Saturday 1 January 2011

The Authority of Scripture (Part 2)

Here we continue with a mini-blog series on the all important theme of the authority of Scripture. Should it be a surprise to any of us, that in 2011, God's Word as revealed in the Holy Bible, will be under attack? It certainly should not be a surprise for any Bible reading Christian. Why? Well let us look at the fall of mankind.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.
He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’? (Genesis 3:1)".

But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil (Genesis 3:4-5)".


What does the Serpent do? Firstly he undermines the authenticity of God's Word; 'Did God actually say ...'. Secondly he undermined the validity of God's commands and he asserts 'you will not surely die'. Thirdly he suggests a false revised interpretation 'you will be like God'. We could call this the first Jacques Derrida style deconstructionist and post-modern reading of Scripture!

The followers of this kind of approach to the Bible are sadly everywhere and they often are allowed to continue unchallenged. The old line liberals would clearly represent this category; people who outright deny the authority of the Bible, that God is the author of the Scriptures, liberals who radically reinterpret God's commands with their fanciful imaginations. However, this erroneous thinking and teaching has also crept in unawares into sections of the church professing to be evangelical and we will look at some tell-tale signs of this rejection of the authority of Scripture in our next blog. The Bible does not simply contain the Word of God but the Bible is the very Word of God; inerrant, infallible, sufficient and thrilling!

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