A lot of students enrol with the Australian College of Theology because they respect the broad thrust and ethos of the ACT curriculum.  From the beginning, back in 1891, the founders of the College ensured that the study of the Bible was at the centre of each course.  Indeed, the courses of the ACT send a consistent message that the study of theology and preparation for any ministry are grounded in the study of the Old and New Testaments. 

In fact we are one of a handful of providers in which there is a full year of OT and NT introduction.  And we mandate that all students —Diplomas and degrees — take both those units and both semesters.

These units are required in order to progress to exegesis.

As a result—

In the Bachelor of Ministry degree at least 7 of the units out of 24 are in Bible. 

In the Bachelor of Theology degree, at least 10 of the units out of the total of 24 are biblical units.

In the Master of Divinity, at least 8 of the 24 units must be in Bible.  At least two of the exegetical units must be in the original language.

And this is not counting the biblical language units that are compulsory for all degrees.  

Most TTC students will take more biblical units than strictly required. 

One Master of Divinity graduate took 44 cps (46% of the course) — 16 cps in OT and NT introduction, 12 cps of NT, 8 cps of OT, 8 cp NT Project.  Another took 52 cps (54%) — 16 cps intro, 16 cps of NT, 12 cps OT, 8 cp NT Project

A Bachelor of Theology graduate took 40 cps (42% of the course) — 16 cps in OT and NT introduction, 20 cps NT, 4 cps OT.

A Bachelor of Ministry graduate took 36 cps (38% of the course) — 16 cps in OT and NT introduction, 12 cps NT, 8 cps OT.

Why is this so?  There is a theological reason.

The Bible is the definitive witness to the crowning revelation of God in Jesus Christ, the Word of God, God’s self-disclosure.  We call the Bible the “Word of God” because of its supreme worth as a witness to the one who is God incarnate.  The Bible is God’s gift to us.  It is he who caused it to be written; raising up men and women to mediate to us their grasp of God’s character and being.  In the case of the writers of the NT, the Gospels in particular, we have the record of their immediate access to the eye-witnesses of the work and words of Jesus.  The Bible then is a witness to the Word. 

Daniel Migliore puts it this way in his Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology—

The Bible is a unique witness to the sovereign grace of God at work in the history of Israel and above all in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. As witness, the Bible does not call attention to itself. “A real witness,” Karl Barth insisted, “is not identical with that to which it witnesses, but it sets it before us.” An authentic witness directs our attention to some other reality. Thus the Bible is the Word of God only in a derivative sense. The living Word of God is Jesus Christ, and it is with him that we are brought into relationship by the witness of Scripture. Scripture is thus authoritative not in itself but, as the Reformers insisted, as it “sets forth Christ,” as it functions in the community of faith by the power of the Spirit to create a liberating and renewing relationship with God through Christ (p. 46).

I like his emphasis here on the power of the Spirit using scripture to create “a liberating and renewing relationship with God through Christ”.  No wonder the Word of God has power.

We are familiar with this power in daily life.  Scripture can exhort and rebuke us.  It can comfort and build up.  It can give us hope in the midst of despair.  It is potent.  Dynamic.  Full of restless energy. 

The book of Acts is often called the Acts of the Holy Spirit.  In exam after exam, year after year, I read these sentiments.  It must be one of the most assured scholarly points of view that have been imbibed by our students.  But I would argue that the book is every bit as much the history of the triumphant progress of the word of God as that word is proclaimed throughout the Mediterranean.  Acts is the record of the Spirit’s use of the Word to inaugurate the Kingdom of God beyond the geographical confines of Palestine.

This view of the dynamism and energy of the Word has impeccable OT and early Jewish roots. 

We first encounter the Word of God when God speaks creation into existence on Genesis 1.  “And God said Let there be light and there was light”.  The Word of God creates; it accomplishes God’s purposes and God’s will.  The word of God brings order out of chaos.  It dispels darkness.  Through his word God stamps his authority and will on the whole creation. 

We follow the progress of the word of God through the OT narrative and especially in the ministry of the prophets.  It is unthinkable that the word of God spoken by the prophets should fail.  Indeed the whole point of the great Deuteronomistic History (1 Samuel–2 Kings) is that God exercises his control of his people through the word of the prophets speaking God’s word.

Deut 18:18 (NRSV). 
I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command.

The potency and energy of the word of God is strikingly attested in an early Jewish work called the Wisdom of Solomon.  This book was written in the first century BCE, probably in Egypt.  The author mounts a sustained polemic against the worship of idols. 

My first encounter with the book was when I began using what was then the new Anglican Prayer Book in parish ministry in the early 1980s.  The verses I am about to read are used as a preface to the midnight service on Christmas Day. 

Wisdom 18:14–16 (NRSV)
14 For while gentle silence enveloped all things, and night in its swift course was now half gone, 15 your all-powerful word leaped from heaven, from the royal throne, into the midst of the land that was doomed, a stern warrior 16 carrying the sharp sword of your authentic command, and stood and filled all things with death, and touched heaven while standing on the earth.

