The infallibility of scripture is the cornerstone of Christian Theology, but it’s an increasingly difficult pill for modern society to swallow. Modern man doesn’t grasp that anything is absolutely true. He’s been trained to think that truth is dependent on situation, culture and person. At first blush there’s much freedom in that kind of thinking, but it’s the top of a very slippery slope. Life in a gray, versus black and white, world is scary. There is no peace in never knowing whether our actions are right or wrong. There is joy in being on the right path and not wandering lost in a dark forest.
One of the challenges of promoting scripture is that it outlines a way of living that with each generation seems more outdated. How can this generation be convinced that scripture has answers as applicable today as ever?
We need to accurately portray the bible for what it is, cover-to-cover, the story of Jesus. God reveals Himself to man through His son. It is part history, part song book, part prophecy, part guidebook, and part theological exposition. We make things hard on ourselves by focusing on the less significant and more difficult to prove parts of the Bible. We get involved in arguments over the seven days of creation. the roles of women or the prohibitions and requirements of the pre-Jesus law.
We should always begin with the provable promises of scripture. The Word is full of conditional promises: do this and that will happen. We prove the truth of the promises by fulfilling the conditions. It’s like the trust exercise, scary at first but after satisfying experiences our faith and trust grow. We can move from a realization that God loves us to the recognition that His rules for living aren’t arbitrary, but are really a better way to live. We can slowly take ourselves off the throne and put our God there. We can learn that joy is in mission oriented and not riches acquisition living.
It seems faithful to say “God said it. I believe it. That settles it.” It is so much more effective to live out Biblical truths. You can be not the only Bible some folks will ever read, just the first one.
Be blessed.
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