Arthur Sido has penned a critical post entitled Pitting Jesus Against The Bible. He addresses the growing segment within Christianity that claims to follow Jesus but not scripture. This, of course, allows these folks to create a Jesus of their own making and liking. It is delusional.
I've been thinking quite a bit lately about this specific topic. I even began piecing together a blog post about it. However, Arthur beat me to the punch. And he did an excellent job of it. I highly encourage you to visit his blog and read the post. It is a well-written rejection of the fairly modern idea that Christians can somehow know Jesus while ignoring much of the written revelation about Him.
I've been thinking quite a bit lately about this specific topic. I even began piecing together a blog post about it. However, Arthur beat me to the punch. And he did an excellent job of it. I highly encourage you to visit his blog and read the post. It is a well-written rejection of the fairly modern idea that Christians can somehow know Jesus while ignoring much of the written revelation about Him.
3 comments:
Amen! Great and very timely article by Arthur.
Paul
I agree with the point Sido is making but I think some statements are lacking in accuracy.
" It is incredibly arrogant to assume that here in 2015 we have it figured out and know more than the rest of the church combined for the previous 2000 years."
No it is not arrogant to consider that we might be transformed by God in a greater way than those in the past. Has he forgotten his church history that shows the church in horrible ruts of sin in the past? Is Sido aware that God is working in a progressive way to bring his church to a point of "without spot or wrinkle"? We read the same Bible as those in past generations but the Holy Spirit is not limited to only work in the same way today as He did in the past. What "humans know" is only a small percentage of that which impacts the maturity of the church. There are saint around the world with very little knowledge but have amazing Christ likeness.
"Each succeeding generation in the West assumes that it knows better than those that came before them,". I'm not sure this generation thinks it knows better. I don't think they care that "knowing better" even matters. They care far less about knowing or why they know or how they have come to know anything. Knowing is random, like the origins of the universe.
"...a mindset replicated with children and parents when children are amazed to find that the same parent who seemed so out of touch when the kid was 18 have suddenly gotten pretty wise when that same kid turns 22."
This is his proof by analogy. I don't think the analogy matches up because the child eventually realizes the truth by his own admission. Not so in this generation. There are many spiritual factors, the devil, the world system, and how our flesh is tweaked in each generation. It is only the direct intervention of God together with the work of his people that can reach individual people and remove them from the mud. Culture will always move up and down, usually more down than up.
The effort to remove Jesus from the context of the Bible is not a new play in the devil's playbook. The church has done it in many ways all the while claiming to follow both Jesus and the Bible closely. Every Bible expert scraps at least two of Jesus' instructions: "exercise authority, ...not so among you" Matthew 20:25; and self exalting titles and positions among men Matthew 23:6-12. They have removed the servant leadership of Jesus from the people of God and say it's all good. This has been in play since the church fathers erected a clergy status. The Corinth church laid the foundation for it with "super apostles" and "countless guides in Christ". They lead with the same twist of revelation as those who want to justify twists of sexuality and justice. Removing Jesus from the Bible was foundation to the modernism theology of 150 years ago.
There will be some, even many,perhaps millions around the world who grow in Christ likeness and relational knowledge of him in ways far greater than past generations.
It has been a major burden on my heart for some time and I finally got concerned enough to put it in writing. A low view of Scripture is one of the deadliest challenges to face the church in the coming years, far more so than Islamic terrorists or loss of tax exemptions.
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