Four Views on Moving Beyond the Bible to Theology (Counterpoints: Bible and Theology)

by Zondervan

Note that “living the Bible” is not quite the same thing as “applying the Bible.” How can we “apply” the story of Paul and Silas in prison (Acts 16:16–34) today? It’s straightforward—if one is ever in first-century Philippi in prison for exorcising the demon of a slave girl and there was an earthquake during your midnight hymn-sing! A canonical performance, however, is neither strict replication of a prior blueprint nor application of a principle. It is rather a lived demonstration of theodramatic understanding. The story in Acts 16 shows us the kind of world we live in and the kind of thing God does in the world and the kind of people we are to be in response. To read this passage wisely is not to apply but to appropriate its message and hence “of being transformed by watching/hearing it properly, as a word about who this God is that we are trying to know and love.”

Against appication and for canonically performing, or, appropriation.