Scripture and Ethics (and Wesley) (1)
Mapping the Terrain
Any map of the relationship between Scripture and ethics would be littered with obstructions, failed bridges, and construction zones. If we were to find such a map, we would discover negotiating a path forward to be difficult. Our problem actually runs deeper, however. Among our contemporaries, there is no generally agreed-upon approach to drawing such a map, or even a consensus that such a map is possible or even desirable.1
The Bible and Ethics: A Troubled Relationship
For all sorts of reasons, some regard the study of the biblical materials as largely irrelevant to the work of Christian ethics. Some biblical scholars would look askance at the suggestion that their task as biblical scholars might be to inform how Christ-followers today understand and practice Christian morality. And there are plenty of ethicists for whom the Bible has at best an ancillary role in terms of informing ethical discourse.
Still others look to the Scriptures as a timeless moral code. Others may imagine or hope that the Old and New Testaments ought to have a voice in contemporary ethics, but struggle to chart how to grapple with ancient texts with an eye on today’s realities. Even biblical scholars and Christian ethicists, experts in their own fields, may find crossing over into the assumptions and vocabulary of the other field a less-than-easy, perhaps inhospitable, experience.
This essay will resume after this book recommendation. [Note: As an Amazon Associate, I may earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. This doesn’t affect the price you pay and helps support this website.]
Dictionary of Scripture and Ethics (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011). ISBN: 9780801034060. 912 pp.
A veritable Who’s Who of contributors, with a wide range of articles covering biblical, ecclesial, methodological, and contemporary topics, ranging from abortion, abuse, and African American ethics to wealth, wisdom literature, and Zephaniah.
Available for Kindle.
Initial entrees lay out the range of issues that occupy, and have occupied historically, the relationship between Scripture and ethics: Ethics in Scripture, Scripture in Ethics: A History Survey, and Scripture in Ethics: Methodological Issues.
Reasons for the troubled relationship between the Bible and ethics are not difficult to trace. Straightforward attempts to follow the Bible on any number of issues have long been frustrated by changing contexts. In so many ways, the world of Numbers is not the world of 1 Thessalonians, and neither of these is our world. Even if our theological commitments demand wrestling with the ramifications of these ancient texts for faith and life, it remains the case that, historically speaking, these texts were not written with our particular concerns in mind.
Within the Bible itself, we find attempts to reappropriate legal texts, for example, in new settings, and these interpretive impulses have continued in numerous attempts to comment on and live out these writings. In fact, within ancient Judaism and the early church, it was precisely because of the authoritative status of these texts as Scripture that their immediacy to contemporary readers was a non-negotiable presupposition.
What to Make of Scripture’s Diversity?
The rise of modern biblical studies has brought to the surface other challenges, not the least of which is our recognition of the diversity of viewpoints within the biblical canon. Although not a pressing issue in most churches in the West, the question of eating meat sacrificed to idols—of real importance in the first century and in some global regions today—is handled by the New Testament writers in more than one way (see Acts 15, 1 Cor 8, and Rev 2–3).
How does one present “a biblical perspective” on a question when the Bible offers diverse responses?
One answer has been a kind of harmonization that makes all of the voices speak as though they were one, in spite of the fact that no one voice in Scripture, taken on its own, ever spoke in just that way.
Another answer has been to allow one voice to speak for all; in Protestant circles, for example, the voice of choice has typically been Paul’s.
A third option has focused on the search for the coordinating center of Scripture—“covenant,” for example, or “reconciliation”—the effect of which has been to turn the volume down on, or even mute, alternative themes within the canon.
A fourth has been to picture a conference table, with various biblical voices gathered around, carrying on an imaginary conversation in search of a consensus.
A fifth has been to focus on Scripture’s metanarrative, a unity typically located in the character and activity of God that comes to expression in various but recognizably similar ways in the plot line that runs from Genesis to Revelation.
And, of course, sixth, many have found in the diversity of the biblical materials reason enough to reject outright the possibility of using Scripture as a normative source in theology and ethics.
And Still More Issues
Other issues could be mentioned. We find in the Bible puzzling texts, some that offend both our own sensibilities and those of our forebears. What are we to make of the imprecatory psalms, for example, or apparently divinely sanctioned violence within families or among peoples? What do we make of the news that the 144,000 “purchased from the earth” includes only those who “weren’t defiled with women” (Rev 14:4)?
What of those texts whose sense is clear enough, but that command practices that seem to most Christ-followers today to have lost their immediacy? Not many of us practice the holy kiss, for example, despite clear scriptural admonition to do so (e.g., Rom 16:16). Irrespective of the clarity with which Jesus instructs his followers to wash each other’s feet (see John 13:14), not many of our ecclesial traditions have adopted such a practice, typically preferring the abstract idiom of “serving each other.”
These are not new questions. They have long tested the interpretive ingenuity of Scripture’s readers. And that is not even to begin indexing the issues we face today concerning which these texts from another time and place can hardly be expected to have anything to say, at least not in a straightforward way.
Finally, we cannot escape questions about the nature of ethical discourse itself, answers to which have a great deal to say about the role Scripture might (or might not) play. It is not uncommon to hear talk of “ethical decision-making,” for example, as if Christian morality were only or primarily a matter of case-by-case mental struggle in the face of trying circumstances. What biblical text(s) might be brought to bear as one considers whether to adopt one choice or set of choices over another? This suggests a markedly different role for Scripture than an approach to ethics that centers on the communal formation of persons whose lives are shaped by the warp and woof of Scripture, whose “decisions” are not so much mental struggles as they are the expression of ever-forming, deepening patterns of believing, thinking, feeling, and behaving.
To many, the issues I have sketched thus far will seem self-evident. Many will assume that, if the Christians Scriptures are to be brought into a worthwhile conversation with Christian ethics, then these are the problems that must be addressed.
Wesley, I think, would be surprised to learn how difficult the biblical-studies-and-ethics conversation has become. This is the degree to which our world is not his, and his is not ours. From the side of biblical studies, the problems I have sketched can be reduced to two primary concerns:
The diverse voices within Scripture make it difficult to hear a singular biblical voice on almost any given issue.
The popular distinction between the “biblical world” and our world (and, thus, between what the Bible might have meant in its original context and what the Bible might mean for us) opens a wide historical chasm between the Bible and us. How best to span that chasm?
What about John Wesley? Might we learn something from him about the relationship between Scripture and ethics? And about biblical hermeneutics more generally?
The Path Forward
This is the first of a four-part series on Scripture and ethics. Part two will center on the state of play today. What is the net effect of modern biblical criticism on our questions? Parts three and four will ask more pointedly: What does John Wesley bring to the conversation? In part three, I will discuss Wesley’s sermon “On Dress” (1 Pet 3:3–4), while part four will draw out some of his hermeneutical sensibilities.
Citations of the Bible follow the Common English Bible.
Probably because of my training in IBS while at Asbury, I have gone the route of seeing a chorus of voices in the text and allowing them to have dissonance with each other. This has allowed me to teach, preach each individually while not feeling unfaithful to the others.
But I also recognize that this is not the hermeneutical route many of my fellow Asburians have gone.
Looking forward to the rest of this series.