Is the Bible Actually True? The verse(s) that guide my reading

Preface: I read a great article recently with the same title as this series of blog posts over on Relevant Magazine’s website. It raised a number of issues related to biblical interpretation that I’ve been meaning to address on here for some time now, and it finally provided enough inspiration for me to start writing. Below is a post that is part of a series of non-academic, meandering, hopefully slightly pastoral posts about the Bible, what it is, how we should read it, and what it means for our lives.

What is the Bible? Part I

What is the Bible? Part II: The verse(s) that guide my reading

Human beings love to argue about the Bible.

A lot.

A whole lot.

We argue from places and ignorance and over-familiarity and every place in between.

We use lots of words to describe the Bible, words like “inerrant” and “authoritative” and “infallible” and “literal truth” and “full of contradictions” and then proceed to argue about which of those words, if any of them, best describe the Bible. We tend to get very excited when people don’t use words that we use to describe the Bible. Very excited.

Those sorts of arguments have their place, but they aren’t really my cup of tea.

That being said, I believe that the Bible is God’s Word to us, and us such it is authoritative. It is a complex collection of books from various genres (to be discussed in a later post). In my opinion, the most important thing for us to recognize about the Bible is that it is from God for us. For that reason, the verses that most guides my reading of the text, whether I’m reading Job or Matthew, 1 Kings or Jonah, is 2 Timothy 3:16-17:

All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

Not all Scripture is history, but some of it is. Not all Scripture is descriptive, in that it is describing actual events, but some of it is. Not all Scripture is prescriptive, in that it is presenting a model for us to live by, but some of it is. But all Scripture is inspired by God and useful, as the above verse tells us.

Thus, we believe by faith that if something is in the Bible then God wanted it to be there, and he has something to teach us through it. In my opinion, that makes questions about inerrancy and infallibility important, but secondary (and that statement may get me branded as a liberal by some, but that’s ok, because I’m not). What is most important is that we recognize that the Bible is God’s authoritative word for us. I believe God inspired Scripture exactly how he wanted it, and for that reason it is our highest authority for faith and practice.

One thing I have long loved about the Bible is that, on the one hand, it is simple enough that it presents us with a gospel message that can be comprehended by the simplest of people, and yet it is so remarkably deep, rich, and nuanced that men and women spend their entire lives trying to mine its meaning. I have had numerous experiences where I have thought a passage meant one thing and then further study or instruction has shown me it means something else. That is very exciting and humbling.

A concept that I am continually challenged by when it comes to the Bible is the idea that my life says much more about what I think of the Bible then my words. Certainly it is important that we confess a high regard for the Bible, which then makes us desire to live in obedience to it, but what is more important is that our lives match that confession. If we claim inerrancy but live like we don’t, then claim means little. Of course, none of us will do this perfectly, but it is something to keep in mind if we get too caught up in debates about semantics.

The Bible is God’s good, authoritative, loving gift to us, a gift that he gives us so that we might know him and represent him well in the world.

Next: What is the Bible? Part III: Genres and Interpretation, what is worth arguing about?

The Week 6 SEMI- Addiction

The Week 6 SEMI- Addiction

Above is a link to a PDF of this week’s issue of the SEMI. This is our second week in a row publishing stories related to addiction. This issue contains three testimonies of seminary students who are either currently struggling with addiction or struggled in the past. Their stories are heart-wrenching, but hopeful.

It is my hope that as people at Fuller, and any of you, read these stories they might know that if they are struggling with addiction and they are a Christian they are not the only one in their church who is.

Struggling with addiction doesn’t make you a bad person, and it’s not something you have to live with alone. I also want readers to know that, in addition to their local congregations, there are all sorts of other resources for people who are struggling with addictions and want to overcome them. We provided a lengthy list of resources in last week’s issue that will hopefully be of some help.

There are also a few articles from adjunct faculty members talking about the psychological aspects of addiction, and I believe they will be of great benefit to those who read them.

I hope you enjoy the issue!

Is the Bible Actually True?

