Tag Archives: Inspiration and Incarnation

More Quotes from Peter Enns

I meant to add these awhile ago

  • On the OT Law:

“…there seems to be a situational dimension to law, just as we saw with wisdom literature…Few Christians would have any argument against the sixth commandment, but believing it in principle is very different from action upon it. Is capital punishment murder? What about abortion? What about war? When we put flesh on the bare bones of the Ten Commandments, we see that there is a ‘wisdom dimension’ to any attempt to keep the law. To say this is not to dismiss the law but to recognize the inevitable, that keeping the law is not a mechanical, legalistic process” (p. 88).

  • On diversity of the OT:

“…the Old Testament is not a flat book where all parts agree on a superficial level” (p. 96).

  • On the incarnation in light of the first two Commandments:

“…it should cause no difficulty for us if we remember that God always speaks in ways that the people understand, not simply to leave them there but to bring them along to deeper knowledge of himself. And that process does not come to completion until God reveals himself in a very material way–not in an idol made of stone and wood, but in flesh and blood. There is no image by which God is to be worshiped other than the image he himself fashioned–his own incarnation” (p. 102).

  • On incarnation in light of God “changing his mind”:

“In keeping with the incarnational analogy, we can appreciate that the entire Bible, through and through, has that human dimension. So, for the Old Testament to speak of God as changing his mind means that this is his choice for how he wants us to know him. He speaks about himself in ways that reflect our ability to understand. I might add at this juncture that Christian prayer, which is often expressed as pleading before God, operates on the assumption that our words will have some effect on God. But do they really? That is for God to know, not us. But many of us have seen enough examples of answers to prayer in the face of a life-threatening illness and dire financial problems to admit that there is a ring of truth to this” (pp. 106-7).

  • Misc.:

“‘All scripture is…profitable’ (2 Tim. 3:16 RSV)–even parts that don’t fit easily into our molds” (p. 107).

Enns, P. (2005). Inspiration and incarnation: evangelicals and the problem of the Old Testament. Baker: Grand Rapids.

Quote from Peter Enns about Evangelicals and Tensions in Scripture

I’ve recently started re-reading Peter Enns’ book Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. Enns’ “incarnational analogy” of Scripture is basically that Christ being the “Word of God” is equally fully man and fully God, and so is Scripture being the “Word of God” is equally fully human and fully God. I have been moved by the following:

Enns explains that the difference between Jewish interpretation and Christian interpretation of Scripture is that Judaism engages tensions and ambiguities and even suggests that Scripture allows for tensions in order to invite the interpreter to “problem solving.” On the other hand, as so in my experience, evangelicals tend to sweep tensions “under the rug” (so to speak). About evangelical Christian interpretation, Enns correctly states:

As quite distinct from Jewish interpretation, the history of modern evangelical interpretation exhibits a strong degree of discomfort with the tensions and ambiguities of Scripture. The assumptions often made are that Scripture should have no tensions and that any such tensions are not real but introduced from the outside, namely, by scholarship hostile to evangelical Christianity. Whatever tensions remain are addressed either by posing some direct solution (however ingenious) or by moving the problem to the side (“We know it has to fit somehow; we just aren’t sure how”).

p. 72, Enns, P. (2005). Inspiration and incarnation: evangelicals and the problem of the Old Testament. Baker: Grand Rapids.

For more quotes, which I found noteworthy, go here.

Great Quotes about Scripture from Peter Enns

I’ve recently started re-reading Peter Enns’ book Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. Enns’ “incarnational analogy” of Scripture is basically that Christ being the “Word of God” is equally fully man and fully God, and so is Scripture being the “Word of God” is equally fully human and fully God. I have been moved by the following quotes:

On the interpretation of Scripture: “To put it succinctly: the Spirt leads the church to truth–he does not simply drop us down in the middle of it. To say this is not a low view of Scripture or the role of the Holy Spirit. It is simply to recognize what has been the case throughout the history of the church, that diverse views and changes of opinion over time have been constant companions of the church and that God has not brought this process to closure” (p. 49).

On the uniqueness of Scripture: “What makes Israel’s law and wisdom literature unique is not so much what it says (although that is certainly true with various laws), but Israel’s claim to be connected to the one true God who alone has the right to lay these claims upon them. That is the message to the other nations: This is the law of God who delivered us from Egypt; this is the wisdom of God who created heaven and earth. We worship him. The similarities between Israel’s conduct and that of the other nations does not make Israel less unique among the nations any more than Jesus’ sharing in the customs of practices of first-century Palestine makes him less unique. Rather both Israel’s practices and Christ himself are evidence of ‘God with us’” (p. 59; bold mine).

Enns, P. (2005). Inspiration and incarnation: evangelicals and the problem of the Old Testament. Baker: Grand Rapids.

Aren’t they great?! I think so.

Peter Enns on NPR

I’m not sure how many of us have heard about the controversy surrounding Peter Enns’ book Inspiration and Incarnation and his resignation from Westminster Theological Seminary. However, about a month ago, Peter Enns sat down to talk about his book with NPR’s Marty Moss-Coane. I particularly enjoyed his summary of the book, and one agnostic caller who said that the ideas presented in Enns’ book could have slowed down the caller’s personal movement to agnosticism. Now, this doesn’t mean that this makes Enns’ book correct or his ideas better, but it drives an interesting point. I hope you have a chance to listen.

 

Listen here.

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