Deepening Your Christian Life XI

II Timothy 3

Each generation, including the first generation of the Church, thought it was living in "the last days" when Jesus would make his triumphant return. The loss of the first generation of leaders Peter, James, and soon, Paul, brought a great sense of crisis to the early Church. When we read the catalogue of vices in verses 2-5, it is like reading our daily paper or watching CNN. No wonder, the ministries who give particular emphasis to prophecy see this as Hal Lindsay entitled one of his books, The Terminal Generation. The truth is that each generation of the church could have made the same case. And no generation seems to mirror the excesses of the Roman empire like ours does. At the same time, we can look very religious, what Paul writes in verse 5 as having "the form of godliness but denying its power." As the church is being reformed all around us, we need to examine ourselves to be sure that we have more than "the form of godliness", that we are a genuine move of the Spirit of God.

Verses 6-9 describe the role of manipulative people in society, based on strength of personality or the latest new technique or product. Sometimes we envy them because what they do often works. Worse, we see that these manipulative people always seem to have an audience for what they do - people who are easily duped or made victims because of the difficulty or vulnerability of their present situations. Again, our own generation is a regrettable essay on how people have done this, cheating people out of billions of dollars and robbing people of livelihoods and reputations.

In verses 10-17, I want to lift up two things. First is the reality of persecution for Christians. Because of our privileged time in history and our place on the globe, we are protected in a generation when more people have been martyred for the faith than all the generations previous to it. But that safety net is eroding even here in the United States and people are beginning once again to experience negative reactions to Christian faith when it is shared. We are needing to build a new generation of Christians who are able to withstand opposition and at times persecution.

Second, Paul, in the midst of manipulative and misleading people and in persecution, we must allow Scripture to direct us in what is true and stands the test of time. In the United States the authority of scripture has become a hotly debated topic. Many of the arguments over social issues are often in reality arguments over the authority of Scripture.

WARNING! SOAPBOX ORATORY APPROACHING! LOL!

Harold Lindsell, former editor of Christianity Today, wrote a major article that gained national attention called "The Battle for the Bible." That battle has continued for the entirety of my Christian life. The polarization on both sides of the "battle" is regrettable, reflecting what I believe is a profound misunderstanding of the nature of Scripture.

For instance, denominations are splitting over whether the Bible is inerrant. The Bible never claims inerrancy for itself. The kind of scientific absolutism that requires that everything God is involved with be absolutely perfect is foreign to the Bible. The treasure of God's presence, power and wisdom is always given in "clay pots", through fallible human beings. II Timothy 3:16 says that

"All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."

God breathes into human beings and they become living souls (Genesis 2). God puts his message in the hands of writers who vary in their recollection of events, their spelling, their grammar and their style. Those who believe in biblical inerrancy assert that when we find the original autographs (the actual written originals) of scripture we will see that the Bible is perfect. Here is the problem. We're never going to know when we find the original. In fact, there are manuscripts who do claim to be the original and the only true version of the events of Christ's life - and all of them have been found to be fraudulent. In other words,if you find something that claims to be the original, run! I find it to be a form of idolatry that we should insist that the Bible be perfect according to our standards before we believe in it.

Lest I be misunderstood, I do believe the Bible is the Word of God. I believe that the Bible is authoritative and our God-given guide to truth. What's more, it has been given to us 'person to person'from writers who were real people living in a particular era with real challeges, so it is a living witness of a living faith in a living Lord. So I am not offended if parts of the Bible reflect the history and biases of when it was written or if different gospel writers remember Easter with different people arriving at the tomb! It is not primarily a source of absolutes, but rather a library of material that invites us, upon reading it, into an experience of God's love through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. In other words, I find most of the debates about the authority of the Bible in evangelical circles to be absolutely absurd and a distraction from what the Bible was really meant to be and do in our lives. Scripture is living and active,dynamic, personal,and powerful enough to change individuals, communities and the world - should we read it, learn it and live it. Yes, I'm on my soap box, but having a living, relevant and powerful experience of God's Word is one of the great passions of my life. The surest way to kill it is to make it a mechanistic set of absolutes. I invite your response.