Last year as part of our Sydney Anglican Church “Connect Groups”[1] we met to study the doctrinal framework of the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students (AFES), whose intention it is to make clear what it means to be a Bible-believing Christian. Although I have previously considered the authority claims of the Bible, this study really made me think more about this issue than I had previously. Phillip Jensen and Tony Payne provide commentary on all nine of the doctrinal statements made by the AFES in the Matthias Media publication The Blueprint[2]. This article is concerned only with the first of those statements:
The divine inspiration and infallibility of Holy Scripture, as originally given, and its supreme authority in all matters of faith and conduct.[3] [emphasis mine]
Infallibility has to do with the trustworthiness of Scripture. So by implication the AFES seem to be affirming that the Bible is completely reliable when it comes to religious or spiritual issues, but not necessarily when it comes to other issues like science or history. Or as Jensen and Payne put it more explicitly, “… Scripture is limited to matters of faith and conduct. The Scriptures do not claim to be an authority in calculus, nuclear physics, poetry or chess”[4] [emphasis mine]. For textual support they cite 2 Tim 3:16-17; possibly the most popular proof text used to refute anyone who thinks that the Bible doesn’t make any restrictions on the kinds of subjects on which it speaks truthfully.
But then only two pages later… “The Scripture has authority over all matters on which it speaks. It is not exhaustive – it does not cover all matters – but because of its authorship its authority extends over everything it covers“[5] [emphasis mine]. What then do Jensen and Payne mean when they talk of Scripture being limited to matters of faith and conduct? To avoid the confusion, I can only assume that what they mean is this:
