Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from “The Adult Sabbath School Guide” is titled “The Bible – the Authoritative Source of our Theology”. In this lesson, the quarterly explores “five different influential sources that impact our interpretation of Scripture: tradition, experience, culture, reason, and the Bible itself” (quarterly for Sabbath, April 18). I honor the authors for tackling these 5 aspects that surely affect our perception of the “Word”. I hope you can read each day’s lesson carefully and prayerfully. I found each day’s treatise to be presented with a healthy respect for each of the 5. This lesson underscores what we hope to see with every lesson… and with these weekly “thoughts” that come into your computer each week from me, too. An even-handed presentation of all sides to an issue. As our beloved Graham Maxwell stated, “the hallmark of a Christian is that he always put an opposing opinion in the best possible light”. And this needs to be our approach, too. It is one I strive towards, though I fear I may at times fall far short of it. Please forgive me for those times of dogmatism that I’ve taken at times. Sometimes, the indignation I experience when my “Dad” is put in an erroneous light, or His character has been maligned by misrepresenting Him, may lead me to forcefully state an opposing position. May I continually learn to ever be a better student at the feet of our Divine Master, is my prayer.
TRADITION: “The living Word of God initiates in us a reverent and faithful attitude toward it. This faithfulness generates a certain tradition” (quarterly for Sunday, April 19).
EXPERIENCE: “God has designed us in such a way that our relationship to His creation, and even to God Himself, is significantly connected to and shaped by our experience” (quarterly for Monday, April 20).
CULTURE: “Some aspects of our culture might align very nicely with our faith, but we must always be careful to distinguish between the two” (quarterly for Tuesday, April 21).
REASON: “Every human activity and every theological argument assumes our ability to think and to draw conclusions” (quarterly for Wednesday, April 22).
THE BIBLE: “The Holy Spirit who has revealed and inspired the content of the Bible to human beings, will never lead us contrary to God’s Word of astray from the Word of God” (quarterly for Thursday, April 23).
FURTHER THOUGHT: “So much of the history of apostasy in both Old Testament and New Testament times is when outside influences took precedence over Divine revelation” (quarterly for Friday, April 24).
As I pondered these topics, I realized that contrary to Friday’s comment, the time of greatest apostasy came when the Bible was studied most rigorously, and its teachings were planted in the learner’s life most religiously. It was not when “outside influences took precedence over Divine Revelation” (quoted above). The Pharisees of Christ’s day were those ones. It may be one of the great lessons of Christ’s incarnation. Of faithful adherents to the Bible, using the Bible to learn how to live, without learning-of and relating-to the Author of the Bible. When the Bible is used primarily to learn “how to live”, the learners can become hard, rigid, obdurate, implacable and far from our God of Love. But when the Bible is used to learn of its Author, the learner becomes more like the Author.
For those who know little or nothing of the Bible or its Author (which may have described many of us at one time), citing the Bible as ultimate authority not only has little value, but is downright offensive. All who know not the Bible or its Author rely on 4 of the 5 ways of “knowing” listed in this lesson. All such rely on tradition, experience, culture and reason. And it is with these 4 that all of us entered the arena of knowing the Bible and its Author. Citing the Bible to any of us at that time was like talking a foreign language. So how did all of us (and extended to those around us today) come to regard the Bible and its Author? It was via tradition, experience, culture and reason. We saw in the lives of those who believed in God the very attributes of the Bible and its Author. And seeing the Bible lived-out in the life is what convinced us of its authenticity. Our “experience” with believers showing us a different “culture” in the midst of our prevalent pagan “culture”, appealed to our “reason” and led us to seek a new “tradition” to create in our own lives. Persuaded us to discard the old “culture” and “tradition” in favor of a new “culture” and “tradition” based on the “experience” we had with believers of the “Bible” and followers of its Author. Thereby, appealing to our “reason”... to read, study, and relate to the God of the “Bible”. Only when the 4 ways of “knowing” were satisfied, were we able to consider the “Bible” that inspired the lives of the people we had come to “experience” in our lives.
To conclude; to those of us who believe the Bible and follow our God, the Bible is the definitive determiner of "truth" and the truth about the God of the Bible. But to the world-ling, citing the Bible as authority does not work. Instead, we must be the “Bible” that others “read”. Our lives must be demonstrations of the “The Living Word” (capital letters), transforming our own lives into the “living word” (small script). That’s right. This is the Divine purpose for each of us. That we become “little Christs” or “Christians”. That we, too, become the “living word”. Else how will anyone in our pagan culture even believe that a life contrary to that hedonistic culture is even possible? Their experience will almost always say that such a life is not possible. Tradition, experience, culture and reason tell them something different. Until they see and know YOU. THEN, things may begin to change. Just like it changed for us. When we were loved by a person of faith, THEN that experience showed us that maybe, just maybe, a life unlike any we’d ever experienced might be possible. A life only imagined in a dream. But here that life stands in front of us, in flesh and blood. A life as described in the “Written Word”, just like the “Living Word”. A life where you are loved… intimately and unconditionally. May it be so in your life and mine. The world is dying for want of such a life. May we, through the power of our Dad, so live and be that “living word” wherever we are. We must be fluent in the language of heaven so it is seen as possible, even normal. For our pagan civilization, the language of heaven is a foreign language and is so very not normal. Let us live that heavenly language and show the world its authenticity and its possibility. In their inmost heart, everyone wants that dream to be real. Let us live the dream… be the dream. It is the only thing that is truly real, the only true language there is.
With brotherly love,
Jim