Preface: I read a great article this morning with the same title as this blog post over on Relevant Magazine’s website. It raised a number of issues related to biblical interpretation that I’ve been meaning to address on here for some time now, and it finally provided enough inspiration for me to start writing. This will be the first in a series of posts where I will cover a series of topics related to how we as humans interact with the Bible.

Part I: What is the Bible?

I remember one day sitting in an introductory speech class as a senior in high school. Yes, I took an introductory speech class as a senior. I got all of my high-achieving out of my system during my junior year. On this particular day in class several students were giving speeches about several different topics. One fellow got up and he gave a speech arguing that Creationism should be taught in public schools.

While at the time I agreed with him (I no longer do), I remember the speech being bad. Really bad. Oh-my-gosh-will-someone-please-gong-him-off-the-stage-before-he-embarrasses-himself-bad. It’s always frustrated hearing a position you agree with presented really poorly, I’m sure you can relate. After the speech the class was invited to give constructive comments.

One girl in the class, also a senior, raised her had, and she started talking about how he had used the Bible as a source, and how that wasn’t a good thing to do in a speech.

“In a speech you are supposed to present facts, and the Bible is one man’s opinion,” she said.

To this day I wish someone had gently and lovingly asked her, “And who exactly is that ‘one man’?”

While she certainly represented an extreme case, I can’t help but wonder if perhaps her ignorance of what the Bible even is serves as an indication of broader cultural ignorance about the Bible that persists today.

And that is one of several person stories I could share that are illustrative of this sort of things (I can’t even count the number of times I’ve had someone confidently tell me “The Bible says….” and then proceed to tell me something that is definitely not in the Bible. It’s always funny.)

I’ve been thinking about this even more lately in light of different stories I’ve been reading about various studies about the way young people today think about the Bible.

I especially thought some recent Barna group research was interesting (yes, I know their research methods aren’t very good). They said that young adults (who they call “Mosaics”) tend to think these things about the Bible:

• Less Sacred – While most Americans of all ages identify the Bible as sacred, the drop-off among the youngest adults is striking: 9 out of 10 Boomers and Elders described the Bible as sacred, which compares to 8 out of 10 Busters (81%) and just 2 out of 3 Mosaics (67%).

• Less Accurate – Young adults are significantly less likely than older adults to strongly agree that the Bible is totally accurate in all of the principles it teaches. Just 30% of Mosaics and 39% of Busters firmly embraced this view, compared with 46% of Boomers and 58% of Elders.
• More Universalism – Among Mosaics, a majority (56%) believes the Bible teaches the same spiritual truths as other sacred texts, which compares with 4 out of 10 Busters and Boomers, and one-third of Elders.

• Skepticism of Origins – Another generational difference is that young adults are more likely to express skepticism about the original manuscripts of the Bible than is true of older adults.

• Less Engagement – While many young adults are active users of the Bible, the pattern shows a clear generational drop-off – the younger the person, the less likely then are to read the Bible. In particular, Busters and Mosaics are less likely than average to have spent time alone in the last week praying and reading the Bible for at least 15 minutes. Interestingly, none of the four generations were particularly likely to say they aspired to read the Bible more as a means of improving their spiritual lives.

• Bible Appetite – Despite the generational decline in many Bible metrics, one departure from the typical pattern is the fact that younger adults, especially Mosaics (19%), express a slightly above-average interest in gaining additional Bible knowledge. This compares with 12% of Boomers and 9% of Elders.

And I guess I read these “findings” and I can’t help but ask the questions, “do the people that answer these questions know what the Bible even is? And do they know what it actually says?” In other words, I’m wondering if the real problem in society at large (not just young adults) is that people, even in the church, don’t have any sort of knowledge base off of which to make decisions about the Bible. In other words, the problems that Barna lists are legitimate but they are secondary. The real problem seems to be one of ignorance. There are, of course, legitimate reasons for said ignorance, not the least of which are those who use the Bible to promote hate, war, and things of that nature, and the existence of those reasons is tragic.

