All of it? Some of it? None of it?
It seems to me that the Bible is under attack in our day not just in the world but also in the church. We are being invited to treat it with suspicion, to not trust it.
Many it seems to me have lost confidence in the Scriptures.
Bible knowledge in the last 20 years in church has fallen off a cliff (or so I am led to believe) and fewer and fewer Christians appear to be reading it! (Maybe I’m wrong and you are a closet scripture reader?!)
We are increasingly being told:
- That it is impossible to know what was meant by the words when they were written so long ago.
- We cannot believe all that we read.
- The Bible contains the word but is not the word. (How on earth are we supposed to know which is which!)
- It is outmoded and in need of updating.
In all these ways it is being undermined and discredited as the touch stone of orthodoxy. If it cannot be relied upon, we are set adrift in a sea of our own opinion and our own interpretation. Why is it that for thousands of years it has been seen simply and plainly as the Word of God but now in the last few years it is not! How can all those faithful saints for millennia have been so wrong and we ‘Johnny come latelys’ be so right. (Hmmm!)
What if this is the devil’s intent. To spread chaos and confusion where the very words of God are concerned. What is it Jesus said when tempted – ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes form the mouth of God’. (Luke 4:4)
It’s that word ‘every’ that gets me every time.
It begs a number of questions for me that I simply lay before you:
- Does He literally mean every!?
- When He says ‘word’ does, He only mean the words on the page, or also His own words and the words of the Spirit planted in our hearts? After all He does go on to cite scripture in his defence from attack. (Maybe this is the reason why the devil seeks to discredit in our day. To nullify the word leaves us vulnerable, and boy, are we vulnerable!)
- Whilst some scriptures are hard are they at least plain and clear.
- Is ‘ALL scripture God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking (ouch!), correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.’ (2 Timothy 3:16) Maybe this is another reason why the devil seeks to diminish it in all our minds. Buy doing so we are ill-equipped.
You know I still like the quote attributed to Mark Twain that says – “It ain’t the parts of the Bible I can’t understand that bother me, it’s the parts that I do understand”. Yet even these are being called into question in our day.
We seem to be being told that they did not mean what they so plainly do or they do not fit when the truth is we just do not like what they have to say!
I understand why we do not wish unwisely and unwittingly to cause unnecessary offense, but what if in pulling back we are actually barring the door equally unwittingly to truth that is intended to condone or condemn but to free and bring hope.
What if in our questioning (which is never wrong) we are doing the devils work for him and preventing people from entering the kingdom of heaven. The very thing we accuse those who hold to a hard view of scripture of doing.
Let us suppose just for a moment that it is and two millennia plus of people have not been wrong. Though, I freely admit that there have been those in every age that have been!! But let’s say that it is possible to know fully God’s intent.
Surely that should change us radically.
Isn’t it worth the search.
