Avondale scholar on putting Scripture “out there”
Dr Steven Thompson presented the Bible study during the worship service at Homecoming this year. Why? He helped write the guide from which the study came. Steven is a higher degree research supervisor and a former head of what is now the seminary at Avondale College of Higher Education. He is also a former principal of Newbold College in the United Kingdom. Signs Publishing book editor Nathan Brown asked him about his writing and his research.
How did you come to work with Dr Borge Schantz on the current Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide and companion book?
We first worked together during the mid 1980s at Newbold—he was head of theology. The fact that I have Danish ancestry—and understood his Danish—helped us work together. When he persuaded the editor of the guide to accept a series of lessons on biblical missionaries about six years ago, he asked me to work with him, enriching the biblical exposition in the lessons.
Borge wrote the guide and you wrote the book. What did you discover about biblical missionaries from your research?
It’s been a great source of professional, personal and spiritual satisfaction for me to read and reflect on the Bible narratives behind each lesson in their original languages. There were two great storytelling cultures in the ancient world—Hebrews and Greeks. My aim in Biblical Missionaries is to make available insights from those original languages that are sometimes “lost in translation.”
What do you hope those who’ve used these resources will take away from this study?
Borge and I agreed the companion book should be dedicated to those who show up at one of the 130,000 adult Bible study groups that meet each Sabbath around the world, speaking one of the 80 languages in which the lessons have been published. We wish for them a refreshed awareness that they are missionaries along with Esther and Daniel, Peter and Paul, even if their “mission field” extends only across their back fence or across their street.
You’ve also written a chapter in the book, Do Justice. That seems a little outside your research expertise.
Justice wasn’t on my list of writing topics when I was invited to contribute the chapter on justice and the Bible, but I had long experience wrestling with the age-old question, “Why does a good God allow bad things to happen?” From my ministry as well as my teaching, I was aware that the most common objection raised to belief in God is the apparent lack of justice. I also learned from my children—and grandchildren—that a sense of fairness and justice seems hardwired into people, emerging at a very early age. Among the first words I heard my twin granddaughters say to each other were “fair” and “share.” Where did this sense of justice come from? The Bible’s answer is far superior to any other I’ve heard.
Much of your published work has been in more academic settings. What do you hope this has contributed to the church?
We often associate the word, “academic,” with words like “impractical” or “irrelevant,” but I think of the word in this way: a reasonable weaving together of facts and their interpretation to test opinions and beliefs and to create knowledge. Bible writers like Luke and Paul used the “academic” method. Remember, Luke says he has carefully investigated everything about the ministry of Jesus from the beginning and written an orderly account [see Luke 1:3]. And Paul, he urges his readers to be transformed by the renewing of their mind and to test and approve what God’s will is [see Romans 12:2].
In what ways are scholarship, writing and publishing still important for the church?
The Bible has reached us today, across 3000 or more years, because godly men, and a few women, carefully investigated truth claims, then committed to writing what they judged to be God’s truth. Countless others preserved those messages at a time when books had to be produced entirely by hand. We benefit greatly from their sacrificial work, and in our own way need to continue putting “out there” God’s truth for today.
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