Dear friends,
This is the third piece in a series in which I want to explain why some Christian people are abandoning the authority of the Bible and why you shouldn’t.
How do you make decisions? Last week we looked at the way tradition, reason, experience and feelings impact the way the think and behave. We all make decisions based on a combination of those things with one of them usually dominating. But is that the best way? How should Christians make decisions? What authority should we lean on and submit to?
Were we to rely on tradition, reason, experience and feelings even in combination to make all the decisions we need to make, the chance we would get it right more often than not is pretty slim.
But with the Word of God, with the Bible, we have something better than all four when it comes down to deciding what to do and how to think. We have a revelation from God, who made the world and knows how it works at its best. We have a Word from God about how he has designed us and how we should respond to him and each other. So, for everyone, the Bible ought to be the first place we should go when it comes to working out stuff about God and life. In there God speaks!!
We should let the Bible have the final say on what we do and what we think even if that is different from what we’ve always done (tradition), even if it is different to what seems right to us (reason and logic); even if it is different to what I have seen work (experience) or doesn’t feel right (feelings).
What you will find is that the Bible corrects traditions, informs reason, and interprets experiences and feelings.
So when you need to work something out or know something, as Christian people today, we do as Christian people have always done and we turn to the Bible first to see what is the right thing to believe and do and we allow the Bible to have the final say about what to believe and how to behave even if tradition, reason, experience and our feelings would suggest otherwise.
As you read the Bible, you may not always be comfortable with what you find. But the problem is not with the Bible. The problem is with you (&me)!
Now you will note that I have made some pretty mighty assertions in this article and we’re going to move on to evaluate them. Can we really say the Bible is the authoritative Word of God and is it really still true? More on that next week!
In Christ,
Nigel