“How’s your walk going brother/sister?”, “How’s your time with God?”, “Keeping in the Word?”
These questions have really started bugging me lately. But before I step to far into this area, I want to make a few things clear. First, I think the bible is inerrant. I also think the bible is the absolute authority in truth in the christian life. I however believe there are other areas to find God’s truth, but do not have complete authority in my life.
My growing up in a fairly conservative evangelical church background, I believe taught me to think this way about God. To think that my “relationship” with God is reflected by the amount I do or do not spend in God’s word. I’ve simply disconnected God from the Bible and made the Bible something more than what it really should be. I’ve made scripture my “God” and neglected the true relationship with the one who saved me. How often do we make the bible our God? I have really struggled with equating my Bible reading, even my prayer time and memory scripture with my status to the one who saved me. No reading = God is angry with me; Reading = God is happy with me. And when I did read…some how I thought the scriptures were magical and made things better. This simply isn’t the case. To be honest with you all since taking myself out of this environment almost a year ago, I really haven’t read the bible much. Some of you I think would be shocked and even consider me a backslider if you knew how little I actually have been reading the Bible. And on the flip side, I feel I have grown and been stretched more in my relationship and faith in Christ since I have gotten out of that environment. I’ve experienced Christ’s love more so than ever. I am thankful for the methods that God has chosen to show me His love and His grace towards me.
I was recently talking with someone and asked them how life was going. I asked specifically “What has been some wins, losses? Area’s of growth and challenge? Or areas you sense you need to grow spiritually?” The basic impression from there response was, they were not reading the word enough, this life was a struggle in some areas. Why have we reduced our relationship with God to a merited system? How is this even biblical? I also listened to something recently where the speaker was challenging the group of people with the fact that it was the word of God being preached to others that was changing peoples lives. Isn’t it the Holy Spirit that does that? Is it the book, the bible, itself that is that powerful to change them, or is it Gods working through the holy spirit using the Bible as a vehicle to work in the hearts of man? To often we emphasis bible knowledge and the bible, that we often forget about God. We can not do anything on our own to gain favor or acceptance in God’s eyes. Neither can we change other’s hearts simply by “preaching the gospel”. Understand this. I am not saying we don’t witness, we don’t evangelize, but we are simply the means, the vehicle if you will, to transfer one vehicle…the bible, to another person.
What I am saying is this. We are to stand on Christ and Christ alone, through His grace we are saved. We have gained access to God through Christ’s justification on the cross.(Romans 5:1-2) – Nothing more. Not even the Bible. Kinda makes you questing “The B.I.B.L.E” song doesn’t it? We can not turn to the Bible for our source for life…rather than God. We disconnect the Bible from God, we cut him off. If we stand solely on what the Bible says, we can control what it says to fit our liking and lifestyle. Is it easier to be married or read books on marriage? We can not be disconnecting Gods word from God himself. It is the holy spirit that changes and transforms…the Bible is just a vehicle to enact transformation. Its God’s word written.
The Bible to the follower should be one of the many points of feeding, and giving of nutrition. It should not become our staple diet. It should never be used as a measuring stick for spiritual growth, it should never be used to hold guilt over ones head either. It’s important to be willing to have open hearts and minds to the Bible, allowing the Holy Spirit to move and shape us in the life we have been given. It should be something we do out of love and love to do. Not some habit, or gimmick to win prizes. We often talk about the ideals of our faith but never talk about the real. Its time to be real with each other. Its time to allow God’s grace and mercy to run through our lives. Living side by side and helping each work out there faith, not holding someone to a task or requirement of making God our Bible.
Christianity is not the religion of the Book. Christianity is Christ! Christianity is the dynamic, personal Spirit of God functioning in man. It is not the study of, memorization of, or adherence to the principles and propositions and precepts of a bound-book.
Do you see the distinction I am trying to make? I am attempting to exalt Jesus Christ over the Bible. Frankly, that is a dangerous thing to do these days in contemporary Christian circles, for you begin to smash people’s idols.*
This has been my thinking for a while particularly in the Christian circles of the blogosphere I tend to find myself in. Sola Scripture taken to extremes…
The Bible is important but not at the expense of a relationship with God even if it is a fundamental part of that relationship.
Interesting read I cant say I agree with all of it some of it yes.
Truth is truth no matter where it comes whether we see it on tv or on read it in a book if it is truth then it is truth. However Gods word is the source of absolute truth as you have so noted.
I keep coming back the “faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.” I also come back to 2 Timothy 3:15-17 as well as many many other passages of scripture that speak on what the Bible is profitable for.
