Authority, norm, and standard

When used about the Bible, what's the meaning of:
The Bible as Authority, as Norm and 'basis', as Canon,
The Scriptures as a Standard (with Benchmark, Yardstick, Criterion, Scale, and Gauge), and Touchstone
A note on Christian freedom.

Spiritual Resources > Words About the Bible > norm or standard

What Measures Up?

The words described here deal with matters of authority and measure. Christians read the Bible to learn what it says about God, ourselves, and our world. It does this through the story of the history of the Israelites, of the earliest Christians, and most of all, through the reports about Jesus of Nazareth's life, death, and return to the living. We look to the Bible to tell us what it is to be a follower of Jesus the Christ, and sort out our own lives and deeds, as persons and as a gathered fellowship of followers of Jesus, based on what it tells us about that. For building the house of your life, it's more of a conceptual drawing than the technical engineering specification plan. As you regulate your way of living, it's more of a constitution than a code law. (Indeed, we are instructed by the apostles not to live as if it were code law.)

The Bible as the Authority

Authority [ < Latin auctoritas, < auctor (the one who created it) < augere (to create < to grow something)]. Who/what we turn to in order to settle questions. Typically, we turn to the one(s) who made it to find out what was really said or intended.

Authority figures have wide influence in their field, sometimes using it to bring order to otherwise-chaotic situations. The Bible is held by most churches to be the sole authority for most matters of faith and Christian living. Christians can argue, but they turn to the Authority to make their case. Christians in developed countries are becoming ever more restless with the idea of an 'authority'. They fear any 'authority over' them, religious or otherwise. But the Bible is firstly an 'authority to' or 'authority for'; it has a purpose for which it and it alone is well suited. Also, there is One who is 'authority over' us (unless we are foolish and egotistical enough to think of ourselves as if we are God), and this One communicates to us firstly through the Bible. The Bible is authoritative because of the One who stands behind it - the Author of all. And it is authoritative because of the report it makes, the story it tells, the truth it shares, about a loving God's dealings with our wayward species, especially about Jesus the Christ. And the God of the Bible, through the gospel message in the Bible, gives us the 'authority to' live freely in a manner fitting to God's purposes.

There are many terms used for saying what the Bible has authority for. The most common words which describe what's been meant by that over the years are :

• life (that is, how Christians live day to day in the world)
• doctrine (that is, what Christians teach each other about the faith)
• practice (that is, what Christians do as acts of faith: worship, devotion, prayer, and anything else we do when gathering or acting specifically in Jesus' name)
• theology (how we think and speak of God and our beliefs)
• mission (how we share the faith with others, and what it means to love our neighbors as ourselves).

Norm

Norm [Latin norma (a carpenter's square); < assumed Indo-European gnō-. Akin to 'know', 'gnosis'] A 'norm' is something by which other things are measured and judged. When building something, a norm is used to make sure that the joints are at the proper angle, so the structure holds up. When the Bible is called the 'norm', it means that the structure of what we think, teach, and do must measure up to the standards of Scripture. A norm helps stop us from getting carried away with ourselves and our supposed new-found wisdom. Many theological traditions speak in terms of the 'norming norm' or 'norm within the norm': the Gospel message of God's forgiving love in Jesus Christ. This means that all the rest of the Bible is measured according to (or is 'normed' by) Christ and the Gospel message. The Bible is the norm because of who stands behind it and whose story it tells. This puts the main focus where it belongs -- Christ, not Moses or David or Paul or John, or even the Bible itself. A word like it is 'basis' (a basic foundational principle; an underlying state of affairs).

The term 'normal' originally meant 'according to the measure', or 'fitting the established pattern'. But in typical daily talk, it means 'average', 'typical', 'usual', 'everyday', and 'common'....(yawn).... The Bible is decidedly not 'normal' in this sense. It's quite unique and unusual, even though it takes place in the rough-and-tumble world we live in. What it tells us is in many ways different than what we take in from our 'normal' world. The world and the Bible operate under different norms, and it is the world that's askew.
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You can also check out how the dictionary defines 'norm'.

Canon

A related word is 'canon', which is Greek for 'measuring rod'. In our times, the term usually refers to the books of the Bible. The list of measuring stick books are different with different believers : the Catholics and Orthodox have additional First Covenant (OT) books. Jews have several 'layers' of their Scriptural tradition: the five books of Moses come first, then the prophets, the histories, and the writings (such as Job, Psalms and Proverbs). There are also some writings which aren't part of a formal canon and aren't intended to be canon, but are sometimes used to measure things up. The Talmud is not a 'canon', but a resource of continuous discussion of matters of living the life of Jewish faith; even so, the Mishnah has some measuring-stick effects. For creedal Christians, the ecumenical creeds have some measuring-stick uses, but the use is derivative. The creeds are norms only by being a short version of the key truths taught by the canonical Scriptures. Whenever you hear things about what the Bible says about Scripture, remember that the Scriptures Jesus, John, and Paul referred to are "the Law and the Prophets", not the Gospels or Paul's letters, perhaps not even some of the Hebrew Writings (though by their time, Psalms and Proverbs were treated canonically by all Jews).
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Standard

Standard [ < Old French estandard (a place to make a stand or rally the troops; a stronghold), < assumed Frankish standhard- (stand firm, hold fast)] something used for measuring, or for evaluating how good other things are. A standard is chosen because its quality is already known and highly esteemed. The Bible's quality has been established as a standard by thousands of years of use, and by its ability to surprise us and prompt us to change even today. As with the other terms about the Bible's quality level, its being a 'standard' comes not so much by the work itself, or by the church leaders who first called it the standard, but by the One who stands behind it. Other terms with a meaning like 'standard' are 'benchmark', 'yardstick', 'norm', 'gauge', 'criterion', and 'scale.

There are two similar words of note: model and touchstone.

the Bible as a Model

model [Latin modulus (small measure), from modus (mode, measure, manner); from assumed Indo-European mod-o- < med- (to measure, to take appropriate measures)]

1. an example for purposes of imitation or emulation, or proposed as being worthy of such. The Bible contains in it the lives of Jewish holy men, most notably Jesus. If nothing tells us how Jesus lived, we could not know, we'd be left with emulating our lives based on poor guesses. Also, the Bible itself passes to us an element that marks the Christian community: many authors, over many centuries, with many different points of view, all pointing to the same thing. So it is with the Christian community, sometimes in spite of itself.
2. a description or analogy used to help visualize something (as an atom) that cannot be directly observed. The truth is, we don't live when Jesus did. So the Bible leads us to envision how it was, to picture God in terms of body and clothes and dirt and strain and blood. And it gives us many ways to envision God's Kingdom.

The Bible as Touchstone

Touchstone : a dark stone (like basalt or jasper) used as a standard or norm for figuring out the quality of precious metals. The metal would be drawn across the stone, and the streak would be compared with the streak of a standardized alloy to see if it was at least as good. In the *Formula of Concord* (Epitome, Rule & Norm, 7), Lutherans called the Bible the touchstone by which all teaching must be recognized and judged. This leads to the question, how does my life and thinking streak out on the Bible touchstone?
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You can also check the definitions of 'standard' in the dictionary.

Also, there's an interesting discussion of the analogy of the Bible as a constitution-of-sorts. Read the comments too, and remember it's just an analogy.