SAINT GEORGE’S CATHEDRAL

Perth, Western Australia

A Sermon preached by The Precentor,

Father Nigel B. Mitchell

16 August 1998

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(2 Peter 1:20-21 NRSV) … no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. When Christian people read the Bible, we usually ascribe some sort of label to it, like “This is the word of the Lord”, “God’s Holy word”, even the “Word of God” (with capital letters just to make the point really clear). But what do we mean by this? There is a tradition of reading the Bible as literally “God’s word to us” – like the bumper sticker that says “God said it, I believe it, that settles it”. This way of reading scripture, sometimes called ‘fundamentalism’ or ‘literalism’, assumes that the text of the Bible was given to the Biblical authors as a perfect and complete text which contains no errors or contradictions, requires no interpretation, and allows for no deviation. Of course, for those who read the Bible in this way, there is no question that the laws of scripture are all binding, the stories of scripture are all true accounts of what actually happened, and the prophecies contained in scripture all validate what has already happened, or predict without error what will happen in the future, or sometimes both. If a simple reader, theologian, Bible scholar, or scientist finds a contradiction or an error within the Scriptures, or a discrepancy between what we observe in the world and what is written in the text of Scriptures, then it is clear that those people are wrong, and they need to study the Scriptures more closely, and forget about all that other stuff they have learnt, if they really want to find the truth. So the fundamentalist or literalist tradition of reading the Bible would have us believe. The words of 2 Peter, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, but the work of “men and women moved by the Holy Spirit [to speak] from God”, are sometimes quoted in support of this view. Another text that is often used is (2 Timothy 3:16 NRSV) All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, But is being inspired or moved by the Holy Spirit to speak from God the same as writing an infallible account of eternal truth? Most people would say ‘no’ – in fact most people would not even ask the question. I would like to tackle this topic by looking at two words that appear often in the Bible, and are inescapable in any discussion of how Christians should read, use and understand the Scriptures. Those words are “Inspiration” and “Prophecy”. I suspect that the fundamentalist/literalist tradition of reading the Bible is about the only context in which the word “inspiration” is taken to imply a fixed, literal, one-to-one correlation between the source of the inspiration and the output of the inspired person. But that is a very unusual use of the word ‘inspiration’. There are two common uses of the word ‘inspiration’ in the English language, and given that these two uses are paralleled in the meaning of the corresponding Greek word, it is appropriate for us to use them both in regard to the inspiration of scripture. The most common use of the word “inspiration” is in relation to ideas, structures, and works of art. John Howard our Prime Minister says that his inspiration comes from his predecessor, Robert Gordon Menzies. The Architect of the Sydney Opera House was inspired by the sails of boats on the Sydney Harbour. Art students spend hours in galleries, looking at the work of the great masters, and seeking inspiration for their own work. But John Howard is not Bob Menzies, you need a fair bit of imagination to see the sailing boats in the Sydney Opera House (well, I do, anyway), and it is generally considered undesirable for art students to produce exact copies of the works of the great masters in their own work. “Inspiration” means influence, and it can involve the recycling of ideas and images and ways of approaching a problem, but it does and should not imply an exact copy; nor does it involve removing the personality, creativity and experience of the person who is inspired. The other use of the word “Inspiration” is in relation to breathing. Inspiration and expiration is what keeps us all alive. From the first book of Genesis, through to the ministry of Jesus and beyond, the Bible sustains a deliberate play on words which relies on the fact that the Greek and Hebrew words for “Spirit” can also mean “wind” and “Breath”. The wind (or Spirit) of God moves over the waters in Genesis 1. The Breath (or Spirit) of God is breathed into the man created n Genesis 2. Jesus breathed on his disciples and said “Receive the Holy Spirit” in John 20, the author of the second letter to Timothy tells us that all scripture is inspired (or Breathed)

by God, and the author of the second letter of Peter tells us that the work of prophecy is moved by the Spirit (or breath) of God. As far as I can understand it, the fundamentalist/ literalist way of understanding inspiration is that God breathed his Holy Spirit into the authors of scripture, filling them up with exactly everything that God wanted them to put in their various books, and the authors ‘breathed out’, as it were, by writing down exactly what the Spirit had given them, no more, no less, and no room for error. But I think that such a view misses something very important. Breathing is not something you do just once. It is not an event – it is a process. When God put the spirit of life in the first creatures, and the first human beings, they did not just breathe once – they started breathing, and continued doing so until they died. When Jesus breathed on his disciples and said “receive the Holy Spirit”, he was not giving a once- and- for- all gift to those particular disciples gathered there in the upper room; he was fulfilling his promise that the Spirit of God would come upon the Church as comforter and guide, and be with us forever. When the Holy Spirit inspired the authors of the Bible, both the ancient Jewish prophets and the apostles and other authors of the New Testament, he began a process of writing, authorising, promulgating and interpreting the Scriptures which continues to this day. The authors wrote about what they had experienced, and their understanding of God. The Priests of the Temple, Jewish Rabbis, and councils of the Church, decided which books should be regarded as “scripture”, and the work of interpreting the Scriptures goes on in Churches, Synagogues, classrooms, lecture theatres, across dining room tables, on the internet, and in the private study and prayers of people of faith to this day. The inspiration – the breath of God – was not a single event experienced solely by the Biblical authors; rather it is something which goes on, like breathing, and keeps the faith of those who read the Scriptures alive to this day. If inspiration is the source of our Scriptures, prophecy is the word we use for a significant part of what is contained in the various books of the Bible. In common English the word “prophecy” is usually understood as meaning the same thing as “predicting the future”, but in the Bible the word refers to proclaiming the words and will of God. Sometimes Prophecy involves promises and warnings in relation to future events, but it is never a straight-out, non- negotiable “this is what is going to happen”. An easy way of remembering the distinction is to say that Prophecy is not so much FORE-telling as FORTH-telling. When the author of the second letter of Peter wrote about prophecy, s/he was not referring to the source of prophecy, but rather to the way that it should be interpreted. We are reminded (verse 19) that prophecy is like a lamp shining in a dark place – it is given to us by God to lead us home. But the crucial thing is that no-one can hear or read the words of prophecy and claim that they have a full and perfect understanding. One person’s interpretation is just that; one person’s interpretation. It is not the interpretation of one person that matters, but that of _people_ (note the plural – men in the original Greek, men and women in the politically correct NRSV) moved by the Holy Spirit which proceeds from God. (some of the oldest surviving manuscripts have “Holy men of God spoke” in verse 21). In other words, it is the church, the community of faith, the holy ones of God, who interpret and expound scripture, and forthtell the words of God to the world. This is what happened in history – once the authors of the New testament had written their letters and books, it took nearly 400 years for the Church to reach a consensus on which books should be included, and which books should be excluded from the Bible. Prophecy is not something that stopped in the Hebrew Scriptures, nor did it stop after the ministry of Jesus or the writing of the book of revelation. The work of prophecy – forthtelling the words and will of God – is the vocation of every Christian. Prophecy is proclaiming the word of God – Jesus Christ to the world. The written text of the Bible is one of the most important tools and resources in this proclamation, but what makes it real, and what gives it life, are the community of faith and the ongoing breathing of the Holy Spirit in the Church today. Thanks be to God.