A Response to Adam Hamiliton’s 3 Buckets Approach to Scripture

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:54 pm by Ben Witherington

A Response to Adam Hamiliton’s 3 Buckets Approach to Scripture 2015-03-13T22:54:36-04:00 Ben Witherington

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

[The following is a response to Adam Hamilton’s recent blog post and forthcoming book on the issue of how to approach Scripture, by my colleague and friend Bill Arnold. I am entirely in agreement with Bill on the flaws in Hamiliton’s approach and argument and am happy to post this response here, now. BW3]
——-

Adam Hamilton’s Buckets Don’t Hold Water
By guest blogger Bill T. Arnold

Things just got even more interesting for United Methodists. A bishop in New York has called for a cessation of church trials for pastors who celebrate same-gender wedding ceremonies even though such ceremonies violate the church’s Book of Discipline (here [hypertext: http://www.nyac.com/newsdetail/96157]). In response, one of the church’s leading pastors, Rev. Adam Hamilton, suggested here [hypertext: http://www.adamhamilton.org/blog/view/151/homosexuality-the-bible-and-the-united-methodist-church#.UyL1_L-2MmU] we should think of Scripture as falling into three “buckets.”

1. Scriptures that express God’s heart, character and timeless will for human beings.
2. Scriptures that expressed God’s will in a particular time, but are no longer binding.
3. Scriptures that never fully expressed the heart, character or will of God.

Adam asserts that the third bucket is disconcerting for some, but insists that either way, we have to put the hard-to-read bits into at least one of the first two buckets. He then asks this question. “Whether you believe in two buckets or three, the question remains, Which bucket do the five passages of scripture that reference same-sex intimacy fall into?”

My response is simple. These buckets don’t hold water! None of us should take up this call to divide Scripture into three buckets. Please, let us not consider dividing Scripture into separate texts that belong in any of these buckets. I reject the idea that certain portions of Scripture about sexual ethics fit into one bucket while others fit into a different bucket.

Why is this a bad idea? For several reasons, beginning with the fact that Adam’s categories – the “buckets” – are extraneously imposed upon the canon of Scripture. The Bible’s self-claims rule it out of order (beginning with 2 Timothy 3:16-17). This is a foreign concept, imposed upon the flow of the canon and the whole tenor of Scripture.

Beyond this simple reminder that “all scripture is inspired by God,” we need also to remind ourselves that we United Methodists view the Bible “as sacred canon for Christian people,” specifically the “thirty-nine books of the Old Testament and the twenty-seven books of the New Testament” (2012 Book of Discipline, ¶105, page 82). When we join a local UM congregation, we proclaim that we “receive and profess the Christian faith as contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.” At ordination, we proclaim publicly that we are persuaded the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments contain all things necessary for salvation through faith in Jesus, and that those Scriptures “are the unique and authoritative standard for the church’s faith and life.”

As sacred canon (or authoritative standard) for the church, we believe the Bible is not primarily inspired for us to know things (epistemology). We learn quite a lot from the Bible, of course. But this is not its primary function in and for the church. Instead, the Bible is inspired and given by God to the church in order for Christians to know God through personal and corporate salvation (soteriology). Even my use of the word “know” in the previous sentences has different meanings. By “know” when referring to things, I’m essentially referring to the use of our brains to accumulate facts. But by “know” when referring to God, I mean encountering God and relating to God in a way made possible by the atonement of Christ on the cross. We believe the whole canon is a gift from God, inspired to lead us to an intimate relationship with God individually and corporately, and to transform us into God’s image.

We simply cannot decide which portions fail to express God’s will. That’s not our job. And that’s good, because we’re not capable of deciding which bits aren’t reflecting God. In a word, the Scriptures are God’s word for us, not God’s command to us. As Bishop Scott Jones has said, a Methodist way of reading Scripture seeks “the whole message of the Bible, listening carefully to its individual parts but also seeking to understand the entire book as concerning the saving activity of God, reconciling humanity to himself and restoring them to the image in which they were created” (Scott J. Jones, John Wesley’s Conception and Use of Scripture [Nashville, Tenn.: Kingswood Books, 1995], 223).

In our interpretive tradition as Wesleyans, we do not elevate one portion or sub-portion of the Bible as more authoritative than others. There is a definite progression or gradual revealing of God and God’s message in the Bible. But we do not believe that later stages of revelation necessarily replace, dismiss, or nullify earlier stages of revelation (known as supersessionism). When we dismiss any portion of Scripture as outside the character, will, or heart of God for any reason, we have essentially turned Scripture into a historical witness about God, not a revelation from God. What is perceived as today’s superior wisdom trumps or supersedes the wisdom of the church’s Scriptures. The Bible becomes nothing more than a witness to God, not a revelation of God.

Rather than simply dismissing the hard passages we cannot understand or cannot agree with, it is our task as Christians to keep reading them for deeper understanding, praying along the way that the texts transform us through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Deciding that certain ones don’t express “the heart, character or will of God” turns everything around backwards. We’re creating a Bible in our own image.

Besides, what are we supposed to do with those texts we’ve decided don’t express the will of God? Should we cut them out of the canon of Scripture? It’s not that I think the third bucket is “disconcerting,” I find all three troubling as a serious proposal for reading Scripture.

So, what is the nature of divine Revelation? What is the nature of the church’s Scripture? When we embrace the entire canon, both Old and New Testaments in their entirety, we acknowledge that God has revealed and is revealing Himself through these writings. And that includes the hard bits we may not like or completely understand. The task as Christians is to pour ourselves into the difficult job of understanding them better, and praying the Holy Spirit will use them to transform our lives. Anything less is a sub-Christian way of reading the Bible.

For more on reading Scripture as Methodists, see pages 70-89 in Bill T. Arnold, Seeing Black and White in a Gray World: The Need for Theological Reasoning in the Church’s Debate over Sexuality (Franklin, Tenn.: Seedbed Publisher, 2014).

Bill T. Arnold, Ph.D.
Paul S. Amos Professor of Old Testament Interpretation

Asbury Theological Seminary
204 North Lexington Avenue, Wilmore, KY 40390-1199, USA

———

Uncategorized

Previous Post

March 15, 2014

Wright's Paul and the Faithfulness of God-- Part Twenty Four

Next Post

March 16, 2014 How to Get a PhD the Easy Way

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz