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Sunday, January 3, 2010

The Bible

God willing, for 2010, Sunday posts will be about scripture. I have no idea what that means, so I'll just start writing.

I believe the Bible is both an accurate historical record and a divine revelation of God's relationship with humans from the beginning of time, written by men inspired by God, eyewitnesses to the fulfillment of prophecy given by the One who knows all things (2 Peter 1:16-21). This belief puts me in the minority of Christians today, who prefer to water down scripture by believing certain things are metaphors or fictional lessons or plain made-up stories.

I once heard a pastor completely remove the divine miracle of the feeding of the 5000 by saying Jesus' example of sharing led everyone there to pull their "hidden" lunches out of their pockets. To dilute the meaning of scripture because you don't believe in the supernatural power of God is blasphemy in my book. I doubt that pastor believes in Judgment Day, either, which won't stop it from happening.

Here's where things get dicey. While I believe the Bible is accurate and divinely inspired, and useful for lots of things, it is not sufficient for salvation. An example.

Let's say I wrote an auto-biography. You read it. You like it. You think I'm the best person in the world (this is a made-up example, remember) and you want to be my best friend. You carry my book with you everywhere. You memorize whole chapters and quote them at people. I come up in your daily conversations. One day, we meet at Sonic and you start telling me how great I am and how close we are and how you've sold all your stuff so you can come live with me. You know what I'm going to say?

"Get away from me, crazy person. I don't know you."

Sound familiar?

God is a person. A really big, powerful person, but a person. Jesus is a person, too. So is the Holy Spirit. To meet one is to meet them all. The Bible can tell you about God, but only He can be your friend. If you don't know Jesus, it's easy to remedy. Ask Him now to become real to you. Ask Him to teach you how to know Him. Then read your Bible. You will see things you've never seen before because your new friend The Holy Spirit will teach you how to see.

Yes, it all sounds mystical and weird. Well, get over it. God is mystical and weird. That's the kind of guy He is. But He's also loving, and constant, and personal and, quite frankly, the most interesting person you will ever know.

Way more interesting than me. :)

Well, that's one post about scripture.

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