The question of the truth of the Bible is a question with profound implications, and any time there is truth with implications I believe our natural human postmodern tendency is to deny it (Agree? Disagree?). That, in my humble opinion makes the problem of societal biblical ignorance a very serious one. Oddly enough, it is one that I think biblical ignorance leads to both agnosticism and fundamentalism.

For now, and I would encourage you to just think about this regardless of your professed faith or lack thereof, how would you answer the question ‘what is the Bible?’

More on this tomorrow…

Food for Thought

I thought this was funny:

All who make idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit; their witnesses neither see nor know.

And so they will be put to shame.

Who would fashion a god or cast an image that can do no good?

Look, all its devotees shall be put to shame; the artisans too are merely human.

Let them all assemble, let them stand up; they shall be terrified, they shall all be put to shame.

The ironsmith fashions it and works it over the coals, shaping it with hammers, and forging it with his strong arm; he becomes hungry and his strength fails, he drinks no water and is faint.

The carpenter stretches a line, marks it out with a stylus, fashions it with planes, and marks it with a compass; he makes it in human form, with human beauty, to be set up in a shrine.

He cuts down cedars or chooses a holm tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it.

Then it can be used as fuel. Part of it he takes and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread.

Then he makes a god and worships it, makes it a carved image and bows down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire; over this half he roasts meat, eats it and is satisfied. He also warms himself and says, “Ah, I am warm, I can feel the fire!” The rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, bows down to it and worships it; he prays to it and says, “Save me, for you are my god!”

They do not know, nor do they comprehend; for their eyes are shut, so that they cannot see, and their minds as well, so that they cannot understand. No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, “Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals, I roasted meat and have eaten. Now shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?” He feeds on ashes; a deluded mind has led him astray, and he cannot save himself or say, “Is not this thing in my right hand a fraud?

That’s some pretty intense mockery right there.

It comes from Isaiah 44:9-20, a passage I’ve spent quite a bit of time translating and writing about in recent days. While there are contextual issues that add quite a bit of force to the meaning of the text and require some explanation, I found it interesting to look at the text for our cultural perspective (which is a big interpretive no no, but this is a blog, not a term paper ). I’m sure you’ll agree with me that the idol maker in the passage is made to look pretty silly, and rightfully so.

But are we not often like him?

I was in a conversation with someone several days ago when I suggested that perhaps “safety” has become an idol for me, because there is a part of me that is comfortable with other people killing in order to maintain my safety. His reply was, “do you bow down and worship safety?” I explained to him that he was incorrectly defining the word “idol”. I think many of us when we think ‘idol’ think of the sorts of things that Isaiah 44 describes, statues and relics that people bow down to. In doing that we can presume that idolatry was the practice of primitive people that is no longer something anyone today deals with, since none of us (as far as I know) build statues and worship them.

But, of course, that is not true. We are all, regardless of our faith commitments or lack their of, worshipers, and we all worship something. As I Christian I believe that our proclivity to worship is part of God’s image that God has placed upon us, and our worship is meant to be directed towards him. That being said, I believe we are all tempted to be idolaters, it’s just that our idols are perhaps a bit more sophisticated than the Babylonian idols of Isaiah 44, and our devotion to them is described using words other than ‘idolatry’.

Some questions that I’ve reflected on for myself and that I share with you now for you to think about:

-What would the character in this passage be like in our context? Rather than building statues how would he practice idolatry?

-What good things are you turning into idols in your life? To who/what are you figuratively saying, “Deliver me!”

-Can you see yourself in this story at all? Where is there evidence of idolatry in your life?

Those are just a few questions I’ve been thinking about after studying this passage, and I invite you to think about them as well.

I think I’ve found it…

While, for the most part, I have immensely enjoyed this new season of life that Christie and I have entered in Pasadena, there has been one aspect of it that has been tough for me. More accurately, there has been one important aspect of my life in Oceanside that I generally have not experienced in Pasadena.

