Scripture and Chaplaincy

by David Pettett

Chaplaincy seeks to bring the comfort and encouragement of the Lord to those in hard places. It seeks, “to give the soul wings and rescue it from the world and give it to God”, to use Gregory of Nazianzus beautiful expression. 

“Rescuing the soul from the world” is a recognition that chaplaincy’s focus is not on helping people to live better lives in this world, but to live in this world in the presence of God, whatever our circumstances. Our cancer may continue its ugly long and destructive journey in our body over many years. Chaplaincy does not teach that positive thinking will bring healing or that a right diet and meditation will cause the cancer to disappear. Chaplaincy helps us to know God’s presence in our distress and, while our body decays, we rest in His unchangelessness.

 

We have such confidence because God Himself has told us it is so. God has spoken to us. God has revealed Himself to us. We have confidence that He is with us because this is His promise. I know this to be true because I have a book which tells me it is true. This book is no ordinary book. It is God’s words to us, breathed out by God inspiring ordinary people to write down His words. We call this book the Bible. We use the word Scriptures to describe it. We believe that, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16 ESV)

 

Christian chaplaincy has nothing to say to a hurting world if it does not bring these words of God to the people it encounters. Psychology and the human sciences inform us well of some of the nature of the human struggle and we profitably learn from it. Good counselling will be of great benefit to hurting people and chaplains are well advised to learn to be good counsellors. But if psychology and counselling are the extent of the comfort we offer people we fail as chaplains. Chaplaincy gives the soul wings.

 

We can only give the soul wings if we understand what God says about life in the Scriptures. Having a deep knowledge of the Scriptures and a pastorally sensitive love to speak the words of Scripture to a broken and hurting person, is the stuff of chaplaincy. A faithful Christian chaplain will have a confidence that every word of Scripture is God breathed and profitable for making a person complete.

 

I believe the Bible is the word of God. It is His inerrant word to us. I am not a fundamentalist in the sense that I believe in a six-day creation of literal 24 hours each. How could I believe that when the sun, by which we mark the hours of the day, was not created until the fourth day? But I do believe the Scriptures teach us who God is, what He has done for us and who He wants us to be. All Scripture is breathed out by God. However, there are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction (2 Peter 3:16. ESV). This is where the role of the chaplain comes in. We have the task of so speaking the Scriptures that they give the soul wings.

 

Our God acts in history, yet it is not history as such that we teach. What is important is what God says about those historical events where He acted. In the 1^st century A.D., the Roman government crucified thousands of people in the area of Palestine. At some points the roads were lined with men dying in agony, hanging on Roman crosses. It is not the mere historical fact of Jesus’ crucifixion that tells us that this one death among thousands brings salvation to the world. It is what God says about this one crucifixion which assures us that herein lies reconciliation between God and humanity. God’s words about the death of Jesus of Nazareth give so much more to life than just our observation of the event of his death.

 

Bringing God’s words to hurting people brings so much more meaning than the human sciences. Christian chaplaincy is about feeling confident that God speaks in the Scriptures and that what He says gives the soul wings.