Psalm 19:7

The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple (Psalm 19:7). 

As I read the Psalter this verse jumped out at me. I'll share a few thoughts on this verse that encouraged my heart and put a little spring in my step for the day.

1. Let me give you a few different words that can be used for "the law" of the LORD:

     INSTRUCT - PRECEPT - TO PUT STRAIGHT - TO GUIDE
 

"This Hebrew word comes from a verb signifying to "TEACH."

2. Notice that  God's instruction, His teachings, His guidance, His precepts are perfect, and not only are they perfect they convert the soul.

3. The effect of God's instruction (law) in our lives is that we are transformed from the inside out---The truth's of the Scriptures do not merely make us religious (observing a set of religious codes), no, the Scriptures change us from the inside, we become new creatures (11Cor. 5:17).

4. "The testimony of the LORD is sure" --- again God's testimonies (His Words to us)  are true and we can rely on them.

5. What are the effects of  God's testimonies?---they make wise those who are simple---remember God reveals his truth not to the wise of this world or to the mighty, but to the simple (1Cor.1:26-28).

6. SO, as I read this verse I was reminded how God took this fifteen-year-old  teen who was going the wrong way (away from God), and put wisdom in his heart through the revelation of His Son Jesus Christ.

Plato's Cave

                                            Plato's Cave

Many of us have read Plato's Cave either in high school or in college or on a lazy Sunday afternoon (hah hah haa!).

The Cave from Plato's Republic has captivated me on several levels. The direct parallel between those in the cave and pre-conversion and post conversion in the life of the believer is so direct and didactic.

Let me set up the allegory of the cave and help with some of the cobwebs that begin to take place in our brains when we put our information in the attic. The cave is an allegory written by Plato and is told by his teacher Socrates.

In this allegory a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives face a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of a fire behind them and begin to ascribe forms to these shadows.

So these people who have been chained to the wall of the cave all of their lives only know the shadows---to them the shadows are the reality. These people only hear the echoes from the real figures, but for them the echoes are the reality.

 Socrates then supposes that one of the chained persons is freed and permitted to stand up. If someone were to show him the things that had cast the shadows he would not recognize them for what they were and could not name them; he would believe the shadows on the wall to be the reality.

As the allegory unfolds Socrates tells us that the freed man is compelled to look at the fire, but he cannot and quickly turns back to the shadows. The freed man is then forcibly dragged out of the cave and into the real world where he becomes angry and distressed, but after some time the freed man becomes acclimated to the light and accepts reality over the shadows.

Here is the comparison to the Christian life: Before conversion we loved the shadows, and would not come to the light--- Listen to the words of the Apostle John "...Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil" (John 3:19).

Of course the light that came into the world is Jesus (the truth), but mankind loves darkness (sin), so they stay in the shadows and refuse to come to Jesus and have their sin exposed.

Salvation is an act of God ---"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him..." (John 6:44). God makes the unwilling willing, God gives a heart of flesh where there was a heart of stone, God draws those whom He has chosen with the bands of love---and they come because he has purposed that they will come.

Socrates ends the allegory by supposing that the freed person goes back to those that are still in the cave and begins to tell them that the shadows that they have been looking at are not the real thing---Socrates tells us that those that are still chained in the cave begin to deride, mock, and ridicule the freed man as being crazy---sound familiar?

How to read the Bible!

This will be the last post on Sola Scriptura. We've affirmed the authority and the sufficiency of the Scriptures (2 Tim.3:16), we've established that the Scriptures are to be the final authority in the life of the believer and in the life of the church.

But here is the question that all Christians must ask: Am I being transformed by the power of God's word? is God's word impacting my life with God and with those that God has brought into my life? Is there real change taking place in my life ( spiritual growth)?

While we must start with the belief that the Scriptures are God's words, infallible and free from error, authoritative and powerful, but now we must go to the next step and allow God's word to change us from the inside out (Phil.3:14; Rom. 8:28-29).

The Book Sola Scriptura lists 8 ways that the Bible should be read so that that God's Word can transform our lives. "...men sin not only when they neglect to read the Scriptures, but also in reading amiss..." (Joel R. Beeke and Ray B. Lanning in Sola Scriptura).

