I was reading in the sequel to A New Kind of Christian (the title escapes me) last night and the teacher about postmodern ideas on the bible (the character "Neo") made a statement to the effect that the prophets were "inspired" to say things to the people about how they and their society were living and functioning, adding that he did not think they necessarily spoke the very words God had dictated to them.

I might be able to believe that God and the prophets conspired intimately to create the words, so that in effect the prophecies were brought forth by God as much as the men, and the men as much as God. If I believed that the prophecies were fallible in some sense (I'm no longer saying "literal"), or flawed or corrupted by man, I would have to entertain many unanswerable questions about scripture being just a bunch of ancient writings of men who are fundamentally just like me, and no more reliable than I am. If I do not utterly believe the literal truth of verse that says, "All Scripture is God­breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness," then there seems to be no reliable way (save perhaps for the way of faith) of discerning what scripture to "buy" and what to reject. By the way, I admit that I do not know* which scripture exactly the writer was referring to, but I know the New Testament was not part of it! I guess it was the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses, Genesis through Deuteronomy.

The prophets named by the term "prophet" in those five books, by the way, were Abraham, Moses, and Aaron. Interestingly, Aaron was not a prophet of God, but of Moses, a spokesperson for Moses. And in Deuteronomy God's word to Moses was very harsh about false prophets. He said that any prophet who says anything that God did not tell him to say had prophesied presumptuously, and would be put to death.

The God I believe in would not allow us to be substantially misled by written scripture. Could we be misled in a minor way? I hope we would not be so misled by scripture, but I know we could be greatly misled by our own interpretations and other limitations.

The only thing that makes our "movement" toward open and honest questions seem threatening is that we sense we are capable of convenient heresies, of setting our own passions, thoughts and ideas above those of God.

*I wonder about my own, and hence about others', integrity in regards to our seriousness about the importance of postmodern mission and ministry, and about our own beliefs vis a vis scripture. The reason is that I do not see myself, at least very quickly, doing the work, like studying, that is necessary to settle issues that I call "most important." The priorities of my mouth are not the same as those of my time-spent.