Labels are important. If you don’t think so the next time you have a severe headache just close your eyes and reach into your medicine cabinet and pull out some bottle at random and start drinking or popping the pills. I just hope you don’t grab Imodium.
We use labels all the time outside of Bible interpretation and it doesn’t seem to bother us. We talk about modernism, post-modernism, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, public schools, private schools, and parochial schools.
Jesus used labels to make distinctions between the Herodians (Matthew 22:15), Sadducees (22:23), and the Pharisees (22:41). You do want to be like Jesus don’t you?
If you are going to study theology you must be familiar with labels. Read through the Glossary in any Systematic theology and note how many labels are used. I picked up Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology and started reading the Glossary. Just in the A section are the following labels: adoptionism, amillennialism, annihilationism, Apollinarianism, Arianism, Arminianism, and asceticism. Grudem uses over thirty labels.
Although labels like Dispensationalists and Covenant theologians are manmade and not found in the Bible neither are the words rapture and Trinity found in the Bible. I don’t think we are ready to pull these words from our vocabulary.
Using these labels and noting the sharp differences between these two major views is also important because these two views reflect two radically different methods of interpreting Scripture. Do we interpret Scripture literally with the grammatical-historical method or do we interpret Scripture allegorically ignoring the normal sense of language? Is it important to make a distinction between Israel and the Church in hermeneutics? Is a future, literal reign of Christ on earth important? Is the literal fulfillment of the Old Testament covenants necessary? I hope you agree that these distinctions are critical to Biblical interpretation and if you do then it is helpful for us to use labels.
I am not ready to strip off all the labels of the prescriptions I bring home from CVS nor am I ready to discard labels in theology.
Dr. White, the Lord used your words to remind me that there is a practical benefit to the use of labels when studying and discussing God’s word. They help us to identify and compare different viewpoints on a particular doctrine or passage. I think i benefited most from these words you offered:
“Using these labels and noting the sharp differences between these two major views is also important because these two views reflect two radically different methods of interpreting Scripture. Do we interpret Scripture literally with the grammatical-historical method or do we interpret Scripture allegorically ignoring the normal sense of language? Is it important to make a distinction between Israel and the Church in hermeneutics? Is a future, literal reign of Christ on earth important? Is the literal fulfillment of the Old Testament covenants necessary? I hope you agree that these distinctions are critical to Biblical interpretation and if you do then it is helpful for us to use labels.”
I have noticed that you attempt to be balanced in your approach to discussing doctrine, often presenting multiple viewpoints on a particular doctrine or passage of Scripture. I appreciate that balance. I have learned in recent years that having my own beliefs challenged by opposing viewpoints can be very beneficial, with the end result being that my own convictions are stronger than they would have been had they never been challenged.
Though I do see that practical benefit, and by no means do I wish to discount it, I am personally wary of labeling myself by a particular viewpoint, in part because I wish to avoid the divisive “I am of Paul” or “I am of Apollos” type of attitudes which can damage unity within the body of Christ. The focus can easily shift, given the tendencies of our sinful flesh, away from God Himself and a desire to seek Him, to arguments over our personal perspectives or the perspectives of other men, and we can miss the forest by focusing only on the trees, so to speak. Granted, this can happen whether we use terms to summarize our beliefs or not. I know that. We’re all imperfect and we all tend to stray from speaking the truth in love. I appreciate the apostle Paul’s striving to get the Corinthians’ focus back on God Himself and His work:
“5 What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. 7 So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth. 8 Now he who plants and he who waters are one; but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. 9 For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building” (1 Cor. 3).