In Oceanside, I felt like I had the opportunity on an almost daily basis to really help people and make a difference in their lives. Sometimes I stewarded that opportunity well, other times I didn’t, but either way the opportunity was there. In setting up and running a college and young adult ministry I felt like I was doing something that really mattered. I’m not a guy that thinks pastoral ministry is the most important job in the world because I think it can be condescending to people in other professions and the work God does through them, but I do think it is an important profession that provides some really wonderful opportunities to walk with a broad range of people through a broad range of challenging issues and hopefully point them to Jesus in the process.

On some level I really miss the sense that I was doing something that really mattered.

Most of you know that for the last couple of months I’ve been working as the editor of the SEMI, Fuller Theological Seminary’s student newspaper. I pursued the job for several reasons, not the least of which is/was the opportunity to hopefully make a difference in the lives of students here by providing a forum for the discussion of important issues that are relevant to their lives. In a sense, we’ve been able to do that so far, particularly through our issue devoted to the book Deep Church and our current issue about addiction. It has been amazing to be a part of bringing those sorts of discussions to the campus.

But, to this point, I don’t know that we’ve covered anything with implications beyond Fuller’s campus, and I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what sort of ideas and issues we can cover in such a way that we can begin to affect change in the lives of students and in the lives of those in our communities and around the world. I want to find something that is deeply connected to the gospel and can be more than another topic that we focus on for one issue. I want to find something that captures my attention and passion the way that my old job did.

And I think I’ve found that topic. It is something I’ve felt passionately about for years, and it is an issue that is just beginning to gain traction here at Fuller.  In a few weeks we’ll devote an issue of our paper to re-thinking the war in Afghanistan and the need to change strategy in the global war on terror, and that issue will hopefully be an important step towards Fuller being a place that can strongly advocate for peace in Afghanistan from an evangelical perspective. I met with a Fuller student who is a former marine that founded Veterans for Rethinking Afghanistan , and I am extremely excited about the prospect of raising the collective consciousness of Fuller students about these issues. My hope is that our attention to peace in Afghanistan will go beyond this one issue of the paper, and that several important voices from around the Fuller community can get behind this cause in a way that makes a real difference. Perhaps my hopes are idealistic, but it is exciting to have a cause that is so central to the Christian faith and have a forum to advocate for that cause.

Peacemaking is a vital part of the Christian story. I believe it is an issue that many evangelical Christians think about politically rather than biblically, and our thinking is often informed more by our nationalistic loyalties than our loyalty to the gospel. Our nationalistic loyalties then inhibit many of us from telling the truth about war, which I have tragically witnessed time and time again as a part of various Christian communities. Also, as I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I believe we generally lack the vocabulary to express support for our service men and women while at the same time providing a Christian witness to the state by advocating for peace. We simply must learn how to do that if we are to avoid the polarization so ingrained in our culture and speak about war and peace in a way that is faithful to the gospel.

I cannot express how exciting it is for me to have the opportunity to pursue and discuss these issues in a place as influential as Fuller Seminary for the rest of this year. This is why I took this job.

Opposing the War, but not the Soldiers

Several decades ago, during the height of the Vietnam War, there was a Baptist church in Louisville, Kentucky. This church knew that there were scores of community members who had recently returned from fighting in the war. They determined that they should host a “welcome back” celebration service for the purpose of welcoming these individuals back to Louisville. The purpose of the event was not to make moral judgments about the appropriateness of the service members’ service, nor was it to either support or oppose the war.

The purpose of the event was simply to welcome the service members home, and let them know that the community was rejoicing in their safe return.

At this event there were several speakers. One was a man who had returned from battle a tri-pelagic. Another was a navy chaplain. Another was a gentleman who is currently a professor at Fuller Seminary, who represented advocates of non-violence. His message to the recently returned troops was simple:

“We oppose the war, but we don’t oppose you.”

He went on to say that he understood that they received orders and carried them out. Often times carrying out these orders demanded bravery, courage, and self-sacrifice. But often these orders were not just. And the fault for that lied not with the soldiers themselves, but with those giving the orders. The service persons were to be welcomed home with open, loving arms, especially by those who saw the war as the tragedy that it was.

