Simple Smallgroups (pt. 4): Pattern 1 – Connecting Your Own Group

I know its been a LONG time since I posted for this series…. but school is on break so here we go!

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Pattern 1: Connecting (Your Group)

When I was growing up I had two kinds of friends, the friends that were so close to me that we should pretty much be related and the friends that were only my friends because I was in the same class with them. It might just be me, but looking back at these relationship I can’t think of any significant moments that I shared with this second type of friend, whereas I could go on and on telling you stories of all the things I did with the first type of friend. We did all sorts of thing, from getting chased by security guards for skating on private property to getting chased by a homeless guy for waking him up (come to think of it…. We got chased a lot.) The point is that even when I was growing up I had two kinds of friends, the really close ones and the not so close ones. And its not that one kind of relationship was better than the other, they were just different. The same truth holds true for Lifegroups “We should think of connecting as a continuum with varying degrees of intensity. More intense isn’t better or worse than less intense experiences.”

Lets take a look at three phases that the typical Lifegroup will go through: Meet, Commit, Belong.

Phase 1 – Meet

Have you ever felt out of place? Have you ever entered into a room with absolutely nobody that you know? If you are an introvert like me, you know how much of a nightmare this can be. Now imagine going into a place where you feel like everybody knows the bible, everybody is super spiritual, and everybody knows one another. This is how many people who are joining a Lifegroup for the first time feel. However this anxious, first time feeling isn’t unique to the first day of Lifegroup, it can also be an extended period of time. A few weeks, months, or even quarters! It is during this period that the first phase happens: The Meet Phase.

During this phase most people treat the meeting as a meeting… surprise surprise! They don’t see it as a Lifegroup yet, its merely a meeting. Its an event they attend, but aren’t emotionally attached to. Yes they get together, they talk about the bible or the sermon, they know eachother’s names, maybe they even say hi to each other at church. If you have ever been in a group that stays in this phase you know it can be emotionally draining. It can become a lifesucking event rather than a lifegiving encounter.

How can you tell that you are in this phase? Ask yourself the following questions:

  • Are people coming to the group?
  • Do they show up regularly?
  • Do they participate in discussion?

Phase 2 – Commit

As your Lifegroup continues to meet over time they may begin to commit to one another, hence the commit phase. Depending on the people in your group, and even the leaders and apprentices, getting to this phase may take a few meetings to a few quarters. Regardless of how long it takes to get there, those in the Commit phase will begin to form closer relational ties to one another. They will begin to show interest in each other’s lives and they might begin to connect inside and out of group. Sure they might not be a family yet, but they genuinely are friends.

So how do you know that you are in this phase? If you can answer yes to any of the following questions you are likely in the commit phase:

  • Do they hang around after Lifegroup?
  • Are they sharing personal thoughts and opinions in the discussion?
  • Are they showing an interest in each other?
  • Do they know what is going on in each other’s lives?
  • Do they communicate outside of Lifegroup?

Hopefully by know you are starting to see where your group lands on this continuum. Lets take a look at the last phase and then evaluate where we are at.

Phase 3 – Belong

         First of all we must realize that not every group will reach the Belong phase. Although we desire it to happen, there are other factors that will result in groups usually staying in the commit phase. However, when your group members begin to feel like they belong to one another, when they begin to move from a friendship to a family like relationship you have reached the belong phase. When we are living out the reality of the Belong phase we are living out the reality of what Jesus meant for the church. Take a look at Matthew 8:19-21

19 Now Jesus’ mother and brothers came to see him, but they were not able to get near him because of the crowd. 20 Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you.”21 He replied, “My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice.”

In this passage Jesus says that his true family consists of those who hear God’s word and put it into practice. In God’s Kingdom we are invited into a family that is marked, not by blood relationships, but by our relationship to God himself. As someone who follows God we can be certain that we are a part of his family. This reality is meant to extend into our Lifegroups, if we are living out our true identity as sons and daughters of God then we can really say that out brothers and sisters in our Lifegroup are family.

So how do you know if you are in the belong phase? Ask yourself the following questions:

  • Does my group spend time together outside of group?
  • Do they know one another’s life stories?
  • Do they confess their struggles or sins in the group?

