 Scholar learned to love Bible at his grandmother’s knee By Robert P. Mills The Presbyterian Layman Volume 33, Number 3 Posted May 22, 2000
Now retired as principal of Trinity College in Bristol, England, Motyer has spent his professional career studying the Bible. He learned to love the Scriptures at his grandmother’s knee in Ireland. “Grandma was, in worldly terms, a comparatively uneducated lady,” Motyer says, “but she was a great Bible woman. Biblical studies have simply confirmed that which I learned from Grandma – that the Bible is the Word of God – and made it a coherently held position.” He adds, “I had a conversion experience when I was 15, but I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love the Word of God.” Having served the Church as both pastor and professor, much of Motyer’s academic life has been devoted to the study of the Old Testament, particularly Isaiah. He is the Old Testament editor of The Bible Speaks Today, a commentary series from InterVarsity Press. Motyer visited with The Presbyterian Layman and answered questions about the Old Testament and its relevance to contemporary Christian life. What has liberal scholarship done to the Old Testament? Motyer – It has removed the Old Testament from popular understanding. The majority of people who have gone through liberal schools in their Old Testament studies have come out totally uncertain of what the Old Testament is about. When people are taught the documentary theory they cease to understand the Pentateuch. They’ve lost the whole flow, the doctrinal as well as the historical. Has it been your experience that many Christians spend little time reading the Old Testament? Motyer – Very much so. Of course, nowadays we don’t live in a literary generation. We live in a generation of lookers, not readers. That is one of our great problems as Christians. We are book people in a non-book world. What are Christians missing by not reading the Old Testament? Motyer – The death of the Lord Jesus as understood in Old Testament categories. We don’t understand the cross unless we understand the Old Testament category of sacrifice and the shedding of blood. Likewise, the New Testament doesn’t have as strong a stated doctrine of creation. It leans on the Old Testament to reveal the nature of man and the nature of God as creator. Are the Old and New Testaments compatible? Motyer – The whole Bible is bound together around the single theme “I will be your God and you will be my people.” The same way of salvation is found right throughout the Bible. We trust the promises of God and are saved. I would lay most stress on the singleness and unity of the people of God running right through the Bible. We are the people of God. How would you answer people who teach that there is a God of law and a God of love and that Christians must follow the God of love? Motyer – Well, it’s just not true. That’s the beginning and end of that one. It’s just ignoring so much evidence in each testament. It’s trading in prejudice and lack of knowledge. The Old Testament is the place where we learn about the good shepherd looking after his sheep. God is in love with us. His heart goes pitter-patter when he sees us. That’s so plain in the Old Testament. Likewise the wrath and holiness of God are equally plain in the New Testament. How do you convince ministers and lay people that the Old Testament is an important part of God’s self-revelation? Motyer – Apart from taking every opportunity to speak to people about the Old Testament, to show them what a lovely and fascinating book it is, the slow drip method, I don’t know of any other. We need to get the people to read the Bible for themselves and become acquainted with the fact that the same mix of material occurs in the Old as well as the New. We need to ask, If you think the Old Testament is the book of a wrathful God, have you read Revelation lately? Try to get people to fall in love with the whole thing and not come with prejudgments about what love is and what love would do. What are some of the consequences when the church fails to protect its members from poor or even false teaching? Motyer – The main consequence of the moment is that we are ethically illiterate. Great moral questions are being aired without professing Christian people having any guidelines on the matter. The big question is homosexuality. The vast majority of people intuitively feel that this is not something they want to go along with, but they don’t have any basis of scriptural teaching on which to rest or from which to draw conclusions. An expanded version of this interview is available here. |
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