Here is a list of the eight reverent and faithful ways to read the Scriptures with a short  thought of my own:

Diligence must be employed: If we really believe that we are reading the very Words of God, we then should read with more diligence than one would use searching for the winning lottery ticket he unknowingly threw away.

Wisdom must be used: The basic rules of Biblical hermeneutics should be known and employed. The believer should know how the Bible is divided into different epochs of redemptive history.

Proper preparation is critical: We must prepare our hearts before God asking for His Holy Spirit to give us understanding of His Word, remembering the words of Jesus, "the flesh profits nothing, but the words that I speak are spirit and life."

Meditation after reading Scripture: We must allow for the Word of God to take root in our inner landscapes---we must allow for depth after we read God's word.

Speaking with other believers about God's Word: This will allow the principle of "iron sharpening iron" to take place---this will also allow for the wisdom of others to come into your life and also allow you to help others in their understanding of God's Word.

Read the Scriptures with faith: We must read the Scriptures with faith (Heb.11:6); without faith it is impossible to please God.

The fruit of faith must be practice: After we receive instruction from God's Word we then need to put that instruction to work--- in other words we need to be "doers of the word and not just hearers," now didn't we hear that somewhere before?

Prayer is indispensable throughout our reading of Scripture: Prayer keeps us humble before God and assures us that our Bible reading doesn't become just academic, or a mere exercise to increase our knowledge---which can lead to prideful boasting.

Solid Hermeneutical Principles

                                

      Solid  Hermeneutical Principles

Today, I'd like to share two thoughts on the nature of the Bible's authority; it is important not to miss these two extremely important principles in understanding how to interpret the Scriptures (hermeneutics).

There are two principles of hermeneutics that have to be understood by all believers who want to understand God’s word….1.) How God’s word fits into redemptive history, and 2.)  the difference between what is commanded in the Bible and what is simply described:  Let's examine principle one first.

 Principle One, the Bible's authority must be maintained within an adequate sense of the distinguishing features of the various epochs of redemptive history. For example, as a member of the new covenant community, I am not obligated by the prohibition against boiling a young goat in its mother's milk," ... (Ex. 23:19; cf. Mark 7:19; Rom. 14:14)

 "This prohibition belongs to a specific period of context of redemptive history."

I've witnessed many individual believers and churches err on this one basic principle of Biblical interpretation: We must understand and read the Bible in its context and where it fits in with the various times of redemptive history.


 Principle two, there must be a clear appreciation of the difference between the descriptive and the prescriptive texts in the Scriptures … here are several examples of this hermeneutical principle:

Remember how the early church in Jerusalem sold all their goods and relinquished their rights to private ownership (Acts 2:44-45), we are not obligated to follow their example, for the Bible was describing and not prescribing this action to be mandated for all churches for all times.

Now this one may wrinkle a few feathers, but the 1 Corinthians 16:2 passage that says:" On the first day of each week, you should each put aside a portion of the money you have earned. Don't wait until I get there and then try to collect it all at once."

This also is a descriptive passage, but many churches use it as a prescriptive passage (a command) in order to collect tithes and offerings each and every Sunday. The context clearly refers to Paul's collection for the famine relief in Jerusalem, as the rest of the passage makes clear: so there will be no collections when I come (1Cor. 16:2), there is no specific command given here that  has import for all churches at every time and place.

There are of course many other Biblical rules that dictate how we are to read the Bible, but I think that these two standout among the other hermeneutical principles.


Continue to read God's word. Seek out good commentaries. Ask a lot of questions and use good solid Biblical hermeneutical principles. 

Scripture and Tradition

The Protestant reformation arose in the sixteenth century in reaction to the extra biblical teaching of the Church of Rome.

During the Middle Ages most people that were part of the Roman Church believed that the tradition taught by the Church and what the Scriptures taught were the same.

As Martin Luther and others started to study the Bible they soon discovered that many of the teachings (traditions) of the Church were not only different but that they even contradicted the Scriptures

Here is a list of some of the things that they discovered from the fruit of their study of the Scriptures. Keep in mind this list is to show that the only authority in the life of the believer and in the life of the Church is the inerrant authoritative Word of God. We see how easy it is for all kinds of different and strange teaching to come into the Church when the Church moves away from Sola Scriptura.

1. The Bible teaches that all have sinned except Jesus (Rom. 3:10-12; Heb.4:15), but tradition teaches that Mary was sinless.

