H\/T)<\/a><\/p>\nFor many of us in the church today, using the Bible as the go to, definitive, and final answer for everything is how God intended Bible to be used.<\/p>\n
Otherwise, God wouldn\u2019t have chopped it up into nice chapters and verses that we could weaponize at the drop of a hat, right?<\/p>\n
(Fun Fact: The chopping didn\u2019t start until at least a 1,000 years after the New Testament was written.)<\/p>\n
But what if God had other intentions for the Bible? What if God didn\u2019t intend for it to be the unquestioned final authority we\u2019ve turned it into?\u00a0What if God isn\u2019t a fan of the way we rip verses out of the Bible to prooftext everything?<\/p>\n
What if God doesn\u2019t approve of our blind devotion to a book?<\/p>\n
I know that might sound crazy, but I have a sneaking (biblical) suspicion why that might actually be the case.<\/p>\n
My suspicion begins in the gospels where time and time again we hear Jesus declaring, \u201cYou have heard it said\u2026 but I say\u2026\u201d Now, sometimes he\u2019s just talking about tradition or the teachings of other rabbis. But a lot of times, he\u2019s talking about scripture itself, what we would today call the Old Testament. We tend to gloss over Jesus\u2019 words as nothing more than a rhetorical device, but when we do we miss the gravity of what he\u2019s doing.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s breaking the bonds of scripture to bring new truth and breath fresh life into the people of God.<\/p>\n
But the liberation doesn\u2019t stop there.<\/p>\n
It culminates at the birth of the church. In particular, the story of the apostle Peter and the sheet that fell from heaven.<\/p>\n
According to the book of Acts, the apostle Peter was at a house in the town of Joppa when he decided to go up to the roof and pray while lunch was being prepared. Not long after he had began praying, he fell into a trance and had one of those famous biblical visions from God. In the vision, he saw a sheet fall from heaven full of all sorts of creatures \u2013 \u201cfour-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air\u201d \u2013\u00a0and he heard a voice saying, \u201cTake and eat.\u201d Peter said \u201cno\u201d because scripture forbade him from doing so. The voice told him again to take and eat and once more Peter refused. This happened three times and three times Peter said no, citing scripture.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an odd vision that only becomes odder when you step back and realize what\u2019s really going on.<\/p>\n
That voice from heaven was God and God was telling Peter to violate scripture.<\/p>\n
We like to gloss over this too as part of the whole \u201cwe\u2019re no longer under law, we\u2019re under grace\u201d thing as if that was some how a fulfillment of scripture \u2013 but it wasn\u2019t. Sure, there was a promised Messiah, but there was no sense in the Old Testament that the Law would pass away and be replaced by a covenant of grace. Even if there was, the Law was at the very heart of the people of God\u2019s identity. Saying the people of God are no longer under the Law, but under grace is nothing short of a revolution.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s happening in Peter\u2019s vision, the book of Acts, the gospels, and throughout the New Testament is a fundamental and radical shift from the old way of doing things (no more sacrifices, from how God related to God\u2019s people (no more need for a high priest), from scripture itself (no longer bound by the Law).<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not a break because the continuity is critical, but it is a seismic shift to something radically different than what had come before.<\/p>\n
So why was God doing something so radical and so obviously contradictory to scripture?<\/p>\n
Because God decided to do a new thing in Jesus and through the church, a Spirit thing that couldn\u2019t be bound by scripture, and either Peter (and the rest of God\u2019s people) could come along for the ride or stay shackled to the past.<\/p>\n
When we hear this story taught in Sunday School, most of us respond the way we always respond when Peter sticks his foot in his mouth \u2013 we\u2019re baffled that he could be so dense when God was being so clear in what God wanted and expected from him. But as much as we might like to think we would have responded differently if we had been in his position, I think the truth is most of us still use the Bible the same way Peter did \u2013 as an idol to be blindly followed, an idol even God is answerable to.<\/p>\n
Imagine if we had responded to the vision then like we do today to things we think are against the Bible. We\u2019d start off with an internet rant about wolves in the church trying to deceive the faithful, then we\u2019d string together a bunch of Bible verse to \u201cprove\u201d we\u2019re right, follow that with a thorough trashing of our opponent\u2019s knowledge of the Bible, and finally wrap things up by denouncing them as a liberal heretic.<\/p>\n
And then when all our righteous work was done, just like Peter, we would have successfully quashed the movement of the Spirit.<\/p>\n
I think our fundamental problem is that we\u2019ve forgotten that the Bible is meant to be a guide on how to live and love in this life and the next, but instead we\u2019ve turned it into a jailer that shackles us to ideology, dogma, and legalism.<\/p>\n
Instead of letting the Bible lead us to the Truth, we use it as a weapon to attack our enemies and defend our ideological idols.<\/p>\n
If Peter had continued to use scripture the way we do today, instead of getting out of the way for God to move, the power of the Spirit would have been stifled and the church would not have gotten off the ground. If Paul had used scripture the way we do today, he could have never taken the gospel to the ends of the earth and ministered to the Gentiles because they were outside of Israel\u2019s covenant as described in scripture. And if Jesus had used scripture like we do today, his ministry would have never left Nazareth.<\/p>\n
Answering the call of God to join the new work of the Spirit doesn\u2019t negate the inspiration or authority of scripture. It simply puts it in proper perspective and allows it to serve its proper function \u2013 as a guide to be followed, not an idol to be worshipped or a weapon to be wielded.<\/p>\n
How do we let it guide us?<\/p>\n
The same way the church has always let scripture guide us before we fell for the delusion of sola scriptura \u2013 tradition can lead us, the church teach us, reason inform us, and experience shape us into the people of God formed but not shackled to the Book.<\/p>\n
So does God approve of how we use the Bible today?<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t speak for God, so I can\u2019t say for sure, but I think the gospels and the story of Peter in particular should give us pause before we fill up anymore Facebook threads, message boards, comment sections, or Twitter feeds with never-ending strings of Bible verses.<\/p>\n
In other words, we need to be careful.<\/p>\n
Because God may be doing a new thing in the church today and, if He is, we may get left behind because we\u2019re so busy quoting Bible verses and holding God hostage to scripture that we can\u2019t see the work of the Spirit unfolding like a sheet from heaven right before our very eyes.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Grace and Peace,<\/p>\n
Zack Hunt<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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<\/a>(H\/T)<\/a><\/p>\n