Bringing people in relation with the Divine Creator
Author: Guestspeaker
A joint effort of several authors who do find that nobody can keep standing at the side and that “Everyone" must care about what is going on in today’s world.
We are a bunch of people who do not mind that somebody has a totally different idea but is willing to share the ideas with others and to be Active and willing to let others understand how "today’s decisions will influence the future”. Therefore we would love to see many others to "Act today".
Though being the most reprinted and most translated book many people doubt the authority of that bestseller of all times.
End page of the Lübeck Bible (1494), showing the end of the book of revelation and the printer de:Steffen Arndes’ kolophon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Not all people are convinced it has something to say for them. Even lots of Christians never took the time to read the Bible from A to Z. Lots of people do think it is from the old times and as such ‘passé’. They have no idea how the Bible is still best for contemporary use. Much more people should come to see that it is really a book to cherish because it offers many lessons for life and sustains future hope, bringing meaning and power to the present.
In the previous message we said already that Western civilization is in a severe “authority crisis” which is not confined solely to the realm of religious faith, nor is it specially or uniquely threatening to Bible believers.
We should be much aware that our look at the bible can influence our society very much. Too many people do forget that regard for the Bible is decisive for the course of Western culture and in the long run for human civilization generally. People should come to recognise that there is more behind the human writers who scribbled down many words, not of their own. Many wise words they never claimed to be their own. They even say that what they wrote down is not written down from their own inspiration but form the Higher Being which directed them.
Let us therefore have a look at what an encyclopedia of the Bible says about this library of books its own view.
(KJV) 1631 Holy Bible, Robert Barker/John Bill, London. King James Version (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Bible’s View of Itself
The intelligible nature of divine revelation — the presupposition that God’s will is made known in the form of valid truths — is the central presupposition of the authority of the Bible. Much recent neo-Protestant theology demeaned the traditional evangelical emphasis as doctrinaire and static. It insisted instead that the authority of Scripture is to be comprehended internally as a witness to divine grace engendering faith and obedience, thus disowning its objective character as universally valid truth.
Somewhat inconsistently, almost all neo-Protestant theologians have appealed to the record to support cognitively whatever fragments of the whole seem to coincide with their divergent views, even though they disavow the Bible as a specially revealed corpus of authoritative divine teaching. For evangelicalorthodoxy, if God’s revelational disclosure to chosen prophets and apostles is to be considered meaningful and true, it must be given not merely in isolated concepts capable of diverse meanings but in sentences or propositions. A proposition — that is, a subject, predicate, and connecting verb (or “copula”) — constitutes the minimal logical unit of intelligible communication. The OT prophetic formula “thus saith the Lord” characteristically introduced propositionally disclosed truth. Jesus Christ employed the distinctive formula “But I say unto you” to introduce logically formed sentences which he represented as the veritable word or doctrine of God.
The Angel Appears to John. The book of Revelation. 13th century manuscript. British Library, London. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Bible is authoritative because it is divinely authorized; in its own terms, “all Scripture is God-breathed” (2 Tm 3:16 NIV). According to this passage the whole OT (or any element of it) is divinely inspired. Extension of the same claim to the NT is not expressly stated, though it is more than merely implied. The NT contains indications that its content was to be viewed, and was in fact viewed, as no less authoritative than the OT. The apostle Paul’s writings are catalogued with “other scriptures” (2 Pt 3:15, 16). Under the heading of Scripture, 1 Timothy 5:18 cites Luke 10:7 alongside Deuteronomy 25:4 (cf. 1 Cor 9:9). The Book of Revelation, moreover, claims divine origin (1:1–3) and employs the term “prophecy” in the OT meaning (22:9, 10, 18). The apostles did not distinguish their spoken and written teaching but expressly declared their inspired proclamation to be the Word of God (1 Cor 4:1; 2 Cor 5:20; 1 Thes 2:13).