Evaluating Your Group

Next time we will be taking a look at how we can move up on the continuum of connecting phases. But for now I leave you with a couple of questions and some food for thought. First go ahead and Read Acts 2:42-47. How does this image impact your expectations for your Lifegroup? Is this a model to be followed or does it set some patterns that are generally true of all Christian gathering? Then ask yourself the following questions:

  1. How have you defined connecting in your group? What do you think a group that connects well would look like?
  2. What are the barriers the keep your group from connecting?
  3. Which of the three phases do you think your group is in?

I hope that these questions help you think through some of the issues your own group might be facing, and that you are led to pray for God to show up in your group to establish the community he intends it to be. I know I’m praying that for my own group and I’m praying that for yours as well.

(as always this material is based of Bill Search’s book Simple Smallgroups)

The Bible – The Word of God – Three Views: Part 7

Today we wrap up the series: “The Bible – The Word of God.” Having looked at some of the strengths and weaknesses of the three positions we will be able to articulate a dogmatic account of Scripture that all orthodox Christian traditions will be able to affirm.

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“The Word of God” Revisited

            We have seen that all of these positions have their own strengths and weaknesses. Law’s and Barth’s positions advocate for understanding that the Bible is the word of God in an objective sense. However, Wolterstorff argues that we should understand that the claim that the Bible is the word of God in a subjective sense. So considering the strengths and weaknesses of these positions how should we understand the claim that the Bible is the word of God? If we look at the grammar of this phrase once again, we might find an answer to this question. In addition to the subjective and objective genitive there is another genitive in which a head noun expresses a verbal idea, namely the plenary genitive. The plenary genitive is a combination of both the objective and subjective genitive.[1] This genitive expresses the functions of the subjective and objective genitive. Thus if we understand the phrase “the Bible is the word of God” as a plenary genitive then we would understand this phrase as saying that the Bible is the word about God and it is the word from God. Understanding this phrase as a plenary genitive allows us to take the insights of Law and Barth, namely that the Bible is a means to encounter Transcendence and that the Bible bears witness to the Word. But it also allows us to glean from the insights of Wolterstorff, namely that God actually speaks to us in the Bible. This view is also in line with Scripture as well as the important confessions of the Church which make the claim that somehow God is the author of Scripture and that we can encounter God when we read scripture. If we believe that we should understand this phrase as a plenary genitive rather than merely a subjective genitive or objective genitive then we can join John Webster in making the dogmatic claim that, in the Bible we have “the self-presentation of the triune God, the free work of sovereign mercy in which God wills, establishes, and perfects saving fellowship with himself in which humankind comes to know, love, and fear him above all things.”[2] In other words, in the Bible we have words from God about God that draw us back towards God.

[1] Mounce, Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar, 52.

[2] John Webster, Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 13.

The Bible – The Word of God – Three Views: Part 6

This is part six of “The Bible – The Word of God.” Today we will be looking at some of the strengths and weaknesses of these three positions. By doing this hopefully we will be able to articulate a dogmatic account of Scripture that all orthodox Christian traditions will be able to affirm.

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Critical Observations

Naturally there are quite a few strengths that each of these positions display. For instance Law’s position is strong in that it refuses to minimize the fact that through the Scriptures a genuine encounter can occur between a reader and God or Transcendence. Barth’s position is strong in the fact that he avoids the bibliolatry that is so enticing to many Christians. Instead of making the book the focus of the Christian’s attention, for Barth the book is a witness to the one whom the Christian should be focusing her attention on, namely Jesus Christ the Word of God. Finally Wolterstorff’s position is strong in that it rightly recognizes that the religions of the book, whether it be Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, cannot simply discard the claim that God somehow speaks through the book. He refuses to take the easy way out of the metaphysical issues raised by the claim that God speaks instead he takes on this issue head on an gives a plausible account as to what it means to say that God speaks.

