RELIABLE FAITH

RELIABLE FAITH The faith of Christ stands despite any discrediting assumptions like; only the gullible believe in God, trusting Jesus as God’s Son is evidence of a personality defect, or reckoning the Spirit of God inhabits one’s being is a form of insanity. All Christians face these accusations and most just respond with a smile. So why do so many Christians get so bent out of shape over claims that the Bible is a fallible document? This revulsion is even true of Christians who acknowledge that the Bible presents abridged, abbreviated, and incomplete facts dealing with history, geology, technology, astronomy, and the like. Yet they too recoil with horror at the suggestion that there may be inconsistencies, imprecisions, or possible contradictions in its record. They react as if God Himself were being reviled. The doctrine of the Bible’s “verbal plenary inspiration” (God breathed dictation) insists that an infallible Bible is necessary if we are to know the God it reveals. The major scriptural evidence given for the certainty of verbal plenary inspiration is itself strangely discordant with the other four scriptures carrying the same message. “But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of a letter of the law to fail.” Luke 16:17, NIV. The others (Matt 5:18 + 24:35, Mark 13:31, and Luke 21:33) avoid the remark which conveys a sense of an unlikely event or at least poses a level of difficulty not alluded to in the others. So who cares? And that is my point exactly. The message is totally the same no matter what colorful phrases are used or avoided. Not one “jot or tittle” is as likely to mean the certainty of message itself will stand no matter how many “jots and tittles” pass away in translation and/or transcription. Just as a flawless messenger is unnecessary for the transmission of God’s message so it is likewise unnecessary that our Bible be completely flawless to convey its timeless holy message. The problem with insisting on a flawless text is it shifts the responsibility for perfect understanding from the reader to the inspired writer. The human reader may occasionally read even a perfect text with less than perfect understanding. Understanding the meaning of the most flawless Scripture depends solely on the reader’s counsel of the Holy Spirit…whether errant or not. Before I received the Counselor, the Holy Spirit of God, the whole book looked fallible and errant to me. John 5:38, 2Cor 4:4 John 15:26 “he shall testify of me.” 1John 4:2 John 5:39-40 Jesus declared the limits of going to the Scripture to find Him, redirecting them instead to Himself to receive life…a life available by knowing the person rather than the text. John 17:3. When we suggest that we can only know God through the written word we are overlooking the very reason Jesus sent the Holy Spirit of Truth, John 16:13. Not only that but when the Bible is handled incorrectly 2Cor 4:2 (apart from the knowledge of God) it can be, has been, and is today being used to justify some horribly misguided actions by devoted Bible believers. Rom 10:2 The phrase “the knowledge of God” is specifically a recognition, awareness, or consciousness of God. This knowledge is personally and internal experienced but is neither a mental nor an emotional perception but rather a spiritual discernment. Peter concluded that this knowledge of God*, not our knowledge of the Scriptures, is all that is needed to achieve life and godliness. 2Pet 1:3+4 Now, don’t misunderstand me. I count on the Bible to correct and/or affirm my own knowledge of God. If that were not true I would not have including scriptural references in these remarks. Even though the Bible is not my God it is a very important instructional tool and should never be neglected. 2Tim:15-17 After all, in places like Heb. 12:2, the Holy Scriptures remind me Who my faith comes from, Who guides me, and Who I must keep my focus on. I therefore thank God for inspiring human writers to record every jot and tittle that He wants us to receive. But my faith is not in the Bible’s accuracy or flawlessness. Whether fallibly errant, completely verbally inspired, or somewhere in-between it delivers God’s message to me personally and, to the best of knowledge, to mankind in general. My faith is in my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ…book or no book. A reliable Christian faith recognizes and honors the Guide within. *epignosis - a specific kind of knowledge of God A few examples are Rom 10:2, Eph 1:17 +4:13; Col 1:10; Tit 1:1; Heb 10:26; 2Pet 1:2, 3, 8 +2:20.