination of non-biblical material on the other. Has anyone got any thoughts on managing this tension?
6 comments:
Hi Graham,
I found your blog through Mikey's. Great topic, I'd recommend for this topic 'The Shape of Sola Scriptura' by Keith Mathison.
My personal view is that extra-biblical information has to be subordinate to the theological intrepretation.
--Luke
There's a danger in adding extra-biblical's to sermons, they are remembered easily then quoted, misquoted, used out of context treated as Truth etc.
Without extra-biblical information I'm not sure the Bible would even be available in english. God didn't just give us the Bible as a sole source to find out about Him. All around us we can see his work, learn more about his creation; past and present. I think it's wise to treat Scripture as inerrant, and our interpretation of it as potentially flawed.
Great post man!
Here is one thought:
It's one thing to say that the Bible is clear and sufficient, it's another thing to say that therefore it is isolated and absolute.
You may not need those other things to get a clear and sufficient understanding of the Bible, but it will give you a deeper and fuller understanding.
Hi Anonymous,
I think we need to distinguish between using extra-biblical information to translate units of text and using extra-biblical information to arbitrate our interpretations.
Regarding interpretations: the tradition of the church does that, that's why doing our history of theology and interpretation is so important.
Graham
Fascinating post. I'm all for using Bruce Winter-type stuff to help concrete the Biblical text into the world of the original readers. The more we can know about the original context the less likely we are to make spurious applications. And it helps add more colour to our sermons as well.
I really like Ben Witherington III's stuff on the socio-rhetorical stuff as well. he's done a terrific commentary on 1 Corinthians.
Al
I've made some comments on my blog about Bruce Winter's latest book 'Roman Women, Roman Widows.'
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