Yet these three positions are not without their own faults. For instance Law’s position is weak in that it places too much of an emphasis on the reader’s role in the discussion of inspiration. For Law inspiration occurs when the reader experiences Transcendence, but what would happen if no readers ever experienced Transcendence through ciphers? Does that mean that the Bible would not be inspired? Surely we cannot ground the inspiration of scripture in how human beings react to the text. Inspiration must be grounded in God himself. Barth’s position also suffers from several drawbacks. One such drawback is that if we reduce scripture to simply being a witness to Jesus Christ then we run the risk of not being able to differentiate between scripture as a witness to Christ and other media as witnesses to Christ. For instance what is the difference between Scripture witnessing to Christ and a sermon witnessing to Christ? One might say that the difference is that Scripture bears direct witness to Christ but sermons bear witness to Christ as mediated through Scripture. But this ignores the fact that Christians can have a direct encounter with Christ. So if a Christian bears witness to that direct encounter with Christ or the Spirit of Christ then it seems as though bearing witness to this encounter is not mediated and should be on par with the witness we have in scripture, but surely this cannot be so. Finally Wolterstorff’s position also has its weaknesses, however I believe that Wolterstorff presents the strongest account of what it means for the Bible to be the Word of God. Although he admits that his model needs to be supplemented by some doctrine of inspiration[1] Wolterstorff’s greatest weakness is that he does not present a doctrine of inspiration. His position would have been strengthened if he would have included some possibilities as to what inspiration would look like under this model or if he would have explained why God would decide to appropriate certain rather others.

[1] Wolterstorff, Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections On the Claim That God Speaks, 187.

The Bible – The Word of God – Three Views: Part 5

This is part five of “The Bible – The Word of God.” Today we will be looking at the the views of a philosophical theologian, Nicholas Wolterstorff. We will see how he appropriates speech-act theory to argue for a particular understanding of what it means to say that the Bible is the Word of God. This is part 3 of the subsection “Three Views on What it Means to Say that the Bible is the Word of God.”

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III. Nicholas Wolterstorff

            Wolterstorff takes a philosophical approach towards answering the question of what it means for God to speak. The claim that God speaks presents us with some metaphysical problems, for instance: how can a being with no hands or vocal cords be said to speak to humans? If God cannot “speak” how can God address humanity? Wolterstorff believes that this question can be answered by making use of J.L. Austin’s distinction between locutionary acts, acts of uttering or inscribing words, and illocutionary acts, acts performed by way of locutionary such as asserting, commanding, promising, etc. Wolterstorff suggests that “attributions of speech to God should be understood as the attribution to God of illocutionary acts.”

There are many ways to speak besides by making sounds with one’s vocal apparatus or inscribing marks with one’s limbs. For instance there are cases in which one person says something with words which she herself has not uttered or inscribed, these can be considered cases of double agency. For instance consider the following case: a person prepares a copy of a position paper for the president of a seminary to sign. The person who prepares the paper is not herself performing the speech action; it is the president who performs the speech action by signing the papers. This example would be a case of double agency.

Double agency can be categorized into at least two different kinds: deputized discourse and appropriated discourse. Deputized discourse is the phenomenon of “speaking in the name of.” For instance an ambassador to a foreign country “speaks in the name of” his country’s president. In the Bible we find examples of deputized discourse, especially in the prophets. For instance, Wolterstorff cites Hosea as an example of God giving someone authority to “speak in his name.”[1] In addition to deputized discourse there is appropriated discourse. In appropriated discourse one agent appropriates the speech of another agent’s discourse as his or her own. For instance sometimes people will say things like “she speaks for me too,” “I share those commitments,” or “I second that motion.”[2] In saying things like this, the agent appropriates another agent’s speech as her own. Although some parts of the Bible definitely seem to be deputized discourse, Wolterstorff believes that the majority of the Bible can be understood as God appropriating human discourse. In fact he says that “the most natural way of understanding the claim that as a whole this (the Bible) is God’s book, (is) understanding it in terms of appropriated discourse.”[3]

So for Wolterstorff to say that the Bible is the word of God is to say that the Bible is God’s speech, however it is appropriated speech. Thus if we are to categorize Wolterstorff’s position we should say that for him the phrase “the bible is the word of God” should be read as a subjective genitive, that is, the bible is the word somehow proceeding from God by means of someone else’s speech.

[1] Nicholas Wolterstorff, Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections On the Claim That God Speaks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 46.

[2] Wolterstorff, Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections On the Claim That God Speaks, 52.

[3] Wolterstorff, Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections On the Claim That God Speaks, 53.

