Sunday before last in the Parents Teach the Bible workshop, one of the participants asked a really great question. We had just made some observations about a passage of Scripture and she challenged one of my observations stating that she thought that there was a difference between the terms that I had linked in observation. It was a really good observation and question.
I did not answer her.
I was not being difficult - well maybe a little - rather I used her question to emphasize the core purpose of the workshop. We need to struggle with questions like that ourselves. Last week traveling through Big Bend with my wife and my dad, I could not get her question out of my mind. One evening I came up with this diagram.
In 2 Peter 3:16 Peter tells us what we already know some of Paul's stuff is hard (truth be told so is some of Peter's, Matthew, and for that matter all the rest of them). When we hit something that we do not understand, in my experience we tend to dive to secondary sources really quickly. Back in the70's when I was first coming around the Navs it was the notes in the Scofield Bible. We would hit a tough patch in the study and one of the guys would say, "The notes in my Bible say..." and he would read the notes thus ending all speculation and discussion on the matter.
The problem with that is when we bail out of the struggle we do not allow the Holy Spirit to do what Christ promised He would do, lead us into all truth, John 16:13. When we do that we diminish our sensitivity to the Spirit's leading. We need to stay in the struggle and ask for Him to lead us. This morning three of us were discussing this and one of my friends suggested that most people bail because they know that those who have written the notes or the commentaries have the Spirit. Maybe. Not all who write about the Bible, even with multiple degrees are believers. Even if they are, what they write is not inspired. What they write about is. We would do better to spend more time in that about which they write.
I did not answer her.
I was not being difficult - well maybe a little - rather I used her question to emphasize the core purpose of the workshop. We need to struggle with questions like that ourselves. Last week traveling through Big Bend with my wife and my dad, I could not get her question out of my mind. One evening I came up with this diagram.
The problem with that is when we bail out of the struggle we do not allow the Holy Spirit to do what Christ promised He would do, lead us into all truth, John 16:13. When we do that we diminish our sensitivity to the Spirit's leading. We need to stay in the struggle and ask for Him to lead us. This morning three of us were discussing this and one of my friends suggested that most people bail because they know that those who have written the notes or the commentaries have the Spirit. Maybe. Not all who write about the Bible, even with multiple degrees are believers. Even if they are, what they write is not inspired. What they write about is. We would do better to spend more time in that about which they write.
The problem is, to do that we have to think.
ReplyDeleteYeah that is a challenge. There are few who want to do that hard work.
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