We’ve got it all backwards – God’s Truth

I’m going to start talking about a bunch of things that modern evangelicalism just seems to get wrong. Please understand I’m not a church-basher, it’s just that I sit and listen to a lot of Christian teachers and theologians and find myself thinking “Umm…that’s not actually true.”

Let’s start with this little, easily manageable topic called Truth.

I was sitting at the dinner table once some time ago with a bunch of dear friends and family, and as usual the conversation turned toward spiritual topics. At one point the subject matter seemed to justify a statement from me that went something like this: “What if the Bible is not actually the ultimate authority? What if it’s more like this:

1. Truth exists.
2. God uses many revelations of Himself to teach us what this Truth is.
3. The Bible is but one of these many revelations.
4. Therefore, what if instead of striving to “do” everything that we think the Bible is telling us to do – as if it were an instruction manual or something ridiculous like that – we rather approached life like this:

A. Truth exists. For example, a hypothesis: Love is a good thing.
B. I have many revelations at my disposal to research this hypothesis.
C. I will study all these revelations to determine what I can learn about love.
D. Among these revelations are: God’s creation; the Church, Christ’s Body on the earth; the Bible; the witness of the Holy Spirit within me; etc.

The difference can be subtle but it’s enormous. Roy Hershberger stated in his e-book “A Religion of Irrelevance” that we need to be careful not to put the Bible on a pedestal where it doesn’t belong. I know a lot of people who have a far more intimate relationship with the Bible than with Jesus. Something’s wrong wit dat!

The Apostle Paul states clearly that we are dead to the “written code.” But that’s exactly what we’ve turned the Bible into. No, worse, we’ve turned Christianity into a written code. I shudder. God, please help us understand and live by Galatians 3:5-14!