September 28, 2006, here on slacktivist: The language of religion I
True story from back at Timothy Christian School:
We were studying evangelism and the teacher was going over something called the “Romans Road” — a series of passages from St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans that described humanity’s sinfulness and need for salvation. Evangelism, by definition, involves talking with people who do not already share our faith. Such people, I had noticed, also tended not to regard our Bible as their Bible, so I asked the teacher what we should say to someone who tells us they don’t believe in the Bible.
“You show them II Timothy 3:16,” the teacher said. And then she quoted it, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”
When I suggested that someone who didn’t believe in the Bible wasn’t likely to believe in II Timothy any more than they believed in Romans, she responded by quoting another passage, II Peter 1:21, and then another from the 119th Psalm.
It went on like that for a bit, like something from Abbot and Costello, with both of us getting more frustrated as she quoted Bible verse after Bible verse about the authority of the Bible and me not doing a very good job of expressing that someone who doesn’t believe in Bible verses won’t be convinced by a Bible verse that tells them to believe in Bible verses. Until finally she said this:
“Well if they still don’t believe in the Bible after you’ve showed them all those verses, then I guess they just can’t read.”
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