Jiminy Cricket said we should "Always let your conscience be your guide." Ah, the wisdom of Disney. Me? I tend to not trust my conscience as much as I do God's Word. I prefer to let the Scriptures be my guide. This, of course, makes me a sort of oddity. No one does that anymore. Well, of course, not no one, but certainly very few. Because, as we all know, the Bible just ain't what it used to be. Okay, that's not accurate either. But it's surely not what the Church has always contended -- the Authoritative, Infallible Word of God; the sole authority on matters of faith and practice. So I buck the trend to marginalize the Bible and prefer not to stand on my own understanding but on God's Word for my understanding of God and for the principles by which I live.
But, why? Why would I do that? Why would anyone do that? Why did Christians from the beginning of the Scriptures do that? Why would anyone think that the Bible was some sort of special book that is the authoritative, infallible Word of God? Let me give you some reasons.
1. God is Sovereign.
He is the Sovereign. As Creator and Master, He is a) absolutely perfect, truthful, good, omnipotent, omniscient, unchanging, etc., and b) the ultimate Authority.
2. God breathed.
The Bible claims that "All Scripture is God-breathed" (2 Tim 3:16). Older translations say "All Scripture is inspired by God." This isn't quite accurate. In today's vernacular one could reasonably say, "I know things about God and I'm inspired by God to write." Inspire means literally "to breathe in." In the original Greek, however, the word is the opposite term. It is to breathe out. It indicates a direct effort on God's part to those who were writing to breathe into them His Word. As such, Scripture is God's "breathed out" Word, His superintended, personal message to His creation.
3. The Bible is God's message to us.
Divinely exhaled, superintended, and protected, the Bible constitutes God's eternal words to His people. If I concur that God is the Master, the Lord, then I must concur that His words are authoritative, infallible truth.
The Bible has meaning. Not ambiguous, relative, or purely personal. When the words in our Scriptures were written they were written with a meaning they (the authors at God's behest) wished to convey. "We can't know for sure what they mean," some tell me. "The meaning changes over time," others argue. "The Bible is God's Word, but interpretation is personal," they assure me. All of this gets back to the original source. God didn't explain it well enough. God didn't provide us the Spirit He promised. God didn't know what it would become. God isn't wise enough to say what He means and mean what He says. We, as fallible human beings, will always differ over this minor point here or that small issue there, but if Jesus is to be believed, we have the Spirit that all believers have and on all the essential issues we all agree.
You can use your mere intellect and come up with you want. You can use your post-modern philosophy and argue there is no meaning but what we assign. You can use false humility and argue that interpretation is never sure ... and you're sure. All of it echoes Satan's words to Eve. "Did God really say ...?" And you would necessarily have to agree with him. I can't go that way. I don't trust the Bible; I trust the One who breathed it, Who supervised its creation, Who oversaw its existence over the millennia, Who gave the Spirit to explain it. You rely on the wisdom of the world and your jaded intellect; I'll go with God's Word.
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