Elwell, W. A., & Beitzel, B. J. (1988). In Baker encyclopedia of the Bible (p. 298). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.
Concerning the authority of the Holy Scriptures there has bean much debate. Let us have a look on what is written about the Power of God’s Word and its authority in a well-known encyclopedia of the Bible.
The Power of God’s Word.
The Gutenberg Bible displayed by the United States Library of Congress, demonstrating printed pages as a storage medium. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Bible remains the most extensively printed, widely translated, and frequently read book in the world. Its words have been treasured in the hearts of multitudes like none other. All who have received its gifts of wisdom and promises of new life and power were at first strangers to its redemptive message, and many were hostile to its teaching and spiritual demands. In every generation its power to challenge persons of all races and lands has been demonstrated. Those who cherish the Book because it sustains future hope, brings meaning and power to the present, and correlates a misused past with the forgiving grace of God, would not long experience such inner rewards if Scripture were not known to them as the authoritative, divinely revealed truth. To the evangelical Christian, Scripture is the Word of God, given in the objective form of propositional truths through divinely inspired prophets and apostles, and the Holy Spirit is the giver of faith through that Word.
View that the Bible is the Word of God and as such should be believed and obeyed.
Image from the Book of Kells, a 1200 year old book. Category:Illuminated manuscript images (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Western civilization is in a severe “authority crisis” which is not confined solely to the realm of religious faith, nor is it specially or uniquely threatening to Bible believers. Parental authority, marital authority, political authority, academic authority, and ecclesiastical authority are all being deeply questioned. Not only particular authorities — the Scripture, the pope, political rulers, and so on — but the concept of authority itself is vigorously challenged. Today’s crisis of biblical authority thus reflects the uncertainties of civilizational consensus:
Who has the power and the right to receive and to require submission?
Revolt Against Biblical Authority.
As the sovereignCreator of all, the God of the Bible wills and has the right to be obeyed. Judge of men and nations, the self-revealed God wields unlimited authority and power. All creaturely authority and power is derived from that of God. The power God bestows is a divine trust, a stewardship. God’s creatures are morally accountable for their use or misuse of it. In fallen human society God wills civil government for the promotion of justice and order. He approves an ordering of authoritative and creative relationships in the home by stipulating certain responsibilities of husbands, wives, and children. He wills a pattern of priorities for the church as well: Jesus Christ the head, prophets and apostles through whom redemptive revelation came, and so on.
The inspired Scriptures, revealing God’s transcendent will in objective written form, are the rule of faith and conduct through which Christ exercises his divine authority in the lives of Christians.
Revolt against particular authorities has in our time widened into a revolt against all transcendent and external authority. The widespread questioning of authority is condoned and promoted in many academic circles.
Philosophers with a radically secular outlook have affirmed that God and the supernatural are mythical conceptions, that natural processes and events comprise the only ultimate reality. All existence is said to be temporal and changing, all beliefs and ideals are declared to be relative to the age and culture in which they appear. Biblical religion, therefore, like all other, is asserted to be merely a cultural phenomenon. The Bible’s claim to divine authority is dismissed by such thinkers; transcendent revelation, fixed truths, and unchanging commandments are set aside as pious fiction.
In the name of humanity’s supposed “coming of age,” radical secularism champions human autonomy and creative individuality. Human beings are lords of their own destiny and inventors of their own ideals and values, it is said. They live in a supposedly purposeless universe that has itself presumably been engendered by a cosmic accident. Therefore human beings are declared to be wholly free to impose upon nature and history whatever moral criteria they prefer. In such a view, to insist on divinely given truths and values, on transcendent principles, would be to repress self-fulfillment and retard creative personal development. Hence the radically secular view goes beyond opposing particular external authorities whose claims are considered arbitrary or immoral; radical secularism is aggressively hostile to all external authority, viewing it as intrinsically restrictive of the autonomous human spirit.
