1. What is biblical authority?
As the written Word of God, the Bible is the supreme and final authority in faith and practice. It functions as the norm which the church’s tradition, reason, and experience must serve. Its authority is established in the believer’s and the church’s life by the testimony of the Holy Spirit—the same Spirit who inspired the writers of Scripture and who now converts and makes holy those who listen to Scripture. The Bible’s primary purpose is to confront us with the Word of God in the person of Jesus Christ through whom God’s grace and truth are definitively revealed (John 1:14, 17).
2. How does biblical authority relate to the question of authorship?
All Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit, but this does not mean that the human authors were God’s passive robots nor that God dictated to them what they wrote. In a way that goes beyond human comprehension, God was at work in the process of writing the documents that make up our Bible: divine revelation was incarnate in human words, much like the mystery of the person of Jesus Christ who was fully divine and fully human. Just as Jesus of Nazareth astounded people with his authority when he spoke (Matt 7:28-29), so God speaks authoritatively through Scripture with its variety of human authors, cultural expressions, and literary genres.
3. Why does Rev. Izzy Matos preach from the TNIV (Today's New International Version)?
There are four reasons this edition of the Bible is chosen.
1) Word updates: Some of the improvements in the TNIV text are simple word changes that reflect contemporary English terms. For example, the "sixth hour" is accurately translated as "noon" in the modern understanding of time (Mark 15:33); 2) Gender: Without exception, the TNIV retains gender-accurate, masculine terminology for references to God. This is a theological understanding and commitment that the CBT, standing in concert with the Church throughout the ages, considers inviolable. There are passages in the TNIV, however, in which the contemporary English rendition used to refer to men and women has been translated to accurately reflect the original language, context, and understanding. Where the NIV previously used "he," "man," or "men" to indicate all people, the TNIV, in many cases, renders these passages as "person," "people," or other terminology that reflects the meaning of the original language. In no cases do these updates impose upon or change the doctrinal impact of Scripture; 3) The contributors to the TNIV are some of the most well-respected scholars in the world; and 4) The TNIV is a strong translation that takes into account the most recent scholarship on the ancient manuscripts.
4. Is the Halogen Church associated with any denomination? (To what part of the Christian family do we belong?)
The Halogen Church was founded in 2004 as the third service of Light and Life Christian Fellowship, a Free Methodist (Wesleyans) church. Rev. Izzy Matos became the lead pastor of the Halogen Church in 2007 and his leadership reflected an "interdenominational" presentation of the Gospel Message, with strong adherence to Messianic Judaism and Wesleyanism respectively. The Halogen Church presents itself as a local body of Christ that is both evangelical and ecumenical, and the Theology remains the heart of its Wesleyan and Holiness theological heritage.
5. How does Wesleyanism inform our understanding of biblical authority?
John Wesley believed in the “authority” and “sufficiency” of Scripture for “all things necessary to salvation.” These affirmations reflect the “Thirty-nine Articles” of Anglicanism (1571), which influenced the Methodist “Articles of Religion” (1784). Wesley was Anglican, and his Methodist movement affirmed the primacy of biblical authority. He also affirmed the genuine—albeit secondary—religious authority of church tradition, critical thinking, and relevant experience for reflecting upon and living out Christianity. Over time, this fourfold understanding of religious authority became known as the “Wesleyan quadrilateral,” which includes Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. But the quadrilateral considers scripture the final authority in matters of Christian beliefs, values, and practices. Thus, Wesley agreed with the Protestant Reformers with regard to sola Scriptura (“Scripture alone”) as being the final religious authority. The Halogen Church embraced this Wesleyan heritage in the development of its “Statement of Faith.” In addition, the church drew upon ecumenical language from the National Association of Evangelicals’ “Statement of Faith,” which describes Scripture as “the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.” The term “inspiration,” of course, comes from Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16), and “infallible” reflects the “Westminster Confession” (1625), a Reformed confession. Their usage preserves centuries of Protestant and ecumenical understandings of the nature of biblical authority, and delimits both modernist and fundamentalist innovations in describing Scripture. Modernist and fundamentalist understandings of biblical authority are thought to be more dependent upon the Enlightenment than upon Scripture itself. The Halogen Church continues to be informed by Wesleyanism as well as by ecumenical Protestantism in its understanding of biblical authority. The 2006 “Position Statement on Evangelical Commitment” states: “Reflecting our Wesleyan-Holiness heritage, we consider right living important along with right belief. We seek truth primarily through Scripture and integrate other sources such as reason, tradition, and experience.” Scripture represents the University’s primary religious authority, but it is a complex understanding, which integrates the best hermeneutical tools in interpreting Scripture. Although Christians may advocate simple faith, Wesley never understood it to be simplistic. If biblical authority is to be relevant today, then it must be promoted in ways that both conserve and progress in its understanding, assessment and application of Scripture.
6. What is distinctly evangelical about the Halogen Church?
One answer to this is that our church’s statement of faith is a solidly evangelical affirmation that directly reflects the language of the National Association of Evangelicals’ statement of faith. While this is true, the better answer to this question is that each staff member and leader approaches his or her discipline with the three concerns that have characterized evangelicalism since its beginning: 1) the desire to discern the truths of Christianity (orthodoxy); 2) a search for how we might best apply those truths in our callings (orthopraxy); and 3) the aspiration to experience transformation and encourage Christ-likeness in others (orthopathy).
7. How does your church leadership seek to instill a love of the Scriptures in the ethos of the congregation?
Everyone loves a love letter, especially when the receivers of the letter know that the sender is magnificent and beautiful. The Bible is more than a letter; and God the sender exceeds our ideas of magnificent and beautiful, but this only means more reasons to love the Bible. We believe that our church participants grow in love for the Bible when they learn what it says about God and His people, when they understand the witness to God's unconditional love, and also when they learn about how the cherished gift of Scripture came to our hands. It is both the story in the Bible and the story of the Bible that inspires love for the Bible. We therefore tell both stories in ever deepening stages throughout the journey of our members. At the same time we do not neglect to share how God has touched us and continues to do so through the gift of Scripture so that our church participants may know of our own love for the Bible and the personal quality of our devotion.
8. How does the academic study of the Bible differ from devotional study of the Bible?
Within the Wesleyan evangelical tradition that the Halogen Church represents, all forms of Bible study, whether academic or devotional, take place within a commitment to the inspiration and authority of the Bible. However, the academic ways of studying the Bible that we emphasize in our sermons, seminars and classes ask different questions of the Bible than devotional study does and use different methods to answer them. While devotional uses of the Bible focus directly on how the Bible can build up our spiritual lives and our relationship with God, academic study asks literary, theological, and historical questions that increase our understanding of the Bible, God, and its worldview. In the sanctuary and in the seminar room, we critically employ different approaches to biblical interpretation in order to strengthen our grasp of the meaning and significance of biblical passages in their original context, in Christian history, and in our lives today. In this way, the understanding of the Bible we gain by using scholarly methods enhances and deepens our devotional study of the Bible.