The Bible – The Word of God – Three Views: Part 4

This is part four of “The Bible – The Word of God.” Today we will be looking at the the views of one of the most important 20th century theologians: Karl Bart . We will see how his view of the “Word of God” is similar to a traditional evangelical view, while being distinct in some very important ways. This is part 2 of the subsection “Three Views on What it Means to Say that the Bible is the Word of God.”

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Three Views on What it Means to Say that the Bible is the Word of God

II. Karl Barth

            It’s a well known fact that Karl Barth is a difficult figure to interpret, thus when outlining what it means for Barth to say that the Bible is the Word of God we must admit our interpretation is one voice among a multitude of voices. So in approaching Barth’s position on this subject it is helpful to turn to others who are more versed in the works of Barth, in this case Francis Watson and Trevor Hart. Examining what these two interpreters have to say about the subject will help us understand Barth’s position.

Before we look at what the Bible is for Barth we must first understand what Revelation is for him. During the period in which Barth was formulating his theology, the notion of revelation was going through a considerable crisis. Theologians were questioning whether knowledge of God was even possible. Many theologians including Schlerimacher and Feuerbach concluded that revelation should have a natural basis, that is, it should be relocated within “the sphere of human (natural) rather than divine (supranatural) possibilities.”[1] However Barth disagreed with this position. Barth himself believed that it was impossible for humans to know God on their own. Barth believed that God was holy and humans were sinful therefore their minds were incapable of contemplating upon God. Barth also believed that God is wholly other, God is not an object that can be understood by systems of classification or descriptions. Thus if humans were to know God it would be because the breach between humanity and God would be healed by God himself. So if humans are to know God, it would not be something that could be described a natural process of human effort, it would have to be a miracle done by God himself. For Barth this event is revelation. “Revelation is precisely the event in which (by entering into a particular relation with certain created forms or media) God acts and gives himself to be known.” According to Barth God’s Word is the biblical category most closely corresponding to that of revelation.[2] This understanding of Revelation and God’s Word leads us to believe that the event of making himself known occurs in and through Jesus. Thus Jesus is God’s revelation; Jesus is the Word of God. Jesus, the Word of God, is God himself revealing himself. If we lose track of the fact that for Barth Jesus is the Word of God then we will fail to understand what it means for Barth to say that the Bible is the word of God.

For Barth, the Bible plays a very important role in his theology, in fact it has been said that “Barth’s Church Dogmatics is nothing other than a sustained meditation on the texts of Holy Scripture.”[3] In reading the Church Dogmatics  we notice a “cheerful confidence that God speaks with us in and through the Bible in its testimony to Jesus.”[4] But in what sense does God speak to us through the Bible? And in what sense is it God’s word? Watson believes that for “Barth, the Bible is the ‘Word of God’ in that the Word that God spoke once and for all continues to address us in the word or testimony of the biblical writers.”[5] According to Watson for Barth to say that the Bible is the Word of God is to say that the Bible speaks to us, mediating the event of God revealing himself. Or to phrase this another way, the Bible is God’s word because it is a witness to Jesus, who is the Word of God, God’s self revelation. In the Bible we hear a witness to the living God.

If this is a proper interpretation of Barth’s answer to the question “what does it mean to say that the Bible is the word of God,” then we are correct in saying that Barth takes this phrase in the objective genitive sense. That is, the Bible is the word of God because it is the word about God.

[1] Trevor Hart, “Revelation,” In The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth, ed. John Webster, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 38.

[2] Trevor Hart, “Revelation,” In The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth, 45.

[3] Francis Watson, “The Bible,” In The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth, ed. John Webster, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 57.

[4] Francis Watson, “The Bible,” In The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth, 58.

[5] Francis Watson, “The Bible,” In The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth, 61.


The Bible – The Word of God – Three Views: Part 3

This is part three of “The Bible – The Word of God.” Today we will be looking at the “interesting” views of David Law regarding what he thinks the “Word of God” means. This is part 1 of the subsection “Three Views on What it Means to Say that the Bible is the Word of God.”

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Three Views on What it Means to Say that the Bible is the Word of God

I. David Law

            In Inspiration of the Scriptures, David Law gives us the first theory about what it means to say that the Bible is the word of God. Although his book is primarily about the inspiration of the scriptures we can draw out what it means for David Law to say that the Bible is the word of God.

