Office Hours: Reading Scripture Canonically With Darian Lockett

Office Hours 2016 full sizeThe word “canon” means rule. We who confess the Reformed theology, piety, and practice confess that the holy Scriptures are the canon, the final and ruling authority for the Christian faith and life. In Belgic Confession art. 7 we confess, “We believe that those Holy Scriptures fully contain the will of God, and whatsoever man ought to believe unto salvation is sufficiently taught therein. For since the whole manner of worship which God requires of us is written in them at large, it is unlawful for any one, though an apostle, to teach otherwise than we are now taught in the Holy Scriptures…”. In Westminster Confession of Faith chapter 1 we confess, “All which are given by inspiration of God to be the rule of faith and life….The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any man, or church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof: and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God.”

In Modernity, however, the Scriptures as the rule, the canon, have come under assault both by rationalists, i.e., those who privilege the human intellect over the divine authority of Scripture and by subjectivists, those who privilege human affections over Scripture.

The idea of canon also has implications for how we interpret Scripture. Dr Darian Lockett studies the question of how to read the Scriptures as canonically and he was on campus earlier this year  to give two lectures, “Reading Scripture as Canon: Theological and Historical Commitments” and “The Difference Canon Makes: diaspora as Canonical Context for James and 1 Peter.” He is Associate Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. He earned his PhD in St Andrews University, Scotland and serves as a ruling elder at Trinity Presbyterian Church (PCA) in the city of Orange. He is the author of a number of articles and chapters and co-author with Edward W. Klink III of Understanding Biblical Theology (Zondervan, 2012). He’s married with 3 children.

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