The Works of God

I recently reviewed some articles in Disabilities Studies Quarterly, “the first journal in the field of disability studies.”  Their search engine took me immediately to interesting articles on theology and the Bible.

Interesting, but entirely unhelpful if I want to actually gain some understanding of the Bible.  The need to be smart and credentialed is a powerful encouragement for pride-filled people (like me) to come up with novel interpretations of the Bible and creative characterizations for who God is.  But it doesn’t actually help me know a whole lot about the Bible or God.

Another thought struck me as I was reading through this journal: these folks aren’t tethered to the Bible, but they want to be tethered to something.  Several articles quote Bible verses (frequently not many), but all of the articles had numerous footnotes and references to other scholars.  A few quoted some of the old church fathers, but only when those church fathers either supported a more post-modern opinion on a narrow subject, or were clearly ‘wrong’ about something.

Their confidence in God’s word, however, was small.  Submission to the Bible as having authority was entirely missing.

Please, pray for Bethlehem College and Seminary and its students, faculty and administration.  May they always embrace God as their highest treasure and worthy of their best intellectual engagement.  And may they never treat the Bible cavalierly or assume their finite wisdom is greater than the wisdom of God.