The Relationship between Truth and Unity pt. 3

Over the past few Saturdays, we have covered some answers to questions like
"is the church today what it's supposed to be?"
"how can we be united as a body of believers?" 
"why do I believe (or not believe) in the Bible?" 
"what do I believe about different Biblical concepts?" 
and
"what does the Bible actually say?"

Following the previous posts in this series, we will continue our study based on the assumption that each of us
1. Has studied the Bible and other works which could shed light on the validity of its astounding claims
2. Has come to the conclusion that the Bible is absolute truth
3. Is studying different Biblical concepts in order to ascertain the truth
4. Wants every believer in Christ to be united

In our last discussion on the relationship between truth and unity in the church, we discussed the errors that we can run across when we place a specific interpretation of a Biblical concept before the actual scriptures as they are written. In this post, we will continue our study by delving into the implications that our belief in the divine inspiration of scripture has for our lives.

What exactly does divine inspiration mean?

Put plainly, divine inspiration means that the things in the Bible are the things which the all-encompassing deity whom we call God (consisting of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit), wants us to know, and that He brought the concepts in the Bible to us through various people. He inspired the writers of the letters, books, etc. of the Bible by bringing His ideas into their minds (in ways which we do not fully understand) so that there are no contradictions. 

In short, He caused willing, God-serving people to write His own thoughts down and then He caused various people to preserve them so that they will last through the ages.

We do not know the exact methods which He used – the subject is actually still debated among some people in the world today. If you ask different believers “how did the Holy Spirit inspire people to write the Bible?” you’ll get many different answers, but the conclusion that we all agree upon is the same: it happened, and that’s what matters.


            Now that we have laid that groundwork, let’s get into, well, why it matters. It’s easy to claim that God wrote the Bible, and then claim to follow it, but the gravity of such a claim is sometimes lost in repetition. When I claim that God wrote the Bible, I’m claiming that this little book sitting on my desk, open in front of me, is the only truth which exists, to the exclusion of every other theory or religion about how/why we’re here.


That’s a pretty big deal. I’m claiming that this book was written by the same force which created the entire universe.


When I said that the gravity is lost in repetition, I mean that we are so used to hearing or saying “God wrote the Bible” that we sometimes don’t realize how absurd that sounds to people who don’t agree with us. Imagine taking this little, leather-bound book into a convention of Muslims or evolutionary biologists and making that claim with gusto! Some of the people in either convention might agree, but the majority would just laugh.

Claiming that the Bible is absolutely right automatically implies, even though most people who make that claim don’t intend for it to, that anyone who disagrees with that statement is absolutely wrong. This matters. A lot.

When we make such a grand, sweeping claim by claiming that billions of people all over the world are incorrect in the beliefs around which they base their lives, it’s easy to see why so many people who aren’t Christians despise Christianity.

It’s easy to see, especially when the same people who make these all-encompassing claims don’t follow it.


Yes, you heard that right.

Everyone who believes in Jesus and professes that the Bible is absolute truth doesn’t follow it perfectly. Everyone. At least, that’s what the world sees.
 
You see, what the world sees and remembers was that person who laughed and scoffed at a homeless person when they walked past.
That person who goes to church right down the street and wears a cross around his neck.
They saw on the news where someone threatened to kill all of the homosexuals in the world.
Someone who was quoting Bible verses as if she had the power to decide who lives and dies.

Do you see my point yet? The rest of the world holds us, as Christians, to an incredibly high standard. We claim that
God is love,
that we love everyone in the world as He did,
that we, exclusively, know and follow the absolute truth, and
that Christ died so that we can all be saved and go to a place of happiness.
We also claim to be the salt that seasons and preserves the morality of the Earth.

That’s a lot of weight to carry.

With great power comes great responsibility. We’re expected to be so much as a group, and we succeed so often – there are so many wonderful Christians in the world – but all it takes is one bad sheep to make all of us look like pompous hypocrites.

And, sadly, there are a lot of bad sheep.


            This post was a downer, I know, and I appreciate you taking the time to read and consider the things I’ve presented you with. Next week, we’ll talk about why this matters to us since we are seeking Christian unity and how we can fix it. And, just to offset the down-ness (is that a word?) of this series of posts, we’ll also discuss how beautiful the world is and how much more beautiful it will be when we band together.

Thanks for reading!

- Ethan