The second presentation to the Oikonomia Network this morning included a panel of experts discussing the role of scripture and its place in the faith and work conversation.
Chris Armstrong, Darrell Bock, Gerry Breshears and Tom Nelson gathered to discuss a rather provocative comment/issue that surfaced at the Boston Faith@Work Summit on connecting faith to life. Paul Williams noted that people possess a real difficulty of connecting life & work in their reading of the Bible. Paul asked, if this is a 
problem, “how are we teaching people to read” scripture that overcomes this? The challenge may well be that we have a tendency to train seminarians to move from the Bible to life (exegesis to application) where people tend to come from life (in all of its messiness) to the Bible. Williams had noted that the Bible does have answers, or people tend to think so, yet the approach to scripture seems to 
assume a propositional view (seeking right “answers”). Williams suggested by video that scripture might function differently in how the text, as a narrative whole, might shape Christians in their ongoing living and acting. Williams also invoked Henri Nouwen’s critique that much of enlightenment education seems alienating, separating theory from daily life and even deferring application. Williams also wondered if faculty tend to implicitly convey an “expert” mindset to seminary students that often might impede how pastors then treat the observations in dealing with scripture.
Discipleship Commons 