2.The Bible teaches that Christ offered His sacrifice once for all (Heb.7:27; 9:28;10:10), but tradition says that the priest sacrifices Christ on the altar at Mass.

3. The Bible says that we are not to bow down to statues (Ex.20:4-5), but tradition says that we should bow to certain statues.

4.The Bible says that all Christians are saints and priests (Eph.1:1;1 Peter 2:9), but tradition says that saints and priests are special castes within the Christian community.

5. The Bible says that Jesus is the only Mediator between God and man (1Tim. 2:5), but tradition says that Mary is co-mediator with Christ.

6. The Bible says that marriage is a gift from God (Gen.2:22-24; Prov.5:18-19; 18:22), but tradition puts restrictions on those who would desire to serve God in the Church as priest or nun.

Mark 7:13 sums it up, here are the word of Jesus:

And so you cancel the word of God in order to hand down your own tradition. And this is only one example among many others."

Sola Scriptura

In the next couple of posts I'll be sharing some thoughts on a book that I've been reading: SOLA SCRIPTURA, by various evangelical pastors and theologians. The posts will be short, but packed with powerful thoughts on the sufficiency and clarity of the word of God.



Sola Scriptura was one of five Sola's that came out of the protestant reformation in 1517, it was spearheaded by Martin Luther, a German Augustinian monk, who posted 95 theses on a church door in the university town of Wittenberg.





Sola Scriptura is Latin and means " scripture alone." The significance of this position held by the reformers was to show that only the Scripture was necessary for salvation and holy living. By the time of the reformation the Roman Catholic Church held that Tradition and the Magisterium (teaching authority of the church) were as equally authoritative as the Scripture.

The reformation was born out of desire to bring the Church back to the sole authority of the Scriptures. Robert Godfrey frames the differences between Roman Catholics and Protestants Catholics like this, "Roman Catholics believe we Protestants departed from the church in the sixteenth century. Protestant Catholics believe Romans Catholics departed from Christ's church even earlier."




Godfrey gives further thoughts on the difference between Roman Catholics and Protestant Catholics when he notes:

As Protestants, we maintain that Scripture alone is our authority. Roman Catholics maintain that tradition and the teaching authority of the church must be added to Scripture.

This background information is needed to  understand what brought about the Sola Sriptura of the Reformation.

Here is our thought for the day, as Godfrey notes:

"The Protestant position...is that all things necessary for salvation and concerning faith and life are taught in the Bible with enough clarity that the ordinary believer can find them there and understand."

Here is an example of the clarity and the sufficiency of the Bible, Deuteronomy 31:9 states: "Moses wrote down this law..." and later in Deuteronomy (31: 9,12) Moses instructed the people to listen and  learn to fear the LORD as the written law was read to them, and again in Deuteronomy (32:46-47) the words that the people listened to were described as words of life.

Look at this passage like this:

1. The Word was written down (this is the recorded Word of God).

2. The people could and must listen and learn from the written word.

3. This written Word was life.

Differences

There will always be differences in the body of Christ! However, it seems in today's culture and climate that differences must be avoided at all costs. If one is even a casual student of Church history they would discover that the great confessions, catechisms, and creeds were all born out of conflict and differences within the Church.

Robert Godfrey writes in Sola Scriptura: The Protestant Position on the Bible, " Differences should humble  us and drive us back to the Scriptures to test all claims of truth. If we don't accept the Scriptures as our standard and judge, there is no hope for unity."

The Bible tells us that God's word gives light that allows us to walk in obedience to Him. Psalm 119: 105 tells us that God's word gives light to our feet and guides our path. The whole of Psalm 119 instructs us to meditate on God's word because it shines so brightly that it will give us light and wisdom to understand what God desires of us.

 The word of God is not ambiguous, but clear and bright. I thank God for the perspicuity of the Bible. There has been so many times in my life that God's word gave me light and instructed me in matters of life's choices, but even more importantly, God's word has instructed me on how I can know God and fellowship with Him.

The B-I-B-L-E,
Yes, that's the book for me,
I stand alone on the Word of God,
The B-I-B-L-E.
The B-I-B-L-E,
Yes, that's the book for me,
I stand alone,
The B-I-B-L-E.