Law begins his book by drawing a distinction between two senses of the word inspiration: the objective and the subjective sense. The objective sense of inspiration “is the consequence of the alleged divine input into the biblical writing,” while the subjective sense of inspiration is a claim about the impact the biblical texts have upon a reader.[1] Having drawn these distinctions within what we would call inspiration, Law goes on to make even more distinctions within the notion of objective inspiration; word-centered theories of inspiration and nonverbal theories of inspiration. He goes on to say that “Word-centered theories of inspiration situate the inspiration of the Bible in the words of the Biblical text. Such theories are characterized by a greater emphasis on the word as the medium of divine communication”[2] Among various theories of inspiration, word-centered theories would include instrumental theories of inspiration, dictation theories of inspiration, theories of verbal inspiration, and plenary theories of inspiration. Typically verbal and plenary theories go hand in hand. Besides word-centered theories of inspiration there are also non-verbal theories of inspiration. “Non-verbal theories of inspiration situate inspiration not in the words but in some other aspect of the Bible such as the biblical message or the process that led to the Bible’s composition.”[3] These theories would situate inspiration in things like the moral or spiritual teachings of the Bible, Biblical images, or tradition.

After examining numerous word-centered and non-verbal theories of inspiration Law concludes that all of these objective theories ultimately fail to adequately explain inspiration. Thus he is forced to say that “the impossibility of an objective approach to the question of inspiration means that we must take subjectivity as our starting point.”[4] Having realized that subjectivity should be our starting point he goes on to elucidate a theory of inspiration that begins with the reader’s relationship to the text.

In trying to construct a reader based theory of inspiration he begins with a problem that he believes faces all human beings, namely the existential problem of ambiguity and finitude. He realizes that the way these problems play out in human beings is in their search for meaning. However being finite creatures human beings are not naturally in possession of the resources that would give his or her life meaning, thus the human being is  compelled to look beyond his or herself for the source of existential unity.[5] However this problem presents the human being with another problem, namely that human beings cannot deal directly with Transcendence.[6]  So how can human beings overcome this problem, and come to know Transcendence? Law believes that the key is in a concept he calls “ciphers.” Ciphers have two functions: 1- they create or provide an avenue to Transcendence and 2- they shed light on human existence and thereby facilitate the human being’s journey towards authentic existence. So for Law the Bible is inspired because it provides the human being with ciphers of Transcendence.[7] Ciphers in the Bible would include the concept of God and Incarnation. So the biblical ciphers shed light on human existence and point us towards Transcendence[8] However we must remember that God, being Transcendent cannot be the source of these ciphers. Law articulates this claim by saying that “God is not directly involved in the production of the biblical texts, however, but God is the reality to which the authors of the text respond. The texts are the result of the author’s relation to Transcendence. There is no special commission to write.”[9]

So for Law to say that the Bible is the word of God is actually to say that the Bible contains ciphers which point us towards Transcendence. In other words to say that the Bible is the word of God is to say that the Bible contains words, concepts, or ciphers about God. Thus Law takes “the word of God” in the objective genitive sense.

[1] David Law, Inspiration (London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2001), 36-7.

[2] Law, Inspiration, 45

[3] Law, Inspiration, 46.

[4] Law, Inspiration, 143.

[5] Law, Inspiration, 163.

[6] Law, Inspiration, 168.

[7] Law, Inspiration, 178.

[8] Law, Inspiration, 191.

[9] Law, Inspiration, 194.

The Bible – The Word of God – Three Views: Part 2

This is part two of “The Bible – The Word of God.” Today we will be looking at the grammatical structure of the phrase “Word of God.”

