Category: Christian

Balance Between Scripture and Spirit

Reaching for one without letting go of the other

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I feel compelled by the Holy Spirit (I hope) to explain myself a bit. Please forgive me if this gets into a little self-conscious rambling.

I have touched recently on some important doctrinal issues without really addressing them in a doctrinal way. That is intentional, but that leaves me a little self-conscious about it.

I have brushed past many doctrinal issues in this blog, and some of them are themes that I come back to quite often. Recently, I have veered dangerously close to issues like the inerrancy of the Bible and Bible hermeneutics, though I have not used words like that, other than to acknowledge at some points those rocks that exist in the turbulent waters.

I often reflect on the sovereignty of God and the free will of man. I often reflect on atonement, redemption, salvation and similar themes, though I don’t often use those words. Anytime we speak of the cross, the specter of those doctrinal ideas arises.

I am usually not all that conscious about doctrine in the sense of academic formality or denominational purity. This also is intentional, though it isn’t intended in any rebellious, skeptical or heretic away.

What I always aim for is “mere Christianity”.

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Should the Bible Be Taken Literally?

When demand that the Bible be taken literally in all respects, we are imposing our own standard on the Bible and insisting that it talk to us in that way.

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Whether the Bible should be read and interpreted literally seems to be an open question in the 21st Century. Some Christians, and many people who criticize Christians, seem to think the Bible must be read in a literal, wooden fashion, and it must stand or fall based on what people say is “the literal interpretation” – the Bible is either literally true or literally false, and there is no third position.

So, let me put this out there – do we approach other literature that way?

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The Law Foreshadows the Spirit

The Law given to the nation of Israel was is a necessary precursor to the law of the Spirit.

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  Photo by Steve Murray – Where Moses looked into the promised land

“But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22-23)

The Spirit does what the Law could never do.

The law is exterior to us. It imposes a standard for us to follow, but it does not give us the desire or the power to follow it. The Spirit gives us both.

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Living Like An Atheist?

If God created the universe, created you and me and everything we know, doesn’t He deserves more of us?

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Ravi Zacharias is a well-known speaker on faith, culture and philosophy. He travels around the world, rubbing shoulders with the intellectual elite. He wasn’t always the intellectual sort. He wasn’t always a man faith. He called himself an atheist growing up.

In an interview, when he was pressed on that point, he said, “Atheism is a strong word. I was living like an atheist.”

 How many of us live like an atheist?

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The Rightness of God

God is right because he is God.

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For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” (Romans 10:2-4)

Paul was writing here of the Jews. Paul spoke with particular authority about this because he was a Jew, trained in the highest Jewish traditions by the greatest teacher of the time, and he had once zealously protected the Jewish tradition of the law against the upstart followers of Jesus. And then, he dramatically encountered the risen Jesus.

Paul is saying that the Jews were ignorant of God’s righteousness because they sought to establish their own righteousness, instead of accepting (submitting to) God’s righteousness. Paul knew this because Jesus was the embodiment of God, righteousness and all, in the flesh.

But righteousness seems sometimes like a nebulous concept. It seems better understood with “self” in front of it. It’s hard to think of righteousness without thinking self-righteous. In truth, only God is righteous. We can only try to understand His righteousness.

Another way to look at righteousness is through the lens of “rightness”. Simply put, God is right because he is God. When we think we are right, especially in comparison or contrast to God, we are asserting that we are the measure of right, rather than God.

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