One of the greatest joys in my life is to study Scripture. There is this certain joy of discovery that is unmatched for me. There are great and marvelous treasures to be mined and uncovered.
It is here, within these pages that God has chosen to reveal Himself and His will to us. That’s exciting! God is revealing himself to us through this book!
Unfortunately that is not the way many people look at Scripture today. There is the belief that scripture really isn’t all that clear in its communication to us and that’s the way it’s meant to be.
There was an article in Christianity Today where a pastor’s wife was interviewed, who said “I grew up thinking that we’ve figured out the Bible, that we knew what it means. Now I have no idea what most of it means. And yet I feel like life is big again.” As the article went on, it revealed she was not merely speaking for herself, but was voicing the opinion of an entire movement known as the “Emergent movement”.
John MacArthur describes the movement like this ““uncertainty is the new truth. Doubt and skepticism have been canonized as a form of humility. Right and wrong have been redefined in terms of subjective feelings and personal perspectives.”
It’s the idea that a truly humble person would not be so bold as to claim that they actually know the truth. How can you say that you actually know what God says? That’s arrogance!
However, is it not arrogant to claim that God cannot communicate? And what kind of hope does an uncertain message offer? Life is not big when you have a Bible you can’t figure out. Life is utterly hopeless! If God cannot be trusted to communicate clearly to us, then what hope do we have of understanding anything at all?
We can’t know His will for our lives,
We don’t know how to discern truth from error,
We can’t know what He requires of us,
Bottom line, We can’t know Him.
And If I believed there was no way to come to some understanding of this book I would resign today! Game Over, what’s the point? Let’s just call it quits, because if God can’t make it clear, than who can?
The Reformers however, who affirmed the need for educated teachers in the Church, also affirmed what is known as the "perspicuity" (or clarity) of the Scriptures. By this, they did not mean that there are not things hard to understand, for even Peter admitted to that (2 Peter 3:16). Rather, the doctrine of perspicuity teaches that the basic message of the Bible is clear and simple enough for any literate person to understand.
So we come to the Bible with certain convictions
1) God has given his word to reveal truth not conceal it.
Even the very word translated revelation demonstrates this. The word revelation is the Greek word “apokalupsis”, which means to uncover or disclose.
John Stott put it this way...
"God has revealed himself chiefly by speaking. We may be quite sure, therefore, that he has spoken in order to be understood, and that he has intended Scripture (the record of the divine speech) to be plain to its readers. For the whole purpose of revelation is clarity not confusion"
2) The God who created language knows how to communicate in it.
It is implied throughout Scripture that God expected his words to be understood. Is this not the reason for communication in the first place? One writer said, “I cannot persuade myself that a book that is intended for the instruction and conversion of the whole world should cover it’s meaning in such mystery and doubt that none but critics and philosophers discover it.”
3) Because God has revealed himself in human language he expects us to use the rules of human language to understand Him.
The Bible is not "spiritual" in the sense that the words themselves used to communicate are unnatural. The language used is very human and just as rules apply to other forms of literature they also apply to Scripture.
One of Jesus’ common statements was “have you not read” – (Matt 12:3, 19:4; 22:31)
He assumed clarity for the Scriptures. He did not say “I understand why you didn’t get that, the Bible is really fuzzy and ambiguous isn’t it?”
The conviction that the Scriptures were clear drove men like William Tyndale, to whom all English speaking Christians are indebted to for our English Bible, to literally give their lives for the translation of God’s word into the common tongue.
Tyndale once shamed the clergy of his day by saying, “If God spares my life before many years pass I will make it possible for a boy behind the plough to know more Scripture than you do.”
Today my goal is to help the youth of BCLR to know the Scriptures better than they did and to know God better as a result. These are some of the reasons why we are committed to expositing the Scriptures each week. Are you ready for the journey to begin? Join us for our study in Colossians, where we will “Loose the Scriptures and Let them Speak!”
In Christ Alone,
George
It is here, within these pages that God has chosen to reveal Himself and His will to us. That’s exciting! God is revealing himself to us through this book!
Unfortunately that is not the way many people look at Scripture today. There is the belief that scripture really isn’t all that clear in its communication to us and that’s the way it’s meant to be.
There was an article in Christianity Today where a pastor’s wife was interviewed, who said “I grew up thinking that we’ve figured out the Bible, that we knew what it means. Now I have no idea what most of it means. And yet I feel like life is big again.” As the article went on, it revealed she was not merely speaking for herself, but was voicing the opinion of an entire movement known as the “Emergent movement”.
John MacArthur describes the movement like this ““uncertainty is the new truth. Doubt and skepticism have been canonized as a form of humility. Right and wrong have been redefined in terms of subjective feelings and personal perspectives.”
It’s the idea that a truly humble person would not be so bold as to claim that they actually know the truth. How can you say that you actually know what God says? That’s arrogance!
However, is it not arrogant to claim that God cannot communicate? And what kind of hope does an uncertain message offer? Life is not big when you have a Bible you can’t figure out. Life is utterly hopeless! If God cannot be trusted to communicate clearly to us, then what hope do we have of understanding anything at all?
We can’t know His will for our lives,
We don’t know how to discern truth from error,
We can’t know what He requires of us,
Bottom line, We can’t know Him.
And If I believed there was no way to come to some understanding of this book I would resign today! Game Over, what’s the point? Let’s just call it quits, because if God can’t make it clear, than who can?
The Reformers however, who affirmed the need for educated teachers in the Church, also affirmed what is known as the "perspicuity" (or clarity) of the Scriptures. By this, they did not mean that there are not things hard to understand, for even Peter admitted to that (2 Peter 3:16). Rather, the doctrine of perspicuity teaches that the basic message of the Bible is clear and simple enough for any literate person to understand.
So we come to the Bible with certain convictions
1) God has given his word to reveal truth not conceal it.
Even the very word translated revelation demonstrates this. The word revelation is the Greek word “apokalupsis”, which means to uncover or disclose.
John Stott put it this way...
"God has revealed himself chiefly by speaking. We may be quite sure, therefore, that he has spoken in order to be understood, and that he has intended Scripture (the record of the divine speech) to be plain to its readers. For the whole purpose of revelation is clarity not confusion"
2) The God who created language knows how to communicate in it.
It is implied throughout Scripture that God expected his words to be understood. Is this not the reason for communication in the first place? One writer said, “I cannot persuade myself that a book that is intended for the instruction and conversion of the whole world should cover it’s meaning in such mystery and doubt that none but critics and philosophers discover it.”
3) Because God has revealed himself in human language he expects us to use the rules of human language to understand Him.
The Bible is not "spiritual" in the sense that the words themselves used to communicate are unnatural. The language used is very human and just as rules apply to other forms of literature they also apply to Scripture.
One of Jesus’ common statements was “have you not read” – (Matt 12:3, 19:4; 22:31)
He assumed clarity for the Scriptures. He did not say “I understand why you didn’t get that, the Bible is really fuzzy and ambiguous isn’t it?”
The conviction that the Scriptures were clear drove men like William Tyndale, to whom all English speaking Christians are indebted to for our English Bible, to literally give their lives for the translation of God’s word into the common tongue.
Tyndale once shamed the clergy of his day by saying, “If God spares my life before many years pass I will make it possible for a boy behind the plough to know more Scripture than you do.”
Today my goal is to help the youth of BCLR to know the Scriptures better than they did and to know God better as a result. These are some of the reasons why we are committed to expositing the Scriptures each week. Are you ready for the journey to begin? Join us for our study in Colossians, where we will “Loose the Scriptures and Let them Speak!”
In Christ Alone,
George
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