Baptists & the Bible in the 21 st Century

Introduction

From a historical perspective, Baptists are Biblicists, except when they are not. Then they
often split.1

Bill Leonard‘s wry and humorous observation gives reason to pause for those who consider
themselves ‗People of the Book.‘ It suggests a possible arbitrariness in Baptist commitment
to Scripture, and acknowledges the sometimes fractious attitudes Baptists hold towards others
with whom they disagree, even if those others are fellow Baptists. Leonard agrees with the
commonplace that biblicism has been a central feature of Baptist identity since the earliest
days of the movement, and that ‗the Bible was the primary source of inspiration and authority
for congregations and individual believers.‘2 Nevertheless, says Leonard, this commitment to
the normative authority of Scripture for faith, theology and practice has been decisively
modified throughout Baptist history by a variety of hermeneutical moves in the face of
inevitable theological and cultural dilemmas.

What do Baptists do when sola scriptura and sola fide collide? When biblical authority or
literalism crashes headlong into piety and practice, culture and conflict, what then? When
such theological or cultural dilemmas inevitably occur, many Baptists adapt, even change,
their theology, while clinging to the rhetoric of an uncompromised biblicism. And, being
Baptists, when such differences occur, they often split, creating new communities gathered
around diverse interpretations of pivotal texts.3

Leonard surveys a variety of issues in Baptist history such as the theological issues that arose
around the mission theology of Andrew Fuller and William Carey, cultural accommodation
in the American south around slavery, and the triumph of piety over literalism during the
Temperance Movement. He concludes that hermeneutical pluralism is inherent in Baptist life
and no theories about the biblical text can ‗protect Baptists (or anyone else) from the power
and unpredictability of the text itself,‘4 to say nothing of the readers of the text and their more
or less faithful or Spirit-illuminated interpretations. Further, all interpretations stand under the
judgement of peers, history, and ultimately the Lord. Thus hermeneutical humility and
methodological modesty are the order of the day as we approach the biblical text.

1
Leonard, B. J., The Challenge of Being Baptist: Owning a Scandalous Past and an Uncertain Future (Waco:
Baylor, 2010), 72.
2
Leonard, Challenge, 55.
3
Leonard, Challenge, 60.
4
Leonard, Challenge, 72.

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This paper explores several models of understanding biblical authority adopted by Baptists in
recent years.

Baptist Faith and Message

A comparison of Article I in the Baptist Faith and Message (2000) with the same article in
the 1925 and 1963 versions of the same confession indicates a model of biblical authority
being pressed in the present.

We believe that the Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired, and is a perfect
treasure of heavenly instruction; that it has God for its author, salvation for its end, and
truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter; that it reveals the principles by which
God will judge us; and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center
of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds and
religious opinions should be tried.

The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is the record of God’s revelation
of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author,
salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. It reveals the
principles by which God judges us; and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the
world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human
conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. The criterion by which the Bible is
to be interpreted is Jesus Christ.

The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is […] God‘s revelation of
Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author,
salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all
Scripture is totally true and trustworthy. It reveals the principles by which God judges us;
and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union,
and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions
should be tried. [...] All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of
divine revelation.5

The 2000 version of this Southern Baptist confession reflects the outcome of the bitter divide
in the Convention from 1979-1993. It is noteworthy that the two statements inserted in the
1963 version, both of which bear Barthian echoes, have now been either modified or deleted,
and an additional statement has been inserted. No longer is the Bible simply the record of
God‘s revelation, but it is God‘s revelation; no longer is Jesus Christ the hermeneutical
criterion of Scripture, but more simply, the focus of divine revelation. The first alteration
serves to bolster the authority of the Bible itself by identifying it as divine revelation in place
of it being the record of the revelatory activity and speech of God in the history of salvation.
This identification of Scripture as divine revelation is then further strengthened with the

5
Early, J., Readings in Baptist History: Four Centuries of Selected Documents (Nashville: Broadman, 2008),
236-237. The statements are taken from the 1925, 1963 and 2000 confessions respectively. Emphasis and
brackets are added to indicate additions and deletions to the previous version of the confession.

