Scripture within the Church

 “The person who loves God values knowledge of God more than anything created by God, and pursues such knowledge ardently and ceaselessly.”

    Within Christianity, nothing is more debated, discussed, misinterpreted or misused than Scripture. Within Protestantism, one verse can create new denominations, new sects and new heresies all together.  Scripture is seen in their eyes as the final authority on all matters, the epitome of everything that God has given us, and nothing else matters. However as you might can tell, the Orthodox have a completely different view of Scripture.  

    Orthodoxy has and always has had, the view that Scripture forms part of the Holy Tradition of the church. That is the oral and written histories of the church. The canon of what is now the Holy Bible was not even completely formed when the Church was established at Pentecost, it would take several hundred years, and a few ecumenical councils later for the full canon of the church to be completely set in stone and even then, debates raged on which books should or should not be included.  St Irenaeus in 178, said that it would take time to collect and form the canon of the church scripture. St. Peter though calling St. Paul's writing scripture, says that it is difficult and needs interpretation. Protestants, who believe in Sola Scriptura will often say, that whatever God lays on their heart that is what the scripture says.  The Orthodox Church refutes this by saying, "Does it match with what others have taught?" The Orthodox Church in its wisdom to guard against heresy and the everything goes mentality that is ravaging the West, has said that through the use of Holy Tradition, through the use of the patristic fathers, that Scripture can be understood.  That does not mean, that God hasn't given us what he wanted us to have, that those things that are included within the canon of the Holy Bible are not inspired writings, that they don't have benefits for our lives, rather one must be within the Church to fully understand the writings and the teachings held therein. The Bible is therefore, just like the painted icons of Christ, a written icon of the second person of the Trinity, that is the Divine Logos. The Word of God. The Bible in and of itself is not the word of God, rather the Bible depicts the actual Word of God that is Jesus Christ.  From Genesis to Revelation, the entire canon of scripture directs and calls us to Christ just like the icons that border our iconostasis at the entrance to our altars. The scriptures never in themselves point to anything more or less than Jesus Christ. Without the Church as its mother, the Scriptures become meaningless, just a collection of books that have been assembled for the purpose of good living and teaching and they do not have any substance beyond their confined pages.  Rather for us Orthodox, the scriptures must be lived, through their reading, through the divine services, through the teachings of the holy fathers and teachers of not just our age but the age of all ages.  We cannot have the Church without its teachings and the teachings without the Church. 

    As stated heresy and the everything goes mentality of the West has led many to fall astray and begin teaching many things not found in the scriptures. One such heresy is the prosperity gospel, where God simply wants us to be happy and healthy and wealthy and achieve great success here on earth. When we compare that to the experience of the Church and the life of many saints especially in the East, we see that does not match the experience of the Church, especially that of Greece where for 500 years the Ottoman Turk Muslims controlled the people and persecuted harshly those of the Christian faith. We must therefore use Scripture in its proper place, to teach, to rebuke, to correct and to call to righteousness. 

    In conclusion, Scripture is a part of the life of the Church, not the only part of the life of the Church. We must always place Jesus in the forefront of the Church and place our faith not in the written word of God, but the eternal life giving Word of God. 

Amen.