Friday, May 31, 2013

Biblical Authority as an Acquired Trait

I write notes to myself and occasionally need to corral all my scraps of paper.  Found this one today on the changing place of Scripture in faith formation.

"As we move further away from Christendom and Modernity I think we will need to accept that you can't use the Bible to convince anyone to believe in Jesus, but rather, it will be faith in Jesus that will convince people to value the Bible."

Other than the hyperbole in using "can't... convince anyone," I'm thinking this is pretty much on target.  The Bible, for many, doesn't begin with authority that you can use to found a faith.  Rather, it will acquire authority from the relationship between a believer and Jesus himself.

2 comments:

Bob said...

Amen. The living Word is the true authority.

Anonymous said...

I think you are dancing with the essence of 1 Corinthians 13 and Romans 10:17. Living the Word through relationship and the power of the Holy Spirit creates "hearing", which is the timeless and proven form of evangelism established long before the Gutenberg press. Your personal stories,notes and blogs sustain our conversation and suffering with and for Jesus, who never wavered or failed to recognize Biblical Authority given by our Father.
JB from CG