Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Poetry not Systematic Theology

The Bible is not a Systematic Theology text book. Arguably, at least, the books of Proverbs and Psalms are particularly far from being so.

So for example, when Psalm 10:1 asks, "Why, O LORD, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?" we have a cry from the Psalmist's heart arising from his experience, although ultimately intended to be of benefit to believers in general.

We should not expect the rest of the Psalm to be a sustained, exhaustive, scientific account of all the possible reasons why God may be or seem aloof from any believer in any circumstances. The Psalms express a truth or truths but not necessarily the whole truth, and they express themselves in a poetic manner. As inspired Scripture, what the Psalm says is true but it might be true of some people in some circumstances from a certain point of view in a sense or manner of speaking and there might be many other things to say.

This is particularly obvious and important when it comes to reading the Psalms and the Proverbs, but actually, it is worth keeping in mind when reading the Epistles, which seem to be the Bible at its most doctrinal. God in his wisdom has given the catholic church occasional letters to specific churches which are meant to be significant for us all, though not necessarily quite in the same way that they applied to the 1st Century Corinthian church. Yes, go back to  Corinth but come back with rightly understood and applied goodies.

No comments: