Get Back to Reading and Believing the Scriptures

One of the pitfalls of the intellectual life described by Brett yesterday had to do with the downside of developing “a critical and skeptical eye toward ideas.” Continuing on that point today, it’s worth considering C. Michael Patton’s “Ten Reasons Good Christians Go Bad,” where he notes the danger of being overly critical not just of ideas in general, but of the very Word of God:

I see this so often with apologists. So many times we seek to present ourselves as those who are not naive. We want people to see us as seeking rational justification for everything we do and believe. This becomes unhealthy and destructive to the Christian life when we build a methodology which puts the Bible on the witness stand at every point. “I am not going to believe this verse until it is rationally justified on its own merits.” The idea here is that God is guilty of falsehood until proven innocent (although we would never put it that way). In doing so, we think we are doing God a favor.

However, after a while, this will tear our faith apart. We don’t need rational justification for everything we believe. Hang with me. Just think if you did this with your spouse. What if everything Kristie said to me needed to be questioned. “I am going to pick up the kids,” she says to me. “I don’t believe you unless you can prove it,” I respond. “Dinner is ready,” she says. “We will see about that,” I think to myself. At some point in our marriage, Kristie earned the right to be trusted. I don’t need to critically evaluate everything she says. If I did, our relationship would fall apart.

Some of you have quit believing the Lord and the Scriptures. You put everything in a queue of future belief. But there is a point when you decide that God and the Bible are trustworthy and you set aside the critiques. It is not a matter of “just believing” for no reason at all. It is a matter of “just believing” because God is trustworthy. Some of you need to get back to reading and believing the Scriptures.

You can read his other nine reasons here.

Comments

[David W]

Amy,

I'm so thankful you have drawn attention to this. I have discussed this with fellow Christians. Once we are convinced, for good reasons, that the Bible is God's Word, we do not need to have evidence to support every proposition the Bible makes! The Bible has proven itself trustworthy in matters of history, prophecy etc, so we should, as Christians, simply rely upon it as Divine revelation. This is the reasonable faith that God delights in.

Thanks, and Lord bless,

Btw I have been much blessed in recent years by the ministry of STR. You all do an excellent job.

David,
N. Ireland

[Amy]

Thank you for your encouragement, David!

[Will K.]

Thanks for sharing this. It is certainly a good reminder.

I know one thing I struggle with, though, is the canonicity of Scripture. As we are so often quick to point out in other discussions, the Bible is comprised of 66 separate books written by various authors. I don't see the Bible as one book that needs to be justified as the word of God, but 66 separate books. The resulting doubts and uncertainties about that process can be challenging sometimes to my confidence in Scripture.

I agree though that once you have satisfied yourself on that matter, you cannot be questioning the individual doctrines and principles contained in any given passage. And I am grateful for your reminder to do that.

Thanks and God Bless!

[Paul]

This is a great post, Amy. Once we see evidence of God's involvement in revealing Himself in Scripture we ought to obey it implicitly and proclaim it confidently.
Will K. makes the point that evidence of the inspiration of one book doesn't necessarily show the inspiration of all 66, but I think a couple of things can be said in response to that. Firstly, evidence of the inspiration of Isaiah or Daniel (through say fulfilled prophecy) shows the God of Isaiah and Daniel is the true God. Therefore, the true God is the God of Israel, I think it is reasonable to assume then that if the Israelites incorrectly held books to be authoritative then God would have, through these prophets, corrected that. Also, the more we study these books the more we see patterns, pictures and predictions that have God's fingerprints all over them. If a Christian wants to be confident the Bible is inspired then study it - the more you do, the more the inspiration is apparent. Furthermore, we know what books were held as authoritative at the time of Christ, and He accepted them as canonical and proclaimed them as God's Word, so if there's good evidence that Jesus is the Son of God then the OT immediately gets the highest possible stamp of approval. When it comes to the New Testament we can see in the Lord's final ministry to His disciples that He "hints" that it is coming. He says the Holy Spirit will bring all things to their remembrance (John 14:26), which would cover the Gospels; He would lead them into all truth (John 16:13), which would cover the epistles; and He would show them things to come (John 16:13), which covers Revelation. Michael Kruger pointed out on STR one time that just as the Old Covenant required documents, so too does the New Covenant. These documents from the first century which come from the apostles or their delegates are really the only candidates.

Thanks for all your ministry, it is making a difference for eternity.
Paul
Belfast, Northern Ireland