2.1. The Centrality of the Scripture in Christian Tradition
The New Testament writers witness to us that Scripture1 is central to the early and ever-to-be Church. They set before us this truth that it is impossible to speak of the incarnated Word without the inspired Word, or vice versa,2 for Christ is “the plerothenai and teleiothenai of Scripture.”3 This means “[t]he entire...Old Testament is 'fulfilled' and has 'reached perfection' in [H]is life, death, and Resurrection.”4 At the core of this conviction is that God is One who speaks, uttering words since the beginning (cf. Genesis 1), and was with the Word and the Word was God (John 1:1-12), and who “revealed His5 secret unto His servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7; cf. 2 Peter 1:19-21).
Gottlob Schrenk points out that early Christian writers share “the later Jewish view” where Scripture is accepted as sacred, authoritative, and normative. “It is of permanent and unassailable validity.”6 Nonetheless, their attitude toward paradosis (tradition) is different. In Rabbinic synagogue, according to Schrenk, “The use of Scripture...is determined by the concern to rediscover and prove the paradosis which had established itself alongside Scripture.”7 The New Testament writers, on the other hand, see the Old Testament in the light of Christ. They point out that Jesus Christ sustains the Old Testament (cf. Matthew 5:17-20; Luke 16:17), while also renewing the tradition to welcome the inauguration of God's plan attested in the Scripture itself. He proclaims the “favorable year of the LORD” (Luke 4:18-19) beyond the traditional boundaries through His life, death, and resurrection. This message is revealed to the early Church and brought down to the present time because of the Holy Spirit, who speaks through the prophets of old (cf. Acts 28:25; I Peter 1:11) and who is sent by the Father in the name of Jesus to “teach you everything, and remind you of all that I [Jesus] have said to you” (John 14:26). The Paraklete provides the basis for each book and epistle canonized as the New Testament to be God's inspired writings, the continuation of the Old Testament.
Scripture is indispensable for Christians. It witnesses to us that it is God the Creator, Maker of heaven and earth – not a human-made-god(s) or any human being of whatever stature, privilege, or origin – who is working and making the invitation for all nations (not only Judeans), to be in covenant with God as God's people. The Scripture, therefore, is “our story,” whether we realize it or not; no less than how Kwame Bediako, an African theologian, explains it: “[The Scripture] tells us...where we have come from, how we got to where we are, as well as where we are going and how to get there.”8 It is our road-map, identity, and participation;9 not only in the history of Israel, but with Israel in the “cosmic story and human history.”10
The dismissive remark “medieval” (or Dark Ages) to counteract the centrality of the Scripture in Christian theology sounds more like ideological propaganda than a valid, thoughtful claim. For the fact is that the scriptural tradition surpasses the medieval period.11 In the fifth century AD, Church Father Augustine echoed the New Testament writers, saying “You recall that one and the same Word of God extends throughout Scripture, that it is one and the same Utterance that resounds in the mouths of all the sacred writers, since [H]e who was in the beginning God with God has no need of separate syllables; for [H]e is not subject to time.”12
Scripture is about God who is unlimited by time and place, speaking to us who are limited in both senses. Human culture is part of the language which God uses to communicate with us, which, as profoundly captured by Scott Hahn, “like the incarnate Son, embodies the merciful condescension of God in a way that confronts our intellectual pride and calls us to a humility of heart and mind 'for the sake of our salvation'.”13
Clothing styles, technologies, and even languages have changed over human history, but our humanity is still the same14 and in need of reconciliation with God. To make Scripture as if it were merely ancient documents with no bearing on our human realities today denies our shared humanity with our ancestors and distorts the view of the Scripture which Christian tradition fully embraced in the first place: “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work” (II Timothy 3:16-17).
Our respective culture is indispensable in understanding God who speaks to us in His prerogative use of cultures not our own. And we are bountifully showered with God's grace since we are becoming more aware that “God is alive in history through the specificity of language, culture, and custom.”15 Robert J. Schreiter draws our attention to this, stating that the Word is already present in cultures before the missionaries arrived.16 It is only because God works within every nation that it is possible for all peoples from different languages and cultures to understand what God is doing in the world through Christ, as revealed through the Scripture.17
1 The Scripture understood in the New Testament refers to the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament).
2 See Scott W. Hahn, “For the Sake of Our Salvation: The Truth and Humility of God's Word,” Letter & Spirit 6 (2010):21-45.
3 TDNT, 758.
4 Hans Urs von Balthasar and Graham Harrison, The Dramatis Personae: Man in God (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990), 110.
5 I maintain the use of the male pronoun for God in this thesis. This is not in any way to prolong notions of male domination, which are arguably contrary to the message of Christian teaching of obedience, love and self-sacrifice between the two genders, or to make the absurd claim that God is a man by gender. It is rather to put the misplaced critique of the male-pronoun in the right place. Changing the pronoun only produces linguistic disorientation, especially in English, which grammatically prescribes male, female, and neutral pronouns (generally a problem which we don't have in Bahasa or Minahasan languages). Furthermore, if the male-pronoun for God should be an 'abhorrent' thing, then a good part of the Scriptures with male attributions to God will have to follow suit. This is an absurdity. Hence the better solution is not to co-opt the language, whether it is English, Greek, or Hebrew (moreover the scriptural texts themselves), but to have a right mind, right understanding of who God is and what He is doing in our lives, which is impartial and without gender favoritism. I also follow the tradition of capitalizing the God-pronoun as an expression of theology in writing. Hence, pronouns referring to God, the Christ, and the Holy Spirit are all capitalized.
6 TDNT, 755.
7TDNT, 755.
8 Kwame Bediako, “Scripture as the hermeneutic of culture and tradition,” Journal of African Christian Thought Vol. 4, No. 1 (June 2001):2.
9 Bediako, “Scripture as the hermeneutic of culture and tradition,” 2-6.
10 See Hiebert, Transforming Worldviews, 300-303.
11 Hahn points out that, while researchers point to Jesus' 39 explicit quotations of the Old Testament within the four gospels, it is more appropriate “to say that the mind of Jesus was saturated with the teachings and concerns of the Scriptures” (“For the Sake of Our Salvation,” 23).
12Commentary on the Psalms 103, 4, 1 as quoted in Donald W. Wuerl, The Catholic Way: Faith for Living Today (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 25.
13 Hahn, “For the Sake of Our Salvation,” 22.
14 This point was made by Rabbi David J. Wolpe in an interview on the documentary video Who Wrote the Bible?: Probing the Eternal Mysteries Behind the Origins of the Holy Scriptures by Richard Kiley, Jean Simmons, David M. Frank, and Lionel Friedberg ([S.l.]: A & E Home Video, 1995).
15 Lamin Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity?: The Gospel Beyond the West (Grand Rapids, Mich: W.B. Eerdmans Pub, 2003), 72.
16 Cf. Schreiter, Constructing Local Theologies, 21.
17 Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity?, 75.
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