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explicit affirmation that therefore all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy. This addition
captures the disputed concept of inerrancy without using the term itself, making explicit the
implicit claim included since 1925 that the Bible has ‗truth, without any mixture of error, as
its matter.‘

The second amendment constitutes a hermeneutical shift. According to Joseph Wooddell, the
‗criterion‘ statement was deleted because it was ‗problematic and unhelpful‘ mainly on
account of various putative interpretations and ‗the Barthian or neo-orthodox influence on
that statement.‘6 Admittedly the phrase ‗the criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is
Jesus Christ‘ itself requires interpretation. Herschel Hobbs, chair of the 1963 confession
review committee interpreted the phrase saying, ‗any interpretation of a given passage must
be made in light of God‘s revelation in Jesus Christ and his teachings and redemptive work.‘7

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complete, final or infallible. The sole authority for faith and practice amongst Baptists
remained the Scriptures, and the confession was a guide for ‗interpretation, having no
authority over the conscience,‘ and was ‗not to be used to hamper freedom of thought or
investigation in other realms of life.‘10 The 1963 preamble claims that the committee did not
delete anything from or add to the basic contents of its predecessor (including the criterion
phrase!). But he preamble does add several phrases. First the confessions ‗are not intended to
add anything to the simple conditions of salvation.‘11 Second, the confessions

Have never been regarded as complete, infallible statement of faith, nor as official creeds
carrying mandatory authority. Thus this generation of Southern Baptists is in historic
succession of intent and purpose as it endeavours to state for its time and theological
climate those articles of the Christian faith which are most surely held among us. 12

Third, the preamble states that

Baptists are a people who profess a living faith. This faith is rooted and grounded in Jesus
Christ who is ―the same yesterday, and today, and forever.‖ Therefore, the sole authority
for faith and practice among Baptists is Jesus Christ whose will is revealed in the Holy
Scriptures.13

Thus, in accordance with the criterion phrase, the 1963 confession establishes the primary
authority of Jesus Christ mediated through the derivative authority of the Scriptures.

The 2000 confession adds a number of illuminating phrases to the preamble:

Throughout our history we have been a confessional people, adopting statements of faith as
a witness to our beliefs and a pledge of our faithfulness to the doctrines revealed in Holy
Scripture. Our confessions of faith are rooted in historical precedent, as the church in every
age has been called upon to define and defend its beliefs … guarding the treasury of
truth… Now faced with a culture hostile to the very notion of truth, this generation of
Baptists must claim anew the eternal truths of the Christian faith… affirming together both
our liberty in Christ and our accountability to each other under the Word of God. Baptist
churches, associations, and general bodies have adopted confessions of faith as a witness to
the world, and as instruments of doctrinal accountability. … these are doctrines we hold
precious and as essential to the Baptist tradition of faith and practice. … Our living faith is
established upon eternal truths.14

Although much of the language in the 2000 confession is similar to what has gone before,
there are also evident changes. Both preambles speak of its generation of Baptists standing
‗in historic succession‘ as they present their confession of faith. In 1963 the focus of this
historic succession is the refusal of the Convention to mandate the confession as binding on

10
Early, Readings, 231-232.
11
Early, Readings, 232.
12
Early, Readings, 235.
13
Early, Readings, 234.
14
Early, Reading, 230-235.

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the conscience. The language is used in the 2000 confession, however, with reference to the
setting forth of doctrinal standards. While the earlier statements regarding the non-binding
nature of the confessions is retained in 2000, the 1963 statement‘s denial of its carrying
‗mandatory authority‘ has been dropped, and the confession is now an instrument of
‗doctrinal accountability,‘ a ‗pledge of our faithfulness to the doctrines revealed in Holy
Scripture,‘ and an ‗affirmation of our accountability to each other under the Word of God.‘
Most seriously, instead of a living faith rooted and grounded in Jesus Christ, it is now
‗established upon eternal truths.‘

So what model of biblical authority is operative in the Baptist Faith and Message (2000)?
The authority of Scripture is affirmed in a twofold way. First, Scripture is authoritative on
account of its nature as divine revelation, without mixture of error, and totally true and
trustworthy. Second, the preamble indicates that Scripture is authoritative as a source of
revealed doctrines and eternal truths. Thus Scripture is, in itself, a normative authority
revealing normative doctrinal positions, and evidently presupposing a normative
hermeneutical method for the discovery, affirmation and application of those doctrinal truths.
Because Scripture is God‘s revelation objectively given, Christian faith and theology is a
matter of explicating the contents of the Bible is a systematic fashion to inform Christians
and others as to their responsibilities in terms of their beliefs and lifestyles.