I heard that story last week at an event sponsored by the organization, Veterans for Rethinking Afghanistan.

I am not a pacifist, but I’m pretty darn close. If there was a scale of 0-100 where:

0 = Killing and the military use of force is unacceptable under any circumstances, even in the defense of loved ones (complete pacifism).

20= Military action is acceptable only in retaliation for an attack on a country’s national interests.

40= I love Just War Theory.

60= I support United States military action under almost any circumstances and trust the judgment of those making decisions

80= I wish our military was more aggressive

100= I believe the United States should adopt the practice of killing for sport (joke).

…I am about a 2. Maybe a 3 if I am really angry.

In my previous context, serving on staff at a church five miles from Camp Pendleton, I wasn’t especially vocal about this view, and if I were still there I still wouldn’t be very vocal about it. Nonetheless it is a view that I’ve held for years and likely will never change, and it is a view that I think you absolutely should share with me if you’re a Christian. I don’t believe that the Christian life is a life that is compatible with killing (please don’t comment with, ‘what about the Old Testament?’ I’ve answered that question 80 bajillion times. We’re not Israel, and neither George W. Bush or Barack Obama is God.), and I believe that as Americans we have become far too comfortable with killing (as most world powers have throughout history), and as American Christians we have become far too willing to endorse state-sponsored killing around the world.

Even though, as I said, I wasn’t very vocal about my almost-pacifism, my very closest friends knew, and they knew my Scriptural basis for my beliefs. And while some didn’t care, those with connections to the military often gave me this simple response:

“You don’t support the military.”

In translation this of course meant, “You don’t support my husband,” or, “You don’t support my brother/sister,” or “You don’t support my friend.”

I was always somewhat offended by this statement. In fact I did support the husbands, and brothers, and sisters, and friends. I prayed for them often, and rejoiced in their homecoming. I admired their bravery, courage, and self-sacrifice, and often questioned if those traits existed in me to the extent that they existed in the service men and women I knew.

And yet I grieved that such bravery, courage, and self-sacrifice was being used to fight these wars, wars I have never supported and wars that I don’t believe can be supported from a Christian perspective. I grieved the fact that in determining the appropriateness of the wars we seemed to be taking our cues more from the American story than from the Christian story. I grieved, and continue to grieve, that in many evangelical circles patriotism is a Christian value, and because of that we are no longer a Christian witness to the state. And I grieved that we didn’t have the vocabulary to at once say, “I love and support the men and women of our armed forces, but I hate what they are being asked to do. I oppose this war, but I do not oppose the soldiers.”

For that reason I really appreciated the story of the church in Louisville that had that vocabulary, as I believe it is a vocabulary the Church desperately needs. We must be able to think in a nuanced, biblical way about the ethics or war and peace, and we must understand that we are Christians first and Americans second, and that we can love and support our soldiers while at once being a prophetic witness that tells the truth to those giving them orders.

“Breaking the Chains of Addiction”

This morning we released an issue of the SEMI, Fuller’s student newspaper, that I am very excited about. The issue is dedicated to exploring addiction, and helping those who are struggling find help. I know that addictions often get swept under the rug, and that there is a lot of stigma attached to addiction, particularly in the Church. That stigma can be even stronger at places like seminaries, where I think those of us who are students tend to believe that it is not safe for us to be honest about our struggles and our need for healing, grace, and mercy. I am praying that this issue helps those who are struggling to realize that Fuller is a safe place to be honest, and that addictions don’t have to own them.

I have posted a PDF of the issue below, and I would encourage you to take a look at it, whether or not you are a Fuller student. There are powerful testimonies, and other helpful stories that shed light on addiction. All of the writers really did a wonderful job. There are also resources for finding help around the Los Angeles area. Please click the link below to see the PDF.

“Breaking the Chains of Addiction”

A Prayer for America to Pray

The following prayer was written by Stanley Hauerwas, a theologian whose writing and thought has influenced me greatly. The prayer was used to open a gathering I attended last night at Fuller Seminary where we watched the documentary Rethink Afghanistan. I thought the prayer was quite good. I thought the documentary is something you must watch (you can watch it on their website).

