1. What do you believe in more: Jesus, or what Jesus said?
2. What do you believe in more: God, or what God said?

Also, you said,

More important is the life lived in obedience to Christ’s ways, than the Scripture itself.

What reliable source do we have of Christ’s ways apart from the Scripture? If we have none, then this is a dichotomy that we cannot make.

“I believe firmly and passionately in scripture, and even more firmly and passionately in Jesus himself.”

At this moment, I have no clue who Wright is, so I respond only to this quote, not a full understanding of his psychie. I would agree with Wright wrote because Jesus himself basically advocates exactly this to scripture-followers of his time.

Let me explain.

I am coming to believe that Christian life is a more rich and textured fabric than narrow readings of the Bible allow. I accept what Jesus spoke about breaking the Sabbath and calling himself God in John 15:16-40. I think the story speaks to this issue.

Why do fundamental Christians insist on obeying the Scripture? It’s not about “getting to heaven” or “being saved”. It’s not even about being right and Holy, per se. Those are all pieces of the journey to the destination, or something you find at the destination. But the destination of the journey – the fundamental reason to do this thing called obeying God (therefore the Scriptures) – is to Honor the Father.

Jesus gave this answer about why His behavior was not acceptable to the people of his day who staked their lives on conservative readings of their Holy Word. In John 5:23, he says the intent of the Father is “..that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.”

In the same conversation, Jesus prioritizes himself, words of a great prophet, and words of the Scriptures, starting in verse 36. He puts himself at the highest priority. “I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the very work that the Father has given me to finish, and which I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”

I note that an alternative reading of the original Hebrew could lead one to translate “Diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” (In other words, an imperative command to action that will take them toward eternal life.) I think it’s more likely Jesus meant to parallel the previous sentence which identifies their error. The first translation is also more consistent with Jesus next sentence which basically says, “Even though you are reading the Scripture, you refuse to accept their lead.”

Jesus wraps up the discussion again pointing out that the audience’s claim to Scriptural authority is undermined by the precise fact that they don’t believe (and act on) what it says. Remember that Scripture the audience had at the time was the books of Moses. Jesus said in verse 45 and following, “Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?”

If you deny Scripture, you deny Christ because you have no pointer to him. This much a narrow reader of the Scripture agrees with me. Yet there is an additional step. If you pick up a lecture pointer and fail to use it to understand the content of the slide show on the screen, your pointer is useless. I see too many Christians waiving pointers around doing an excellent laser light show. Many have forgotten the content of the presentation.

Perhaps a better analogy is a long-barrel rifle. The rifle barrel can be the Scripture, which sets a believing Christian toward an answer (the bullet). Once the bullet leaves the barrel, it meets the currents, eddies, and turbulence of the air (life) that would deviate it from its path to the target. Jesus is the escort through those twists and turns of life. It would be nice if the end of every barrel (God’s Word) could be placed directly against each target and the trigger pulled. It sure would be easier to hit targets. That’s not what life is about because that’s not what God has chosen life should be about. He is interested in a relationship and continued upholding and obedience – your “flight path” (you’re the bullet in my analogy) – as you move in life.

More important is the life lived in obedience to Christ’s ways, than the Scripture itself. Hence, it makes total sense that someone would write, “I believe firmly and passionately in scripture, and even more firmly and passionately in Jesus himself.”

I do not want to get dragged into an ungodly exchange so i shall not attempt myself to refute her position. I simply supply a link to Grudems response to Sue for those interested: http://adrianwarnock.com/2006/12/wayne-grudem-replies-to-critic.htm

I do think sue raises some issues from her experience that need to be dealt with, but i don’t think a blog is necessarily the right forum to bare all out.

Who is KOORONG?

My name is Chris ten Broeke, I am a Marketing Assistant with Koorong, a chain of Christian Bookstores throughout Australia that has been going for 30 years. I write many of the author bios and blurbs for our website….and I am constantly updating commentary information when able with Parableman which is a brilliant site. Buy your books through Koorong a distinctly Christian chain for the thinking Christian, we send all over the world at competitive rates

Two things:

1) Adobe recognized that there were issues in the spacing of polytonic caps for Minion Pro. I believe this was remedied in the revisions to Minion Pro last fall. That revision shipped with Font Folio 11, and will be bundled with some future Adobe applications.

2) Arno Pro most definitely does have a separate italic font for every upright font in the family. Both the uprights and the italics were bundled with Adobe’s CS3 apps.

Regards,

T

Bill