The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship

In August 1990, after eleven years of in-house SBC division and politicking , a group of
former SBC ‗moderates,‘ frustrated with the ‗fundamentalist takeover‘ and their own inability
to ‗find a voice‘ in the SBC system, formed the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.15 In their
initial public statement the CBF included among their reasons for establishing a new Baptist
group the following:

Many of our differences come from a different understanding and interpretation of Holy
Scripture. But the difference is not at the point of the inspiration or authority of the Bible.
We interpret the Bible differently. … We also, however, have a different understanding of
the nature of the Bible. We want to be biblical—especially in our view of the Bible. That
means that we dare not claim less for the Bible than the Bible claims for itself. The Bible
neither claims nor reveals inerrancy as a Christian teaching. Bible claims must be based on
the Bible, not on human interpretations. 16

15
Early, Readings, 219-228.
16
Early, Readings, 221.

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In a later document entitled Who We Are, the CBF detailed their core values.17 The first value
listed was ‗Baptist Principles‘ which consisted of four ‗freedoms‘: soul freedom, Bible
freedom, church freedom, and religious freedom. The first two freedoms are enumerated as
follows:

Soul Freedom—We believe in the priesthood of all believers. We affirm the freedom and
responsibility of every person to relate directly to God without the imposition of creed or
the control of clergy or government.

Bible Freedom—We believe in the authority of Scripture. We believe the Bible, under the
Lordship of Christ, is central to the life of the individual and the church. We affirm the
freedom and right of every Christian to interpret and apply Scripture under the leadership
of the Holy Spirit.18

Further, in a statement regarding lifelong learning and ministry, the CBF averred that

We are committed to Baptist theological education that affords intellectual and spiritual
freedom to both students and professors in an atmosphere of reverence for biblical
authority and respect for open inquiry and responsible scholarship.19

These statements clearly show that the CBF have adopted a model of biblical authority on
different grounds to the new leadership of the SBC and the Baptist Faith and Message
(2000). Inerrancy is explicitly rejected as a human construct and unbiblical imposition onto
the nature of Scripture, and the basis of the authority of Scripture for the CBF is its divine
inspiration.

In the interaction of two Baptist distinctives—religious liberty and biblical authority—it is

clear that the former has precedence over the latter. Further, it is also clear that liberty is
predicated primarily of the individual, and only then of the church. Thus, the CBF would
refuse the imposition of a normative confession, or normative doctrinal positions etc, on the
grounds that it violates the individual‘s freedom of conscience before God. The Christian
individual has freedom to interpret Scripture in accordance with the witness and guidance of
the Spirit and under the Lordship of Christ. This respect for the integrity of the individual is
extended to the realm of theological education and academic freedom, an issue which became
a source of great contention in the Southern Baptist Convention institutions.20

Prescott regards the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message as a fundamental betrayal of the Baptist
principle of freedom of conscience.

17
See also http://www.thefellowship.info/About-Us/Who-We-Are. Accessed June 26, 2011.
18
Early, Readings, 225-226.
19
Early, Readings, 227.
20
See Dockery…

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 The 2000 BF&M redefines ‗soul competency.‘ It makes every soul accountable to the
church for his/her beliefs and actions. Southern Baptists are now ‗accountable to each other
under the word of God.‘ Rather than reading and interpreting Scripture for themselves,
twenty-first century Southern Baptists will be holding each other accountable for adhering
to the official interpretations of scripture that have been codified in the 2000BF&M. 21

Re-Envisioning Baptist Identity: A Manifesto

In May 1997 a diverse group of Baptists including James McClendon, Stanley Grenz, Barry
Harvey, Roger Olson, Glen Stassen and Jonathon Wilson, issued ―Re-Envisioning Baptist
Identity: A Manifesto for Baptist Communities in North America.‖22 This Manifesto
understood the Baptist heritage primarily in terms of freedom, faithfulness and community,
and contained five affirmations followed by a conclusion. The Manifesto clearly views the
Anabaptist tradition as determinative for Baptist identity, and its strengths are its affirmation
of faithful discipleship to Jesus Christ through the Scriptures, and the idea of a free believers‘
church living faithfully under the present lordship of Christ independent of civil authorities
and cultural idols.

The first affirmation concerned the place of Scripture in the life of the believing community.
The Manifesto is a conscious reaction against both models of biblical authority previously
outlined.