Graceful Lord, we find ourselves living in the most powerful country in the world.

The pride and self-righteousness such power breeds are beyond compare.

No power exists that can humble us.

We are tyrants of all we survey.

We decide to bomb these people, send rockets against those people, kill those we call terrorists–

all because we can.

We are the most powerful people in the world.

It is hard not to be caught up in such power.

It is intoxicating.

Save us from it.

Sober us with the knowledge that you will judge this nation,

you will humble this nation,

you will destroy this nation for our pride.

Send us a reminder that you are God, that you alone have the right of vengeance, and if it be your will, make those we bomb instruments of your judgment.

At the very least, save us from the ‘normality of killing.’

Amen.

Why I Drink From a Wide Stream

-The two preachers I listen to most frequently (pretty much every week) have views about the gifting of women for ministry that are, in my opinion, unbiblical. I have books on my shelf from several pastors and authors who share their view.

-Getting one of my favorite authors to plainly state what he believes about substitutionary atonement, a foundational Christian doctrine, is not unlike nailing Jell-o to a wall.

-One of my favorite preachers has stated publicly stated that he believes one of my other favorite preachers is a heretic.

-There are several books on my bookshelf that have influenced me greatly and that I would never give to a young Christian.

-I read blogs from all over the theological map, from conservative to liberal and simple to technical.

-A few of my favorite books are not listed it the “Favorite Books” section of my Facebook page because I do not want a potential employer to see those titles and assume I agree with everything the particular author has to say, because I don’t.

-I read books from people who have pastored megachurches, and from people who think a healthy church shouldn’t grow beyond a couple hundred before it plants a new church.

-For those familiar with the debate about justification, I read John Piper and N.T. Wright. And I like it.

All of this to say, I read and listen to a lot of different voices from a lot of different perspectives. That does not make me especially unique at Fuller, but it is something that has generated a bit of push back from friends and acquaintances in other arenas of my life. In my life as a pastor I had a few instances where friends and acquaintances would draw incorrect conclusions about my theological beliefs that they often based on their knowledge of the books that I read.

A big reason why I feel like I can safely consume and digest thinking that comes from a variety of perspectives is that I have rooted myself in Scripture. In a sense I have trained myself for the task of discernment. I am obviously continuing to grow in my understanding of Scripture, but I have grown to the point where I feel I am able to accurately take teaching that I read or hear, hold it up to Scripture, and allow Scripture to judge the worth of that teaching. If I weren’t able to do this, my practice of listening to such a wide variety of ideas would be potentially dangerous, just as it is dangerous for an untrained river rafter to attempt to negotiate class-5 rapids. A properly trained rafter, however, benefits greatly from the challenge of a class-5 run, and in the same way I benefit from consuming a broad spectrum of theological ideas.

There are some important reasons why I believe it is important to “drink from a wide stream” when it comes to theological influences.

First of all, it helps us remember that nobody is infallible, and no one is completely depraved. In our often-polarized culture it is easy to fall into the trap of believing that a pastor or leader is either pure good or pure evil. Or, it is easy to latch on to one particular belief that a teacher espouses, and based on that belief proceed to uncritically accept or reject the rest of their teaching. This is not good. I like to think that my broad range of influences is my own little rebellion against the polarization and sectarianism that exists in so many arenas in society.

Second, it helps me develop a more nuanced understanding of what the Christian life looks like. Some authors do a great job of helping me understand what the Scriptures say. Others do a better job of showing how to live out what the Scriptures say. Some focus more on personal holiness, others focus more on the public and social implications of our faith.

Third, it challenges me to constantly re-evaluate my own thinking, and it helps me sharpen my own discernment. If I’m only reading books by people who agree with me, then I’m probably not going to grow, and I will forget that not everyone shares my perspectives. Sometimes, reading opposing views reinforces my own beliefs, sometimes they cause me to question them. Often times reading the opinions of those who deny or attack the Gospel cause me to love it that much more.