The writer has the first Passover in mind and the destruction wrought on the first-born of Egypt.  The compilers of the Prayer Book draw a powerful analogy between the sudden eruption of the word of God in Egypt as God had promised would happen and the events of the birth of Christ.  The word of God leaps from heaven, the word made flesh, just as the prophets promised, unerringly to do the will of God and inaugurate the fulfilment of the purposes of God.

We meet this warrior word in the Revelation, in ch. 19, in a striking depiction of the Word of God riding forth to victory over the forces that resist the KOG.

Rev 19:11–16 (NRSV).
11 Then I saw heaven opened, and there was a white horse! Its rider is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. 12 His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems; and he has a name inscribed that no one knows but himself. 13 He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called The Word of God. 14 And the armies of heaven, wearing fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. 15 From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. 16 On his robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed, “King of kings and Lord of lords.”

One last passage about the energy of the Word.  I have always been very moved by the statement about the word of God in Hebrews 4:12–13.  The letter is written to people facing persecution such that they are being tempted to return to a more distinctive, and less fraught, Jewish faith commitment in which the great achievement of Jesus as priest is set aside.  This would amount to a return to the shadows.  The writer, with his mind on exhorting these waverers, draws their attention to the word of God that speaks of a mighty fulfilment of divine promises, and witnesses to the incomparable achievement of Christ.  He writes:

12 The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.  13 And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.

Has your experience of studying the word of God confirmed that judgment of the author of the letter to the Hebrews?  To have access to the word of God will profoundly change and reform us.  Do you agree? 

Before you answer, consider this story from Mark’s Gospel (6:14–29)—the story of Herod Antipas and the beheading of John the Baptist.  It is a grim and violent story about the word of God.

John was a fearless prophet, as we know.  He was not afraid to speak out.  Herod Antipas, a son of Herod the Great, was the ruler of Galilee.  One day he went to stay with his half brother, Philip, and came home with Philip’s wife, Herodias.  The Hebrew Bible carries a clear condemnation of this marital irregularity.  It legislates against marrying your brother’s wife if your brother (see Leviticus 18:16; 20:21). 

So, naturally, fearlessly, John denounced the arrangement.  Herodias wanted to kill John, but she could only prevail on Antipas to imprison him. 

Now Mark says that Antipas liked to listen to John, though he also feared him and was much troubled by what he said.  He would take John out of prison and have him preach to him.  John kept on denouncing the new marriage.  Antipas did nothing about his marriage, even though the word of God on this matter was living and active, sharper than a two-edged sword, and mediated directly to him by John, a prophet.  He has the word of God locked up in his dungeon, but he did not act.  Herodias, on the other hand, was looking for an opportunity.

Her time came at a drunken party that Antipas gave his friends on his birthday.  Herodias’ daughter came in to dance for his guests.  This would not have happened in more reputable society.  The dinner party entertainers—the dancers and flute girls—would have been prostitutes not members of your family.  Respectable women would have kept their distance—or rather the head of the family would have ensured that the female members of his family were not exposed to his drunken guests.  But not in Antipas’ household. 

So smitten was Antipas by the dancing, and so tipsy, that he asked her what she would like as a gift, even half my kingdom, he said.  She ran and asked her mother what she should ask her.  “Ask for the head of John the Baptist on a platter”, came the reply.

And Antipas was caught because of failure to act when he had the chance and because of his rash promise in front of all the powerful of Galilee.  It was too late.  Herodias got what she wanted.  John was beheaded in the prison straightaway.  The girl gave the head of the prophet of God to her mother. 

No doubt the story serves more than one purpose.  It is a story that prepares for the dispatching of Jesus.  The evangelist would seem to be saying that violence and wickedness such as experienced by John is what God’s people must expect.  No one, not even John, not even Jesus himself, is immune.  God’s people cannot expect better than this.  The world has organised itself against the values of the KOG. 

But the story can also be understood as a story about the word of God.  It is a reflection of the parable of the sower.  Not every sowing of the word bears fruit.  God does not override the wills of an Antipas or an Herodias.  They hear the word but the word is sown on barren ground.  Under such circumstances its purpose is to secure the condemnation of those who are responsible for the treachery that results in the death of John. 

The word of God was removed from Antipas. 
When he didn’t act on its clear message he risked his easy access to it. 
And it was taken away.

Take care—student, lecturer, and administrator—that we too act on the word of God.  If you fail to act you might wake up one morning only to discover that you no longer care whether you do the word of God or not. 
You no longer want to hear because God has taken the word away.  Made you deaf.  The word of God has passed you by.  And, like Antipas, you have missed your chance. 

The loss of the word might last for ever.

Let us pray:

Help us we pray not only to hear your word but also to do what it says gladly. 
For we live not by bread alone but by every word which you speak.  Amen.


Mark Harding, Dean

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