Sermon “They are they which testify of me”: Hearing Scripture in the Twenty-å¥Ìâå rst Century by Bernard Taylor 

Prayer: Calvin Thomsen

Pastoral Welcome: Darold Retzer

Children’s Feature: Jackie Bishop

Meditation:

All Christian churches agree that the church is older than the New Testament, as the community of Israel is older than the Old Testament. The Bible is not only to be read in a community, it was produced in a community for the community. It cannot be heard apart from the community for which it speaks. – John L. McKenzie

Responsive Reading: The Holy Scriptures (SDA Hymnal #754) - Giselle Handal, Kevin Schultz

INTRODUCTION TO THE SERMON

This weekend is the ninth annual Mind and Spirit in Dialogue program. Each year we consider in some detail a topic of mutual interest to the church and the academic community; and this year the topic is “Celebrating the 400th Anniversary of the King James Version.” Friday evening is concerned with the history of the English Bible translations in general, and the unique role of the KJV. During the Sabbath School hour the topic is: “The KJV and the Civil Rights Movement.” In the afternoon the discussion is on the place of the KJV as English literature. (For now, only the Sabbath morning portions are being broadcast; however, all will be streamed on www.lluc.org).

As the name implies, the sermon for the morning, “They are they which testify of me”: Reading the Bible in the Twenty-first Century,” centers on the role of scripture in the new millennium. Has the church outgrown Scripture? In short, is Scripture privileged among literature?

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries scholars asked: what if we were to read the Bible as literature? The answers were very informative. Form criticism, for instance, showed that different types of utterances such as lament, thanksgiving, parable, and hymn have distinctive literary forms. Literary criticism helped us understand the various stages from the original writing to the form in which the writings occur in the canon. Does such knowledge fundamentally change the nature of the text; ought we to now understand it differently, since it is so amenable to such analysis; is it reasonable to still regard it as special?

At its core, Protestantism is the product of the Bible. It was in this tradition that translations were made into the vernacular languages so that everybody could read and understand for him- or herself. It was the Bible that gave rise to the community; and as John McKenzie has said, “It cannot be heard apart from the community for which it speaks. . . .” How then should we read it? 

Bernard Taylor
Scholar in Residence

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