Orthodoxy, Orthopraxy, and Research
Today, Christianity faces a wide range of obstacles, from differing forms of worship, to radical shifts in theological understanding. In this confusion, contemporary followers of Christ might find themselves confused as to how they should live out their faith. Questions regarding the authority of the Bible, or how a person can have a relationship with God, can cause believers to question many of the truths they have been taught throughout their lives. This confusion gives rise to a fresh look at biblical exegesis and its relationship to orthodoxy, and orthopraxy. With the rise of contemporary thinking within the church, researchers can look at this dynamic, with the hopes of producing useful results to answer these questions. In order for researchers to assure accuracy in interpreting their results, they must consider the relationship of orthodoxy and orthopraxy with biblical exegesis, contemplate diminishing their personal biases concerning orthodoxy and orthopraxy when presenting their data, and determine how
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The application of biblical exegesis functions as a moderator between these three concepts, defining the principles that define the parameters of a faithful Christian life. One way of understanding the connection between orthodoxy and orthopraxy is to frame it within the concept of practical theology (Gräb, 2012). This concept of practical theology is not limited to pastoral duties, or ministry methods, but rather “lived Christianity” in today’s society (Gräb, 2012). Encountering God on a personal level will bring about a fundamental worldview change, affecting all areas of an individual’s life, and the exegetical methodology a researcher uses in approaching the Bible may determine the results that researcher
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N.T Wright (2008) stated that “When we read the scriptures as Christians, we read it precisely as people of the new covenant and of the new creation” (p.281). In this statement, the author reveals a paradigm of scriptural interpretation that exists for him as a Christian, theologian, and profession and Bishop. When one surveys the entirety of modern Christendom, one finds a variety of methods and perspectives on biblical interpretation, and indeed on the how one defines the meaning in the parables of Jesus. Capon (2002) and Snodgrass (2008) offer differing perspectives on how one should approach the scriptures and how the true sense of meaning should be extracted. This paper will serve as a brief examination of the methodologies presented by these two authors. Let us begin, with an
This paper is written to discuss the many different ideas that have been discussed over the first half of Theology 104. This class went over many topics which gave me a much better understanding of Christianity, Jesus, and the Bible. I will be addressing two topics of which I feel are very important to Christianity. First, I will be focusing on the question did Jesus claim to be God? This is one of the biggest challenges of the Bibles that come up quite often. Secondly, I will focus on character development.
"EXPLORING THEOLOGY 1 & 2." EXPLORING THEOLOGY 1 2. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 May 2014.
...s distributed in Theology 101 at the University of Notre Dame, Fremantle on 22 April 2008.
For centuries now Christians have claimed to possess the special revelation of an omnipotent, loving Deity who is sovereign over all of His creation. This special revelation is in written form and is what has come to be known as The Bible which consists of two books. The first book is the Hebrew Scriptures, written by prophets in a time that was before Christ, and the second book is the New Testament, which was written by Apostles and disciples of the risen Lord after His ascension. It is well documented that Christians in the context of the early first century were used to viewing a set of writings as being not only authoritative, but divinely inspired. The fact that there were certain books out in the public that were written by followers of Jesus and recognized as being just as authoritative as the Hebrew Scriptures was never under debate. The disagreement between some groups of Christians and Gnostics centered on which exact group of books were divinely inspired and which were not. The debate also took place over the way we can know for sure what God would have us include in a book of divinely inspired writings. This ultimately led to the formation of the Biblical canon in the next centuries. Some may ask, “Isn’t Jesus really the only thing that we can and should call God’s Word?” and “Isn’t the Bible just a man made collection of writings all centered on the same thing, Jesus Christ?” This paper summarizes some of the evidences for the Old and New Testament canon’s accuracy in choosing God breathed, authoritative writings and then reflects on the wide ranging
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In this paper I am trying to find out what true Biblical exegesis means. By finding that truth then I and the person reading this paper can leave with an understand-ing on how to comprehend the content of exegesis. Through out my paper you will see noted some of my sources. I have carefully read these books and have selected the best ones to fit the purpose of this document. I will be exploring many areas of exegesis and will be giving you a brief overview of these and then explaining different uses for exegesis.
Answering these questions is the purpose of this essay. I begin by arguing that the Bible cannot be adequately understood independent of its historical context. I concede later that historical context alone however is insufficient, for the Bible is a living-breathing document as relevant to us today as it was the day it was scribed. I conclude we need both testimonies of God at work to fully appreciate how the Bible speaks to us.
The Catholic Church has many avenues for teaching the word of God. This is a difficult task due to language barriers and variations in interpretations of various church documents. The complications of these interpretations are exampled in such terms as inspiration, inerrancy and canon. This essay will briefly describe these terms and attempt to shed some light on how the Catholic Church uses them in the interpretation of biblical documents.