This is another big one for me. I read an essay attacking what they call "neo-evangelists" (A lot of my friends and I would fall under this category according to this website, anyways)... people who claim to follow Christ, but end up diluting the Scriptures by accepting denominations with less than sound theology.
Why do we have denominations in the first place? Because, we don't agree on the interpretation of the text. We look at a hard to swallow bible verse, and say... "I don't agree with that" and go form our own church.
But, back to the topic at hand. The essay got me thinking...how much leeway is one given in his/her interpretation? I know many people who look at commands in the Bible, and say that is CULTURAL...and go on with their merry way. Is that disobeying a command by God? It says in 2 Tim 3:16, All Scripture is God-breathed.. but that pertained only to the OT. One could point out further, in 2 Pet 3:15,16, Peter said that the letters from Paul were inspired by the "Wisdom of God". We could be even more picky, and say...which letters of Paul were inspired by God's wisdom?
Scripture has to be inerrant. It has to be from God. Otherwise, why live by it? It is man's opinions and thoughts. You are free to agree or disagree with it. So are we maligning Scripture when we say certain passages are cultural and thus don't apply today? I don't know. However, if I were to err on the side of caution, I would take a literal approach as much as possible. So regardless of what we like or dislike about a certain verse, we should obey.
Future Richard Edit (Jan 20th 2010):
All Scripture is indeed infallible and inerrant. OT and NT. 2 Tim 3:16 covers all Scripture, because different Scriptures support one another. ie. Paul considers Luke of NT equal to Deuteronomy in 1 Tim 5:18.
No comments:
Post a Comment