A Reflection On "The Authority Of Scripture"

I recently had a conversation with an old friend on Facebook about wifely submission. I was trying to ask him how would explain wifely submission to a non Xn person or what the intrinsic benefits of being a submissive wife are. He kept going back to "this is what I think Ephesians 5 is saying". The exchange probably says more about my inability to communicate via social networks than it does about my friends ability to understand what I was trying to ask. Which was what are the benefits to following this idea aside from "it's in the Bible".

None the less, it got me think about how "The Authority Of Scripture" functions. For more evangelically minded people this means once you've decided to follow Jesus you decide to follow everything in the Bible too. For more liberally minded people reason and tradition may play a bigger role and you kind of get a two against one get out of jail free card if they both go against something they believe is being said in the Bible.

I'm wondering if, for me, the Bible has authority because of what it says rather than because of what it is. That is the Bible, for me, is more like Martin Luther King rather than the Pope. If you don't like what the Pope says, and you have a "what the Pope says goes" kind of Catholicism, you're just stuck with what ever has been decreed. MLK on the other hand only maintained authority when what he said continued to ring true in some sense.

If I found something MLK said that sounded offensive or uncharacteristic. I would neither believe it nor dismiss that one thing or everything that he ever said. I'd ask

1) Is this really what he said? Was it transcribed incorrectly?

2) What was the context he was talking in? Was he talking metaphorically or sarcastically rather than literally?

3) Is it something he later went on to regret saying?

4) If I don't get a satisfactory answer I'll mentally file it away in the don't quite understand what's going on here corner of my brain.

If I'm honest with myself I suspect this is exactly how I've treated the Bible. I believe God is loving, Jesus is God's demonstration to us of what God is like, and the Bible is our window to understanding that more fully.

If I find something in the Bible that seems to go against this I have to ask.  Do I change my idea of what or who God is or do I wrestle with the text until I understand it differently. I tend to ask these questions of myself.

1) Is this really what was said in the original text? Is how I understand this today how the original hearers / reader would have understood it?

2) What was the context the author was writing in? Was the author talking in some other form rather than literally?

3) Is it something (particularly if it's something from the Hebrew Bible) something that the prophets, Jesus or a New Testament writer would challenge?

4) If I don't get a satisfactory answer I'll mentally file it away in the don't quite understand what's going on here corner of my brain.

Over my life at different times I have filed away the issues of gender roles, sexuality and Joshua's conquest (to name but a few) and then revisited them when I found a satisfactory understanding of them. There are still things filed away in the doesn't make sense yet compartment in my brain. Maybe I'll get to then maybe I won't.

Either way I won't be throwing away the bible or submitting to any one's particular understanding of what the Bible means.