We believe the Bible is the Word of God and has the right to command our belief and action.
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that all God's people may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that all God's people may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:16-17
What a difference a day makes. Yesterday we affirmed the core belief of a Personal God, which everyone wants to be true even if they don't believe it. Today, not so much. The Authority of the Bible is a controversial belief even among Christians.
According to the New York Times, more copies of the Bible are distributed in a single day than most NYT bestsellers' total printing run. To date, as many as 6 billion copies of the Bible have been printed. And yet, the world always seems to be swirling with conflicting information about the Bible. Can it be trusted? Have the books of the Bible been altered after the fact? Have legends crept into the Bible along with historical facts? Can a 21st century person believe in the biblical creation account?
Then there are the more personal questions. Can I understand the Bible if I read it? Where do I start? How did the Bible become the Bible anyway?
There may be more societal obstacles to embracing this core belief than any of the other 9. And since none of them is simple or trivial, I won't try to address them in this brief post. I will say, though, that after a lot of research--and a lot of personal experience with the Bible--I am more confident than ever that:
- the entire Bible is inspired by God;
- God speaks to us and leads us through it;
- it is historically accurate;
- it is THE standard for spiritual truth in the world; and
- it is the definitive resource on the life and teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Because I am convinced of all of the above, I submit to the authority of the Bible and read it believing that God is communicating directly to me. My experience with the Bible in this regard is beyond words--literally. More is happening than reading words on a page. For instance, I read Jeremiah 1 as a teenager and believed God was using it to guide me into ministry as a vocation. That's only one way that reading the Bible has changed the course of my entire life.
What about you? How has reading the Bible changed your life? Or if any of the questions above (or others) are obstacles for you, ask them in a comment and let's talk about them.
Just a moment of honesty here for me...this competency is one that I struggle with. I don't struggle with saying that the Bible is the Word of God - I believe that. My struggle comes with confirming the portion of the creed that says the Bible "has the right to command my belief and action."
ReplyDeleteI want to be independent. I want to live my life and command my own belief and action. It's one thing to say we believe the Bible, but it's totally different to surrender our lives to the story of that Bible.
I'm moving that way, though.
Steve G., you've hit the very reason we're learning the core beliefs in the first place. We want to move beyond mental assent (which is what we often mean when we say "believe") and toward a more significant kind of belief, one that involves trust and commitment. At the end of the day, the core beliefs don't mean much if we're just identifying tenets of Christianity. But if we're affirming the truths that our lives are based upon...well that's a whole different story. Keep wrestling--as I do--with that "right to command my belief and action" part.
ReplyDelete