We reject all forms of authoritarian interpretation, whether they come from the ranks of the
academy or the clergy. Consequently, we deny that the Bible can be read as Scripture by
any so-called scientific or objective interpretive method … apart from the gospel and the
community in which the gospel is proclaimed. Scripture wisely forbids and we reject every
form of private interpretation that makes Bible reading a practice which can be carried out
according to the dictates of individual conscience.23

In place of both these models the Manifesto affirms

Bible study in reading communities. … We thus affirm an open and orderly process
whereby faithful communities deliberate together over the Scriptures with sisters and
brothers of the faith, excluding no light from any source. When all exercise their gifts and
callings, when every voice is heard and weighed, when no one is silenced or privileged, the
Spirit leads communities to read wisely and to practice faithfully the direction of the
gospel.24

For the authors of the Manifesto, the authoritarian restriction of biblical interpretation and
academic freedom by coercive hierarchies, and individual libertarian freedom severed from

21
Prescott, Unconscionable.
22
―Re-Envisioning Baptist Identity: A Manifesto for Baptist Communities in North America,‖ Perspectives in
Religious Studies 24:3 (Fall 1997), 303-310.
23
Manifesto, 305.
24
Manifesto, 304-305.

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the concrete believing community, are both wrong-headed. This model of biblical authority
posits the locus of that authority in the living voice of the Holy Spirit who speaks to the
believing community gathered under the Lordship of Christ. Scripture has a derivative
authority, grounded not in itself per se, but as the instrumental means through which the Holy
Spirit speaks.

A British Perspective

Recently Stephen Holmes used the first clause of the Baptist Union of Scotland Declaration
of Principle similarly to argue for a distinctively Baptist way of reading Scripture,
distinguished from other Protestants who adopt sola scriptura.25

That the Lord Jesus Christ our God and Saviour is the sole and absolute Authority in all
matters pertaining to faith and practice, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures, and that each
Church has liberty, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to interpret and administer his
laws.26

In Holmes‘ argument, Scripture is read and interpreted communally under the guidance of the
Holy Spirit, with the aim of obedience rather than ‗faith‘ or correct doctrine. The authority of
Scripture does not inhere in the Bible as such—something more common in American
confessions, says Holmes—but it rather mediates the personal authority and living voice of
Jesus Christ—a more British confessional emphasis. Authority, therefore, is not a legal
reality, but relational, immediate and personal. On this basis, the credentials required for
interpretation are not historical, philological or exegetical skill, but a humble openness to
gather with other believers to hear what Jesus might say to his people. ‗This suggests to me,‘
says Holmes, ‗that our Baptist vision is actually in principle opposed to any formal account of
Biblical hermeneutics, if we mean by that a definition of right and wrong ways to read the
Bible.‘27 Hermeneutics and academic study are not wrong, nor is individual study of the
Scriptures. Nevertheless,

Personally, I would understand this in a quasi-sacramental way, suggesting that Scripture

comes with some sort of promise attached, that God‘s Spirit will be present revealing
God‘s Christ to anyone who comes to the text humbly, honestly and prayerfully … the
point remains that the understanding of Scripture is still a gift of grace, not something
naturally available to us. … The meaning of Scripture is more available in an ecclesial
context than in an academic one.28

25
Holmes, S. R., ―Baptists and the Bible‖ Baptist Quarterly Vol. 43, No. 7, July 2010, 410-427.
26
Holmes, ―Baptists,‖ 414.
27
Holmes, ―Baptists,‖ 421.
28
Holmes, ―Baptists,‖ 417.

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Narrative and Community: Exploring the Model

James McClendon offers a penetrating insight into Baptist biblicism, suggesting that at the
core of Baptist faith is the idea of ‗shared awareness of the present Christian community as
the primitive community and the eschatological community.‘29

This is not merely a reading strategy by which the church can understand Scripture; it is a
way—for us, it is the way—of Christian existence itself. For my thesis here in brief is that
just such a reading of the Bible and especially of the New Testament, read as interpreting
the present situation, is characteristic of the baptist vision wherever we find it; … I claim,
in sum, that the vision so understood is a necessary and sufficient organizing principle for
a (baptist) theology.30

By construing the fundamental Baptist vision in this way McClendon suggests that the
authority of Scripture consists in its eschatological, self-involving, narratival character.
Baptists read Scripture as their own story continued into the present. They belong to the same
God as God‘s covenant people. For McClendon, then, the authority of Scripture for Baptists
is lodged in their unique patterns of using Scripture, in accordance with their communal
practices and guiding vision.31

