I do not want to encourage that kind of tension. At the same time I must be honest and say what I am really thinking. There is no point in trying to please everyone, although we should avoid unnecessarily provoking anger and disbelief. My aim is to bring what I believe to be the essential view of scripture that is given to us both in scripture itself and in Christian tradition. Indeed we may look to scripture for consolation, for guidance, perhaps even for a whole program of living, and above all for knowledge of God, but we look with different questions in our minds, questions that will shape the answers we find.
People have different needs at different times in different places.
It is a key given in scripture itself. Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name. It is not, however, a circular argument about scripture claiming its own authority, though it does affirm its authority. The books we recognize as scripture in addition to the Hebrew scriptures are those in which Christians have recognized a true witness to Christ.