“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)”
Choices, Choices
A good friend sat down with me a couple of years ago and reiterated his philosophy of life: “Make your choices, pay the price and live or die by the consequences.” I’ve seen it to be true more often than I care to admit. I’ve had to pay some pretty hard prices and live with some tough consequences, how about you? This morning, I’m keeping my part brief and handing off to a very helpful article at TGC that I think will motivate and inspire you, encourage and equip you.
You have a choice to make and a price to pay:
Choose whether you believe scripture to be inerrant and God breathed or not. The Bible is not a salad bar that we can choose to believe bin by bin, bite over bite. It’s all or nothing. This truth smacks me in the face often. I’m not permitted to make a judgement call on whether a friend of mine is sinning without taking the plank out of my own eye first. I’m not allowed to command that my wife do something I know God wants her to do without also treating her as both “weaker vessel” (with gentleness and humility) and joint heir of the grace of God (“Neanderthal husbanding” is not Christian servant-leadership). Oh, yeah, and I have to pay the price by “trusting in the Lord and leaning not on my own understanding…” Ouch.
If scripture is true and truly breathed by God, I am not permitted to worship the word of God over the god of the Word. It is a gift from the creator given in love to guide, direct, save me from sin and death, and play great part in conforming me to the image of Christ. Are we tracking together?
If we are to honestly interpret scripture with scripture, (meaning use the clear points of scripture to clarify that which is not so clear), we are doing so on the presumption that all of scripture can be trusted. If we are to place our faith in Christ as Lord and Savior, able to both atone for our sins by His shed blood sacrifice and to appease the wrath of God that we truly deserved otherwise, we are making a statement that we trust the scriptures to be true.
But how can we? How can we be so sure? We can’t ever be 100% certain, silly – it’s called faith. But, it was never meant to be “blind faith”. So, inform yourself, will you?
The Hand-Off
Justin Holcomb shines light on this important subject. This is for you, but not for you alone. Read it, pray about it, digest it, and process it out loud with your mentor, small group, pastor, etc. This is great discipleship material. Do not let it fall by the wayside. It is certainly not the exhaustive truth about the veracity of scripture, but it’s a great jumping off point and a solid fundamental primer.
“Why You Can Trust Your Bible” by Justin Holcomb
in Christ,
AP