When the [biblical] text is not authoritative, the preacher's speech is in jeopardy and we have nowhere to stand. Inadequate ecclesiology is often at the bottom of our ineffective hermeneutics. The Scripture is not just text, it is Scripture, canon, Baptism asserts that we meet and speak under an identity that challenges and endangers all other identities. The texts from which we must preach have few epistemological allies in the world. They cannot be easily translated, transposed, into our psychological, sociological speech.
William Willimon, Peculiar Speech: Preaching to the Baptized, p. 13.
1 comment:
I come at the matter of authority of the text a little differently. For one thing, I think Pannenberg has made a persuasive case that the assertion of the authority of the text in the modern context has little appeal to the unchurched. It comes across as authoritarian and raises the question of "who says" I should approach the text this way. It also suggests a magical approach to the "Word." Having said that, preachers have every right to view the Bible as faithful witness to the revelation of God in Israel and in Christ.
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