Page 13

There is a similar threat to the use and authority of Scripture evident in some of
the renewed interest in personal Bible study. One analysis sees it in a tendency
toward selectivity in both the interpretation and application of Scripture, as people
tend to "neglect those passages that do not speak directly to their needs," and
"what seems to give validity to a [given] biblical passage is that it speaks to one's
need."

This has the effect of shifting the basis of authority from the content of

Scripture itself to the process going on inside the one who reads it. Erickson
suggests that such a reversal of authority may well be an expected result of the
current trend of presenting the gospel message primarily as the answer to
people's needs.

We will be wise to listen attentively to the concerns of those who fear that we are
in danger of allowing other words of authority to replace the Bible in the midst of
the church, as well as those who see the authority of the Bible itself dissolving in
a sea of subjectivism.

The Reformers insisted that Christ rules and governs His church by and through
the Word alone, and most evangelical churches proclaim that Scripture is their
only rule for faith and practice. Sustaining this confession as a boundary marker
for our ministry is essential if we are to be truly evangelical.

3. THE ECCLESIOLOGICAL CONTOUR

It is in our theology of the church that all doctrines come together to offer both
direction and authority for ministry. The church, and particularly the local church,
is where all theology comes to life. Yet the doctrine of the church has received
surprisingly little attention in evangelical circles in recent times. David Fisher has
pointed this out in blunt terms: "Theological reflection or, more particularly,
integrative theological thinking about the church, especially the local church, is
missing. Ecclesiology has been marginalized and detheologized."

Indeed,

Erickson tells us "that at no point in the history of Christian thought has the
doctrine of the church received the direct and complete attention which other
doctrines have received."

"Somewhere along the way ecclesiology, the

doctrine of the church, got lost," laments Fisher.

Various reasons are suggested for this condition. Whether it was an "unreflective
interdenominationalism"

brought on by the battle against liberalism early in the

twentieth century, the emergence of parachurch organizations taking up
ministries formerly the province of the church, or the influence of modernity and
its methodologies that minimized theology--at any rate, evangelicalism had
turned its attention away from serious reflection on the nature of the church.

There has not been an absence of writing about the church. But the writing
about ecclesiology in recent times has been marked less by theological reflection