Fourth, it keeps me humble. Left to our own devices I believe we are all heretics on some level. I know my own theological beliefs aren’t perfect, and I want to hear voices that will guide my thinking such that it will wind up being more in line with Scripture. No one voice will do that perfectly.

I’m not necessarily saying that every voice is valuable and every opinion is worth considering, and there are plenty of voices that I generally ignore because they are destructive, or ignorant, or bigoted, or something along those lines. My point is that I believe there is value in learning from a variety of different perspectives.

So then, when I quote someone on here, it doesn’t mean I agree with everything they’ve ever said or done. Similarly, if I critique someone, it doesn’t mean I think they have nothing of value to say. Nobody is perfect, and God can communicate his truth through a wide variety of sources, which is why I drink from a wide stream with the Scriptures as my guide.

How Do I Know It’s God? Part 2

Back in March I wrote a blog post entitled, “How Do I Know It’s God?”, in which I addressed the following issue:

When it seems that God is “speaking” to us (inaudibly), how do we know it is God and not our own pride, the influence of our culture, or the burrito we had for lunch? How do we know that the “god” we are hearing is not our own selves rather than the God of the Bible?  These are critically important questions, because much damage has been done by those acting with authority that was allegedly from God but in fact was fueled by their own thirst for power and influence.  Similarly, on a more personal level, an inability to distinguish between the voice of God and other “voices” in our head can lead to poor decision making, arrogance, and often alienation.

I feel inclined to revisit that topic today in light of a post I read over on the Desiring God blog written by Dr. John Piper. Piper was answering the following question:

What would you say to someone who feels like the Spirit’s leading has authority over Scripture?

This, I believe, is a critically important question. Several times during my life as I Christian I have had all sorts of people tell me all sorts of things about the ways that “God was speaking” to them. In many instances, I have been inclined to believe that those telling me these stories earnestly believe that in fact the Spirit’s leading has authority over the Scriptures in their lives. I even once had someone tell me that they had made an error in their thinking in that they had, and this is direct quote, “started to put the Bible over the Holy Spirit as my authority.”

It’s possible that I have misinterpreted that statement, but if it means what I think it does, that kind of thinking is incredibly dangerous, and in Piper’s answer to the question he references the reality that outrageous harm has been done by those who believed they were led by the Spirit to behave in a way that is contrary to Scripture. I believe the quote above is indicative of the great spiritual confusion of our age. While we may claim allegiance to Christ (or some other deity), many of us in fact worship ourselves, as shown by our insistence that we ourselves are the chief authority in our lives. This is a very personal struggle for me, as I am prone to go this direction in my own thinking.

The fact is, those of us who call ourselves Christians must be both extremely cautious and humble about claiming the leading of the Holy Spirit in our lives. The Spirit does lead, to be sure, but claiming the leading of the Holy Spirit is also a sort of trump card that can be misused to justify virtually any behavior. We can use the Holy Spirit as an excuse to avoid accountability, avoid immersing ourselves in Scripture, and begin to live lives where we call ourselves Christians but in fact worship ourselves.

We must recognize that the Holy Spirit will always lead us into thoughts and behaviors that are Scriptural. If we sense the Holy Spirit leading us to act in a way that is not affirmed by Scripture, it is not the Holy Spirit. We also must recognize that the primary way in which the Holy Spirit speaks to us is through the inspired words of the Bible, thus, I would go so far as to argue that we cannot claim to be led by the Holy Spirit if we are not at the same time students of Scripture (unless we are claiming to be led by the Spirit in a way comparable to what Paul experienced in Acts 9). It is the Scriptures that train us to be men and women who, in response to the gospel, are able to proficiently live lives of good works, and it is the Scriptures through which we can be completely confident that the Holy Spirit speaks.

I’d encourage you to read John Piper’s response to the question by clicking on the link above. More than that, I would encourage you- as others have thankfully encouraged me- to know your Bible, that you might be more able to detect the still small voice of God, and you might be able to follow its leading.