Should the Bible be our God absolutely not. Does it give us instruction absolutely.
I think of times when I have gone on long trips away from my wife and I have opened up my suitcase and there is a card or love letter. I take and I read that letter not out of duty but because I love my wife. Because I love my wife i want to feel close to her I can use that letter, a picture, a song all of these will make me feel close to my wife but none as close as those words she wrote to me. Nothing will draw me closer cause me to think deeper then to meditate on what she has said in her letter.
God has chosen to write us a letter that reveals his love to me. Can I feel close in a song yes, in other reading absolutely but I am drawn back to that letter. That letter he wrote and preserved for me. That Letter that explains all about who He is and who his son is and what I can do to show my love for Him.
Why in the world would I not want to read it. Not out of duty but out of love. Maybe the problem is we really don’t love God like we say we do. And definitely not as much as he loves us.
oh, I want to put my two cent (and that’s probably about all that it’s worth). I believe that the bible is the absolute authority for all believers. I believe that as Timothy points out, there are many uses for it. The fact that it’s stood this test of time shows that it is a God inspired document.
but there a couple ways that I don’t like to see scripture referred to as:
“God’s Instruction Manual” – really??? When was the last time that you read an instruction manual? The only time that anyone ever pull one out is when their oven is broken. I want the Bible to be something much more than that. I should not just pull it whenever my life is broken!
“God’s Love Letter” – The first problem with this line of thought, imo, is that it’s not a letter mainly. 3/4 of it is historical narrative. There are psalms, proverbs, etc. And the letters that are in it aren’t from God to us, they’re from Paul to Timothy. I don’t think that when we read the bible we should expect to experience it as a letter from God to us, because that’s not what it is.
I was listening to a person the other night who said, “if we can really learn to understand what scripture is, we would appreciate it more”. And when we see it as THE Word of God, and stop putting other clever lines that aren’t very good descriptions about it, then we will be able to take it to heart a lot more than we are able to right now.
I think that both of you guys are right. We have to approach the word out of love, and if we truly loved God more we would not just read more, but we would pray more, and serve more, and love more, and hate injustice more, and you can fill in your own blank.
So, why don’t we?
That is an interesting take Danny. I have never really called the Bible “God’s Instruction Manual” though I understand why you say you don’t like that none the less it does instruct us naturally that is not all it does.
I also understand why you say you don’t like the “love letter” thing yet when I read the Bible it is clearly conveyed to me in such a way. Yes knowing that Paul wrote to Timothy and so on ad so forth that is nice but God did preserve His word for me to read and in it to discover ultimately His love for me that he sent his only Son for me from the first mention of the gospel in Genesis 3:15 to the death burial and resurrection of Jesus.
I like to call the Bible well the Bible. Not sure why we don’t read it and study it more. Maybe we find it boring. Maybe we don’t like to read. Maybe we are like Chris and feel we have done it out of duty instead of love none of these are good Reasons. Well I suppose I should read my Bible instead of typing on this blog.
I agree with like 95% of what you said .. and we’re surely just discussing details now .. but .. to continue the coversation ….
I think the fact that people don’t read is because they do find it boring, because they’re reading it in a way that it was never really meant to be read. If you wife wrote you a “love letter” that was your family tree, then a history of what her parents lives were like, then some good news, it wouldn’t be much of a love letter. It would be an ok book though.
It’s like saying that Dave Ramsey wrote me a love letter with newest book. There’s plenty of great news in it, and he definately has a desire to help everyone in America. But if I read it as a love letter from Dave to me (creepy, I know) I wouldn’t get as much from it, as I will reading it as someone attempting to save me from financial hell.
IMO, we should learn to read the bible as the absoulute Word of God. Full of history, and poetry, and wisdom, and morality, and the good news of Christ. We don’t need clever titles, and we don’t need to set it up to be something that it isn’t. It is truly amazing enough on it’s on.
I think that this borders on there are fewer men in the church in general .. because we have to make everything so femine and emotional. But that’s another disucssion.
I’m responding on my iPhone while sitting at sonic so if there are
alot of errors my apologies. I think your right we would be arguing some pretty mute points at this point in the conversation. But I must say Dave Ramsey writing you a live letter now that is sick. Not sure I would say every point of Scripture is a love letter but I read it throughout the scripture.
[...] are some mistaken views of the bible that you have or think there are? I also shared one a few weeks ago and will add a few other thoughts to it here, which was also talked about. This [...]