HOME / PROCLAMATION! MAGAZINE / 2014 / FALL / EDITORIAL
F A L L • 2 0 1 4
VOLUME 15, ISSUE 3
D E P A R T M E N T S
Editor's COMMENTS
I was scanning an online forum one day, and with a sense of disbelief I read the words of a former Adventist proclaiming his method of studying Scripture; he claimed to read every reference to a certain subject in the Bible in order to determine what to believe. This, the writer proclaimed, was how he determined that hell is not eternal. Doctrinal conclusions such as the reality of hell, though, cannot be determined simply by reading all the texts that come up in a Bible search engine. Context—reading entire chapters and books—is essential. Submission of one’s mind and beliefs to God’s word is also mandatory.
Using Scripture as a glorified encyclopedia, however, is not the only way I’ve encountered God’s word being diminished by Christians. Some months ago I listened to a Christian leader pray, “We apologize for being greedy for Scripture, and we repent of being gluttons of Your word and for not taking Your word into our community.”
This prayer echoes other phrases I’ve been hearing more and more from various Christians: “bibliolotry”, or idolatry of the Bible; “head knowledge” instead of love from the heart, and so on. The assumption underlying these ideas is disorienting: that a person who is committed to focussing on God’s word as the foundation and rudder for all of life will have a head full of Bible knowledge but a life devoid of practical love for the world. Yet this assumption is false.
The Bible is not a book of facts. It is the “living and abiding word of God,” according to Peter, through which we are born again of imperishable seed (1 Pet. 1:23). It is “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12).
If we are not submitted to God’s word and committed to allowing it to expose our motives and sins, we will fail to grow. If we do not submit our minds and hearts to the truth about the Lord Jesus, we may be highly moral in behavior but driven by spiritual busyness that silences the convicting words of God.
As members of Christ’s body, we forget sometimes that the indwelling Holy Spirit does not replace God’s word but rather teaches us God’s word. Truth is not in our own heads; it is in God’s word. Unless we put that truth into our minds, we will be unable to live fruitful lives.
As the first wave of Israelites returned to Jerusalem after their Babylonian captivity, Zechariah reminded them of their fathers’ failure to take God’s word seriously:
“They made their hearts like flint so that they could not hear the law and the words which the Lord of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets; therefore great wrath came from the Lord of hosts” (Zech. 7:12).
We who are part of the church have even greater access to and responsibility for knowing and submitting to God’s word than did the Israelites. Because of modern publishing, we have God’s word readily available—in addition to having the Author of Scripture indwelling us, convicting us, teaching us, and showing us how to take the next right step. Moreover, we are obligated to treasure God’s word and to rightly divide it, submitting to it without superimposing our own understanding onto it.
In this issue Dale Ratzlaff presents God’s inerrant and sufficient word as our ground of truth that reveals reality and exposes error, and Stephen Pitcher explains how The Clear Word covers Ellen White’s teaching in a deceptively biblical format. Martin Carey shows us from Hebrews 2 how the Lord Jesus redeems and restores humanity’s role in creation, and Russell Kelley uses grammar to demonstrate that the investigative judgment cannot be the fulfillment of Daniel 8:10-14. Jonathan Winn shares his experience of looking at Adventism from the “outside”, and we also hear from our columnists Rick Barker, Chris Lee, and Carolyn Macomber.
My prayer is that a growing love for God’s eternal, sufficient word will transform our lives, yield kingdom fruit, and fill our hearts with joy. †
Copyright 2014 Life Assurance Ministries, Inc., Camp Verde, Arizona, USA. All rights reserved. Revised November 11, 2014. Contact email: proclamation@gmail.com
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