Friday, July 20, 2007

"...in ways we never dreamed of."

Touchstone continues to put on-line early issues of the magazine. The passage below is from a 1990 article by Wayne Martindale of Wheaton College titled "C. S. Lewis on Gender Language in the Bible." At the end of the article, he passes on Lewis' good advice about how to deal with difficult passages of Scripture:
Lewis writes that baffling, even shocking passages in the Bible must be allowed to stand. He explains that our responsibility, when we don’t understand certain passages is to let them alone until a greater person will come along who knows how to read them rightly. When a person does come to understand such passages, Lewis explains, the result will be that God will appear “good and just and gracious in ways we never dreamed of.”

And what should our attitude be when, all about, the voices of theologians go up in a demand for changes in gender language in the Bible? Can we afford to ignore the experts? Here is a final caution from Lewis: “When you turn from the New Testament to modern scholars, remember that you go among them as a sheep among wolves. Naturalistic assumptions, beggings of the question...will meet you on every side—even from the pens of clergymen.” There is only one safe course: let us not try to conform the Word of God to suit our own standards, but let us conform our standards to suit the Word of God.
All men are like grass,
and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of the Lord stands forever.
(1 Pet. 1:24–25)
Touchstone Archives: C. S. Lewis on Gender Language in the Bible

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