Similarly, New Zealand Baptist Martin Sutherland argues that underlying traditional Baptist
distinctives is a fundamental notion of what it means to become the church. Adopting
Matthew 18:20 and its context as his central biblical passage, Sutherland contends that the
‗dynamics signalled in this key ecclesiological passage both explain and sustain an
authentically Baptist way of doing theology.‘32 He suggests that the passage portrays the
church as a disciplined community of discernment and authority constituted by the ‗mystical
presence‘ of Christ in the event of its gathering.33 So important is the concept of ‗gathering,‘
that it must be viewed in sacramental terms as both the occasion of Christ‘s presence and the
means of discerning his will. In Sutherland‘s proposal, the life of the congregation is ‗the
visible centre of the faith:‘34

It is the inevitably local, gathered community which is the focus of the promise Christ
makes in Matthew 18:20. The language there attached to gathering is far stronger than any
attached in the New Testament to baptism. It is more direct, I would argue, even than the
‗this is my body/blood‘ declarations at the last supper. If ‗real presence‘ is sought then
surely it is here, where two or three gather in his name. … The most truly sacramental

29
McClendon, Ethics, 30, original emphasis. The ‗as‘ in this sentence is all-important, serving as the underlying
hermeneutical criterion which gives McClendon‘s theological vision its central focus and power.
30
McClendon, Ethics, 33, original emphasis.
31
McClendon, Ethics, 26, original emphasis.
32
Sutherland, ―Gathering,‖ 45.
33
Sutherland, ―Gathering,‖ 45-46.
34
Sutherland, ―Gathering,‖ 46-47.

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 moment is the gathering itself. … All other rites gain their sense and validity from their
exercise in that context, rather than the community gaining its visibility and form from the
rites … Indeed, the gathering is the sacrament, the moment of Christ‘s presence, the telos
at once for the church and for the world.35

The local community of believers who gather in the mystical presence of Christ seek to align
their story with the normative Christ story as revealed in Scripture. The reason the Christ
story is normative is grounded in the conviction that the local community is only constituted
as church as they gather ‗in his name.‘ As a result, theology is necessarily local and
contextual, and also more or less true in accordance with the degree of alignment or
consonance of its story with the normative Christ story.36 The task of theology is to establish
and enable the harmony of the local story with that of Christ, so that the church truly gathers
‗in his name.‘37

In this view Scripture functions truly as canon—as measure—guiding the theology and life of
the community into closer approximations of the normative Christ story. Thus Sutherland
utilises the dramatic metaphor proposed by Kevin Vanhoozer to suggest that the role of
Scripture in the life of the community is to cultivate good theological judgement such that the
community is equipped to take their place ‗fittingly‘ in the ongoing drama of redemption on
the stage of history.38

A problem which immediately attaches itself to a narrative account of biblical authority

concerns the truthfulness of the narrative since narrative in and of itself is insufficient as a
measure of truth. Why privilege this narrative?

For Sutherland, Scripture is acknowledged as the normative document of Christian faith,

being the source of the Christ story and the canon by which the community‘s faithfulness is
measured and enabled to be ‗true.‘39 Although he does not explicitly state his approach along
these lines, it seems that Sutherland has developed a narrative account of theology with a
non-foundationalist epistemology. The problem here, is that unless Sutherland can ground his

35
Sutherland, ―Gathering,‖ 51-52, 52-53, original emphasis.
36
Sutherland, ―Gathering,‖ 54.
37
Sutherland, ―Gathering,‖ 54-55, emphasis added.
38
Sutherland, ―Gathering,‖ 56. See Vanhoozer, K. J. ―The Voice and the Actor: A Dramatic Proposal about the
Ministry and Minstrelsy of Theology‖ in, Stackhouse, J. G. (Ed.), Evangelical Futures: A Conversation on
Theological Method (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), 61-106, (100-104). Note also the similarity of this dramatic
understanding of the role of theology and Scripture to Wright‘s understanding of the authority of Scripture, and
of the Christian life in terms of improvisation, in Wright, N. T. Scripture and the Authority of God (London:
SPCK, 2005), 89-93.
39
Sutherland, ―Gathering,‖ 56.