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“The Word of God”

Before we go on to examine the claims made by these authors we must first analyze the grammar underlying the phrase “the word of God.” The phrase “the word of God” is in the genitive case.  The genitive case is usually used to denote the relationship between a noun and the possessor or source of that noun. The nature of this relationship can vary significantly bases upon the context. Thus the genitive case can have many functions. For instance the genitive might be partitive; consider the sentence “He read some of the theology books,” here we mean that the noun in the genitive is a larger unit while its head noun represents a smaller portion of it. We might also talk about the genitive that functions as a genitive of possession. For instance if Oliver Crisp owns an book we might say that “that book is Crisp’s book” or we could say that “that is the book of Crisp.” There are more types of genitives but for the sake of this paper, we should focus on two types: the objective genitive and the subjective genitive. Both of these forms occur “with a head noun that expresses a verbal idea.”[1]  The subjective genitive occurs when “the word in the genitive functions as if it were the subject of the verbal idea implicit in the head noun.” Mounce suggests that the word “produced” can help us understand what is meant by this type of genitive.[2] So when we consider Mark 1:14 “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God,” we would read “good news of God” as meaning the good news that is produced by or comes from God. But we might also read this verse as containing an objective genitive. The objective genitive occurs when “the word in the genitive functions as the direct object of the verbal idea implicit in the head noun.”[3] So in this verse we would read “the good news of God” as the “good news about God.”

Having laid out these options we can ask, “What type of genitive do we find in the phrase ‘the Bible is the word of God?’” We could say that it is a genitive of possession, meaning that the Bible is the word belonging to God, that somehow God possesses the Bible which is the same thing as God’s words. However this does not make much sense. We could say that it is a subjective genitive, that the Bible is the word produced by God or it is the word from God. We could also say that the genitive is an objective genitive, the Bible is the word about God. We should keep these two distinctions in mind as we examine the various theories of what it means to say that the Bible is the word of God.

[1] William D. Mounce, Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009), 52.

[2] Mounce, Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar, 52.

[3] Mounce, Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar, 52.

The Bible – The Word of God – Three Views: Part 1

Over the next few days I will be taking a look at the question of what it means to say that the Bible is the Word of God. I will be doing this by examining Barth’s, David Law’s, and Nicholas Wolterstorff’s doctrines of scripture.

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If one were to go to a typical evangelical church it would not be strange to hear the pastor referring to his or her Bible as the word of God. In an intuitive way we recognize that somehow the Bible is the word of God. But what exactly it means to say that the Bible is the word of God is difficult to say. While it is difficult to say what it means, there is some scriptural backing to this claim. For instance if one were to look at Matthew 15:1-9 we see that Jesus refers to the Hebrew Scriptures as the word of God. In this pericope we are given an encounter between the Pharisees, scribes, and Jesus. The interlocutors ask Jesus why his disciples break the traditions of the elders. Jesus replies by asking them why they break God’s commandments, specifically the commandment to honor one’s father and mother, for the sake of tradition. Jesus tells them that in doing this they make void the word of God. Yet the claim that the Scriptures are the word of God is not unique to the New Testament, throughout the Old Testament we see the prophets declare “the word of the Lord.” So in one sense what we have in the Old Testament prophets is the word of the God.

Historically the Church goes on to affirm the claim that the Bible is the word of God. For instance, The Council of Trent asserts that the “Synod receives and venerates, with equal pious affection and reverence, all the books both of the New and Old Testaments, since God is the author of both.”[1] Thus they affirm that the Bible is the Word of God because God is its author. The Westminster Confession of Faith makes a similar assertion claiming that “the authority of the Holy Scripture…dependeth not on the testimony of any man or Church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof.”[2] Thus once again the Bible is said to be the word of God because God is its author. The First Baptist Confession of faith claims that in the Bible we do not find “(men’s laws, or unwritten traditions, but) only the Word of God contained in the Scriptures.” So according to the First Baptist Confession the Bible is the word of God in that the word of God is contained in the Scriptures.  Although there are differences between all of these important documents they all claim that somehow the Bible is the word of God. If we are going to be in continuity with the church’s dogma we must discover what it means to say that the Bible is the word of God.

In this paper I will analyze three different views as to what it means to say that the Bible is the word of God. We will look at the theories of David Law, Karl Barth, and Nicholas Wolterstorff. By critically examining these three positions hopefully we will be able to articulate a view that affirms, but clarifies what the Church has claimed all along, that the Bible is the word of God.

[1] Henry Bettenson and Chris Maunder, eds., Documents of the Christian Church, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, USA, 1999), 276.

[2] Bettenson and Maunder, eds., Documents of the Christian Church, 319-20.