Any reader of the Bible will recognize rejection of divine authority and definitive revelation of what is right and good as an age-old phenomenon. It is not at all peculiar to the contemporary person “come of age”; it was found already in Eden. Adam and Eve revolted against the will of God in pursuit of individual preference and supposed self-interest. But their revolt was recognized to be sin, not rationalized as philosophical “gnosis” at the frontiers of evolutionary advance.
If one takes a strictly developmental view, which considers all reality contingent and changing, where is the basis for humanity’s decisively creative role in the universe? How could a purposeless cosmos cater to individual self-fulfillment?
Only the biblical alternative of the Creator-Redeemer God, who fashioned human beings for moral obedience and a high spiritual destiny, truly preserves the permanent, universal dignity of the human species. The Bible does so, however, by a demanding call for personal spiritual decision.
The Bible sets forth the superiority of humans to the animals, their high dignity (“little less than God”—Ps 8:5) because of the divine rational and moral image that all bear by reason of creation.
Print 3330 in volume 27 of the Bowyer Bible in Bolton Museum, England. From page 12 of Volume 1 of “A-Z of Artists in the Bowyer Bible” by Phillip Medhurst. Photo 4 of 117. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In the context of universal human involvement in Adamic sin, the Bible utters a merciful divine call to redemptive renewal through the mediatorial person and work of Christ. Fallen humanity is invited to experience the Holy Spirit’s renewing work, to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, and to anticipate a final destiny in the eternal presence of the God of justice and justification.
Contemporary rejection of biblical tenets does not rest on any logical demonstration that the case for biblical theism is false; it turns rather on a subjective preference for alternative views of “the good life.”
The Bible is not the only significant reminder that human beings stand daily in responsible relationship to the sovereign God. He reveals his authority in the cosmos, in history, and in inner conscience, a disclosure of the living God that penetrates into the mind of every person (Rom 1:18–20; 2:12–15). Rebellious suppression of that “general divine revelation” does not wholly succeed in suspending a fearsome sense of final divine accountability (Rom 1:32).
Yet it is the Bible as “special revelation” that most clearly confronts our spiritually rebellious race with the reality and authority of God.
Title page from the Great Bible published by Grafton and Whitchurch in 1539. It depicts an enthroned Henry VIII receiving the Word of God and bestowing it upon his bishops and archbishops (top third), who in turn deliver it to the priests (middle third). Finally, the laity hear the Word and loyally recite, “Vivat Rex” and “God save the kynge” (bottom third). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In the Scriptures, the character and will of God, the meaning of human existence, the nature of the spiritual realm, and the purposes of God for humankind in all ages are stated in propositionally intelligible form that all can understand. The Bible publishes in objective form the criteria by which God judges individuals and nations, and the means of moral recovery and restoration to personal fellowship with him.
Regard for the Bible is therefore decisive for the course of Western culture and in the long run for human civilization generally. Intelligible divine revelation, the basis for belief in the sovereign authority of the Creator-Redeemer God over all human life, rests on the reliability of what Scripture says about God and his purposes. Modern naturalism impugns the authority of the Bible and assails the claim that the Bible is the Word of God written, that is, a transcendently given revelation of the mind and will of God. Attack upon scriptural authority is the storm center both in the controversy over revealed religion and in the modern conflict over civilizational values.
Elwell, W. A., & Beitzel, B. J. (1988). In Baker encyclopedia of the Bible (pp. 296–298). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.
Religiouspeople often are looking for their gods or for The God and may find those gods or God useful for obtaining things in life. It is said that
Christians find God beautiful and knowing Him is the chief good they seek. {Gazing Upon True Beauty}
Ichthys (Ichthus) one of the symbols used by early Christians (prior to Constantine) to identify themselves to each other. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Lots of those people who call themselves Christian do not see the spiritual lifeline that will keep them from giving their heart to lesser loves and other beauties that will ultimately lead them into bondage, misery, and despair.
