Considering Velvet Elvis #2

In the second chapter of Velvet Elvis called Yoke, Rob Bell tackles the issues of authority and interpretation.  He provides some interesting background information, showing that he is well-read.  He continues the practice of asking questions instead of answering questions.  In the process, as in the previous chapter, he unwittingly (?) seems to set people up to question themselves right out of orthodox Christianity.  Here are some examples.

 

“Notice this verse from 1 Corinthians: ‘To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord)…’  Here we have Paul writing to a group of Christians, and he wants to make it clear that the next thing he is going to say comes from him, ‘not the Lord’.”

Rob does not discuss the context of this passage from 1 Corinthians 7.  Paul differentiates his counsel which is coming from the Old Testament, and that which is not found there.  Are we to take Paul to mean that we don’t need to heed this instruction because it’s from him and not God?  I don’t think so.  I’m not going to start chopping my Bible up into what God says and what the human author says.  But Rob’s statements undermine the authority of Paul’s instruction (unless I’m really missing something here).

 

In keeping with his anti-fundamentalist bent, he turns his gaze to the Southern Baptist Convention (without naming names).

“The reason their annual gathering was in the news was that they had voted to reaffirm their view of the importance of the verse that says a wife’s role is submit to her husband.  This is a big deal to them.  This is what made the news.  This is what they are known for.”

 

Last I checked the SBC didn’t control the news outlets.  I have some bones to pick with them too, but this is not one of them.  It made news because it is so counter-cultural.  I applaud them for not giving in to cultural pressure to somehow water down Scripture.

But Rob has a question or two.  First, “What about the verse before that verse?  “What about the verse after it?” The prior verse is a summary statement that we should submit to one another (a result of being filled with the Holy Spirit).  Paul then lays out some examples- wives to husbands, children to parents, employees to employers (yes, I made an epochal shift there out of slavery).  No one says that parents should submit to their children, or that employers should submit to their employees.  But somehow Paul is not to be taken to mean that wives should submit to their husbands.  He wants you to doubt that it really means this, and the SBC is foolish for believing it (Neanderthals!).  I guess Christ should submit to us.

Second, “What about the verse that talks about women having authority over their husbands?” He is referring to 1 Corinthians 7.  And it is her husband’s body.  Paul is saying that people have a responsibility to meet their spouse’s sexual needs.  Women have equal sexual rights as their husbands.  Wives are not sexual slaves; husbands are there to meet their wife’s needs too.  Rob uses this specific command to undermine the overall, general command.  He is undermining proper interpretive methods, not just an interpretation he may not agree with.

 

On the positive side, Rob affirms the importance of community in interpreting Scriptures.  This protects a group from an authoritarian leader, or group of leaders.  We do not have to blindly follow a pastor, but do need to see if his interpretation is valid and true (like the Bereans).  What Rob does not mention is the importance of the community through time.  Included in my interpretive community are people like John Calvin, Martin Luther, John Owen, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, Thomas Boston, the Westminster Divines and more.  And there are people like John Piper, Tim Keller, John Stott, Sinclair Ferguson et. al.  It is not just me and my friends at Bible Study.

Rob is very put off by dogmatism, and those who are judgmental.  Yet, he is very judgmental towards those who don’t see things his way.  And this also leads him into some scary, irrational-sounding statements.

 

“This is part of the problem with continually insisting that one of the absolutes of the Christian faith must be a belief that “Scripture alone” is our guide.  It sounds nice, but it is not true.”

For a man who earlier wrote he was part of the Reformation tradition, this is a strange statement to make.  He seems to be rejecting Sola Scriptura- which means that our final authority is Scripture.  Tradition (church counsels, past teachers and present community) are helpful, but not our final authority.

 

Rob tries to explain this in his footnote.  “I understand the need to ground all that we do and say in the Bible, which is my life’s work.  It is the belief that creeps in sometimes that this book dropped out of the sky that is dangerous.  The Bible has come to us out of actual communities of people, journeying in real time and space.  Guided by a real Spirit.”

Hmmm.  He really meant to just reject mindless Fundamentalism and tomfoolery.  But you have to go to the footnote to know this.  He broadly rejects Sola Scriptura, then says he’s really only concerned about those who don’t recognize the historical context of Scripture.  Hmmmm.  I’m sorry, I just don’t understand how Rob puts these together.  Is he trying to define Sola Scriptura?  Is he attacking abuses of it?  His main text conflates, reduces, the two into one:  Scripture alone = Abuse of Scripture.

So far in the Velvet Elvis, Rob seems more concerned with questions than truth.  He seems to be leading people farther from biblical truth instead of closer to it in the name of authenticity.  We can ask God questions- but we also humble ourselves before the Creator who owes us no answers.  Job repented in dust and ashes for all his questions, which God never answered.  The Bible is full of authentic questions, but even more full with a faith that receives the answers it is given and trusts when it doesn’t receive them.  Rob doesn’t seem willing to receive some of the answers we’ve been given.  That concerns me.

Add On: Repainting discipleship from receiving truth => interpreting truth.  I think he falls into another false dilemma.  He seems uncomfortable with the objective truth of Scripture.  We must then, as Dr. Pratt used to say, make the epochal shifts so we properly apply it to our day.  We receive it and apply it (which means we should rightly interpret it).  But Rob focuses on the power given to the church to interpret, I think at the expense of original meaning.