Just as there are countless variations of Methodist Churches, there is not one definitive ‘Bible Church’ to frame the answer to this question. By and large, ‘Bible Churches’ will see the Bible as the ‘literal’ Word of God, whereas Methodists (and other mainline denominations) would focus on the Bible as the ‘Inspired Word of God.’
Holding that every word of the Bible must be literally true is not a litmus test for membership in the Methodist church; many members believe it to be so, others may not. We do hold that “the Bible contains all that is necessary to learn about, understand, and accept Jesus Christ as our savior.”
Many Bible Churches require a belief in the literal interpretation as a requirement for membership. For instance, if you look at the web site for Denton Bible Church, you’ll find under the section of ‘What we believe about the scriptures’:
”Every word in the original writings is inspired by God and is without error. It is accurate in all matters to which it speaks, spiritual, historical, and scientific. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the foundation of the faith and practice of Denton Bible Church ( II Tim. 3:16; II Pet. 1:21).”
All Methodists would agree that “The scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the foundation of the faith and practice for any church.” Many Methodists, however, would not feel that the Bible was written as a science book, so the creation stories in Genesis, for example, were not intended to be a scientific explanation of the origins of the universe. Writers of that day couldn’t possibly know all we know about science, space, molecules, etc. that we know today; even if the writers had been ‘divinely instructed’ on such matters…the people they were writing to wouldn’t have been able to comprehend.
God wanted hearers of those ancient days to understand His nature in concepts and words they could comprehend, so He inspired the writers in the beautiful, powerful proclamation of His creation. So they proclaimed in quite understandable ways the eternal truth that God created the heavens and the earth, created them for us, and that God launched human history and will one day bring it to completion…it is all under His guiding hand. That is, the Bible’s purpose is to proclaim God – not necessarily to be a precise science book by which modern day science should be judged.
If you look at the Cross Roads Bible Church you’ll see their belief about the Bible:
“We believe the Bible to be the verbally, plenarily inspired Word of God, without error in the original writings, and the supreme and final authority in doctrine and practice. (2 Tim. 3:16,17; 2 Peter 1:20,21; Is. 55:8-10; John 17:17; Mat. 5:17,18; 1 Pet. 1:23-25; Heb. 4:12; John 14:25,26; 16:12-15; Gal. 1:11,12; 2 Pet. 3:15,16)”
It is not all that different from Trietsch’s website statement about our belief in the Bible:
“The Bible, both Old and New Testaments, is God’s word to all. Human authors, under the supernatural guidance of the Holy Spirit, wrote it. The scriptures are inspired by God, and are the unique, full and final authority on all matters of faith and practice, and there are no other writings similarly inspired by God.”
Some other Bible Churches are stricter in their faith statement about the Bible. I found this one on the internet:
What Minooka Bible Church Believes about the Bible…
“We believe that the Bible is the inerrant, authoritative, verbal, plenary, inspired Word of God as represented in the original manuscripts. The Bible consists of 66 books written by men under the superintendency of the Holy Spirit.”
Note the phrase, “in the original manuscripts…” which is a common statement among many Bible and Baptist Churches and other churches holding to a ‘literal’ interpretation of the Bible. It is important to note that all biblical scholars agree that there are no original manuscripts of any book in the Bible in existence today. All we have are copies of copies of copies, the closest which dates back to around 125 years of the time of any original manuscript.
So when folks say the Bible is ‘literally true,’ if you look at the fine print of that statement, ‘literally true in the original manuscript’ they are talking about something that, until and unless some original manuscript is unearthed, doesn’t exist to our knowledge.
Methodists have great respect for Bible Churches and their members, but we do view the scriptures differently. We don’t think the differences make any difference about going to heaven … some Bible churches do.
Methodists find it interesting that there are thousands of different churches, all claiming to read the Bible as the literal, inerrant, infallible, Word of God – that disagree with each other on points both major and minor! Some go so far as to hold that unless every Christ follower reads this or that passage exactly as they do, that they will be excluded from Christ’s church. Methodists don’t see things that way at all.
Because of how Methodists view the Bible, we take a much different stance on being involved with the hurts of the world than most Bible Churches. (Methodists are frequently criticized for being too ‘socially active’ … instead of ‘preaching the Word.’)
Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer, founder and first president of Dallas Theological Seminary (Perhaps the father of the Bible Church movement) until 1952, along with Dr. John F. Walvoord, who succeeded him and served as president until 1986 wrote the instructive textbook for most of the fast-growing Bible, entitled Major Bible Themes. In it they wrote, “the present divine purpose of this age is not the conversion of the world, but rather the calling out from the world those who will believe Christ to form the body of Christ, which is the church.”
This is quite different than what UMs and most other mainline denominations believe. We believe that Christ left us with the work of ‘converting the world’ (John Wesley referred to it as “Preaching Scriptural Holiness throughout the land”), not only to bring others to Christ, but also with the purpose of making the world a better place to live while we wait for the return of Christ.
Chafer & Valvoord go on to say, “…the immediate purpose of God is not the correction of the evil in the world, but the out-calling of who will believe.” (pp 242, 243.)
Bible churches will invest more of their resources in their internal ministries, while Methodist churches invest considerable resources in missions, service, and outreach. You are not likely to see a “Bible Church Hospital,” for instance, like most every major city has a “Methodist Hospital.”
Bible Churches tend to “get people spiritually ready for the rapture and the end of the world; its fast approaching and urgent”; they develop theories and doctrines to pinpoint when it will happen.
So you can see that how one views the Bible determines the very nature of the church.
Methodist churches don’t spend much time predicting the end of the world … instead the focus is on being ‘Good Stewards’ of the world and being ‘the risen body of Christ’ … loving, healing, helping the hurting of the world like Jesus modeled for us.
With all this said, I’m doubt many Bible Church members really read and study the philosophy of its founders…just like most members of Methodist churches don’t really know much about the teachings of John Wesley!
Most Bible Church folks I know love Jesus, love the Word, and are looking for ways to make a difference … just like the wonderful folks here at Trietsch! We just see things differently and ‘agree to disagree.’
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