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narrative consonance with some form of theological realism, his narrative consonance will
collapse back into the self-referential coherence model of truth he wishes to avoid. Ian
Markham argues cogently that we have only two options when it comes to developing a
theological worldview. We either adopt a worldview which is both realist and theist, and
which therefore provides coherence and rationality. Or we adopt an explicitly anti-realist
worldview. According to Markham, to dismiss questions of ontology and truthfulness and
‗simply articulate your narrative‘ is to give up ‗on intelligible explanations for the world, and
therefore God.‘40

I have argued elsewhere the formal possibility of establishing the church as a faithful gospel
community embodying the incarnational narrative in its particular context without
capitulating before the question of truth.41 The form of correspondence theory required is not
thorough-going as though it were ‗windows all the way down,‘ but is a form of critical
realism predicated on the historical truthfulness of the resurrection of Jesus. The truth-claim
of Christian theology is that ‗the events that transpired around the person of Jesus of Nazareth
represent a divine disclosure of ontic reality, a disclosure given in particular historical context
but which is nonetheless freighted with the weight of universal normativity.‘42 Within such an
ontology, space is prepared for the community of faith to become ‗a witness within a pluralist
culture to the truth that lies at the core of all reality, a witness which simultaneously confronts
the deficiencies of alternate ontologies and invites consideration of the ontology held forth in
the church.‘43 As such, the people of God exist in apologetic and dialogical relation to the
surrounding culture, bearing witness to ultimate reality as a prophetic counter-culture
enlivened by the Spirit in a dispirited world.

Conclusion: Towards an Account of Biblical Authority for 21st Century Baptists

We have surveyed three primary models of biblical authority adopted and advocated by
Baptists in recent years:

Biblical authority grounded in an inerrant text as objectively given divine revelation

with normative hermeneutics and doctrinal formulations

40
Markham, I. S. Plurality and Christian Ethics (Cambridge: CUP, 1994), 152-153.
41
O‘Neil, M. D. ―Ethics and Epistemology: Ecclesial Existence in a Postmodern Era.‖ Journal of Religious
Ethics Vol. 34, No. 1 (2006), 21-40.
42
O‘Neil, ―Ethics and Epistemology,‖ 37.
43
O‘Neil, ―Ethics and Epistemology,‖ 38.

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 Biblical authority grounded in the divine inspiration of the biblical text read by the
Spirit-led individual interpreter
Biblical authority grounded in the person and work of the Holy Spirit who inspired
the text and continues to use it as God‘s means to address the people gathered under
the lordship of Christ

By way of summation, let me highlight the positive aspects of these models. As might be
anticipated, each of these models claims the support of the Baptist heritage, and has strengths
and weaknesses, and some degree of overlap with the other models. In each case Scripture is
honoured as the inspired Word of God, and as central to Baptist faith and practice. The first
model celebrates the sheer givenness of Holy Scripture, and helpfully reminds the church that
this is the testimony of God‘s gracious and mighty saving interactions with humanity,
grounded in the life and history of the covenant people. As such, the biblical text has a
provenance to be explored, a historical meaning to be investigated, a propositional content for
reflection and guidance, as well as a demand for response and obedience.

The second model emphasises the privilege and duty of the individual believer to avail
themselves of this precious means of grace, and further protects their right of access to it. The
study of the Scriptures is not for the professional exegete, the clergy, the theologian alone; all
the new covenant people of God have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit to be an
indwelling empowering presence in their lives. Neither should the individual cede their
spiritual privilege to the community; rather, they must exercise their personal duty of biblical
reading and reflection, meditation and application in order that they might not only be
personally edified, but that they might thereby be equipped to minister to and edify the
congregation. For they are called as members of the community, to participate in the life and
ministry of the community. In the community they are taught the doctrines of the Scriptures,
encouraged in the promises of Scripture, and challenged to obedience. In the community their
own interpretations are trained and formed, challenged and validated. Because they are
personal readers of Scripture they are enabled to participate intelligently and spiritually in the
communal times of waiting and hearing, listening and discernment, in the hope that the Spirit
who once guided the covenant people of God and inspired the holy text might once more
guide his people by speaking to and through his humble, gathered and expectant people. This,
of course, is the contribution of the third model.

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The kind of biblical authority envisaged here is the relational, personal and immediate
authority of the risen Christ, who as the Living Word continues to address his gathered
people by means of the inspired written Word. The Spirit who inspired the Word breathes
again and again in and through the Word, and again and again in and through his people to
illuminate it. We are given this treasure to feed upon, to meditate, to proclaim and to teach, to
sing and rejoice in, to study and to learn. In so doing we are continually oriented and attuned
to the Living Lord of the Church who dwells in the midst of his people. But what we cannot
do, says Holmes,

What we cannot do, ever, is predict in advance how Christ will choose to speak to us in His
Word when we are gathered in His name.44

44
Holmes, ―Baptists,‖ 421.

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