With most of those calling themselves Christian there is a painful absence of the spring of the living water, welling up in the lives of many walking around on this earth.
“A person who acknowledges and lives under the Word of God. He submits without reserve to the Word of God written in ‘the Scripture of truth’ (Daniel 10:21), believing the teaching, trusting the promises, following the commands. His eyes are to the God of the Bible as his Father, and the Christ of the Bible as his Savior. The Word of God has convinced him of sin and assured him of forgiveness. He aspires to have his whole life brought into line with it. The promises are before him as he prays, and the precepts are before him as he moves among others.
He knows that in addition to the Word of God spoken directly to him the Scriptures, God’s Word has also gone forth to create, and control, and order things around him; but since the Scriptures tell him that all things work together for his good, the thought of God ordering his circumstances brings him only joy. He is an independent fellow, for he uses the Word of God as a touchstone by which to test the various views that are put to him, and he will not touch anything which he is not sure that Scripture sanctions.”
J.I. Packer asked back in 1973: “Why does this description fit so few of us who profess to be Christians these days?” He concludes: “You will find it profitable to ask your conscience, and let it tell you.” {What is a Christian}
Jesus very well knew the Scriptures. After he was born he had to learn everything and before his death had still to say he did knew a lot of things not, whilst only God knows everything. The One Who can not die placed Jesus above the angels (him having been lower than angels before), but Jesus knew also he could not do anything withoutGod Who is greater than him.
High-priest Jeshua presenting his body as an offering to God – 3rd quarter of 16th century (Photo credit: Wikipedia)Resurrection of Christ (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Ephesians 1:20 (Anderson)
which he made active in the Christ when he raised him from the dead, and caused him to sit at his right hand in the heavenly places,
Matthew 26:64 (Anderson)
64 Jesus said to him: You have said. Moreover, I say to you, Hereafter you shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of the Almighty, and coming upon the clouds of heaven.
Hebrews 1:3 (Anderson)
who, being the effulgence of his glory and the exact representation of his essence, and upholding all things by his own powerful word, when he had by himself made expiation for our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
Hebrews 10:12 (Anderson)
but after offering one sacrifice for sins, he himself sits continually at the right hand of God,
Hebrews 3:1-3 (Anderson)
Hebrews 3
1 Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our confession, Christ Jesus, 2 who is faithful to him that appointed him, as Moses also was faithful in all his house. 3 For this man is counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who has builded the house, has more honor than the house.
Hebrews 3:1-3 (Anderson)
Hebrews 3
1 Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our confession, Christ Jesus, 2 who is faithful to him that appointed him, as Moses also was faithful in all his house. 3 For this man is counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who has builded the house, has more honor than the house.
1 Timothy 2:5-7 (Anderson)
5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself a ransom for all, [of which] the testimony [has been given] in its proper times, 7 to give which testimony I have been appointed a preacher and an apostle; (I speak the truth, and lie not;) a teacher of the Gentiles in faithfulness and in truth.
One of those building s where Christians come together but where graven images of God and other gods or idols can be found in front many of them bow down. -Holy Week at Santhome Basilica, Chennai (HDR) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Those who call themselves Christian should belief what Jesus says and what the God Who does not tell lies says. they also should come together to the city of the living God, becoming partakers of the Body of Christ. Together they should unite and become one with Christ, as Christ is one with God. The ones who call themselves “Christian” should belong to the congregation of the firstborn, who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous, who have been made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant. They should really appreciate to have received the grace of salvation under the sprinkled blood that speaks of something better than Abel’s does.
Real Christians are those who follow the teachings of Christ and take care not to refuse the one who is speaking!
Hebrews 12:22-27 (Anderson)
22 But you have come to Mount Zion, and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels; 23 to the general assembly and church of the first-born, who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the just made perfect, 24 and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than the blood of Abel. 25 See that you reject not him that speaks: for if they escaped not who rejected that earthly man who gave the oracles, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that is from heaven, 26 whose voice then shook the earth; but now he has promised, saying, Yet once more I will shake not the earth only, but also the heaven. 27 And this [prophecy], Yet once more, signifies the removing of the things that are shaken, as of things that have been made, that the things which can not be shaken may remain.
The native New Mexican with roots in Santa Fe and Albuquerque Paul Smith, ventures into troubling waters today or is into foggy skies, wrestling for the past few days with a question that recurs frequently in conversations among brothers and sisters in Christ.
At the center of the discussion is the frequently repeated and much discussed phrase, “in necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus charitas.” (in matters of necessity, unity; in matters of doubt, liberty; in all things love) Confusion and ignorance reign. {Boundaries of Brotherhood}
We should be fully aware that there is a big difference in which way those Christians consider Jesus to be “Lord“. Lots of them want to make him to be the Most HighestLord of lords instead of the worldly Lord of lords, the son of man and son of God.
Intellectually we may know that God’s grace must exceed our own human limits – otherwise we would be God!
– but emotionally I have a hard time welcoming those who disagree with me. After all, I am always right (c’mon – my tongue is firmly planted in my cheek). {Boundaries of Brotherhood}
He seems to know that he must reject out-of-hand the growing chorus of the “easy believeism” that is sweeping through the Churches of Christ, and says
That is nothing other than the “Cheap Grace” identified by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. We cannot accept that two diametrically opposite views of Holy Scripture can both be correct. We cannot accept that two diametrically opposed views of worship – or especially of the requirements of Kingdom membership – can both be correct. We must allow for differences of opinion and conscience, but at some point there must be a determination of wrong and right, of heresy and of sound doctrine. Likewise, we must be careful that we do not elevate our own intellectual prowess to the level of God’s judgment. We do not tell God who is a part of his Kingdom, God does that. Refer to my Undeniable Truth for Theological Reflection #1, the foundation for theology must be humility. Our greatest error is in proclaiming that we are beyond making errors. If universalism is wrong, so is Phariseeism. {Boundaries of Brotherhood}
Problem is that not enough people are willing to pray for God’s Spirit to guide us into the healthy truth. When they ask their own gods (except from the Only OneTrue God, not Jesus but Jehovah), whoever they might be, we do not think they will get answers from them, but if they listen carefully they shall be able to hear the Call of God, because God knows the heart, and when they sincerely want to look for God He shall guide them.
– the truth that sets proper boundaries where God has placed them, and not where fallible humans have placed them. {Boundaries of Brotherhood}
Jesus is challenging us to open our hearts and minds to hear today’s humbling good news – God’s immeasurable love. {“God Loves You.” 03.06.2016 Sermon}
and asks
Are you and I open to that good news? The good news of our prodigal God’s immeasurable love that is freely and extravagantly shared with all: love that we cannot earn, love that we do not deserve. And our response to God’s grace and mercy encourages and invites us, even pleads with us, to share God’s perfect love with others. Even when those others look and act a whole lot like the two sons in today’s parable. (This section was inspired by the writing in Day Resources, Sundays & Seasons.com) {“God Loves You.” 03.06.2016 Sermon}
It makes it important for us to decide which way we do want to go. do we want ot keep to human tradition and keep sticking to the so called Holy Trinity, or do we want to take the Word of God, the Bible to be infallible and telling us the truth?
Fewer and fewer people take the time for deep study and thought anymore, partly because of the busyness of our lives. We are quick to believe what we hear on social media or in the news because we just can’t be bothered with actually taking the time to investigate and think for ourselves. {Sounds Nice, But is it in the Bible?}
At this site we do ask you to compare what we and others say, with what is written in the most sacred Book of books and best-seller of all times: the Bible.
Let the living water flow of the pages of that book. Let it come into your hands, into your heart and into your spirit, opening your eyes and showing you that Jesus is the Way to the Only OneTrue God.
