All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, – 2 Timothy 3:16
Many people mistakenly believe that the biggest threat to Christianity in America is the secularization of its culture. The reality is much more bleak. American Christianity is being inundated by heresy whose purpose is to make the gospel more palatable while completely (or almost completely) ignoring scripture. We have moved away from an orthodox understanding of the inerrancy of scripture to one that is reliant on personal feelings and interpretations. In short, many American Christians have become so prideful as to come to the decision that they can pick and choose what they like or dislike about God. It is my belief that faith without the context of scripture is dead. It is also my belief that a faith in a God that is incapable of maintaining scriptural purity is faith that does not exist at all. The idea that God would get it wrong in one spot but not in another shows a true lack of faith in God’s power and sovereignty and thus a lack of faith in the gospel itself.
Many people like to say that the inerrancy of the Bible is a Tier 2 issue and one that does not determine salvation. Unfortunately, I believe that believing that the Bible is inherently false is symptomatic of an unsaved soul for very simple reasons. Generally when a person decides to ignore large pieces of scripture it is because they believed that the Bible was written by men rather than by God and this shows a lack of faith in God Himself.
If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. – John 15:19
It also shows a desire to make the word of God and themselves acceptable by the world when we as believers are told that we are not of this world. This concept that we can make God the way we want Him to be is the same pride that makes many people believe that they can make their gender what they want it to be rather than the way God made them to be. The idea that we can make decisions about what God wants and what God doesn’t is so beyond prideful as to show almost definitive proof that redemption has not been begged for nor obtained.
Coming to Christ requires going on your knees and begging for forgiveness and for redemption and this requires humility and submission. Those who say that the only books in the Bible that are important are the ones that fit neatly into their world views show themselves to have neither repentant Faith nor submission to the will of God as He shows us in the Bible. I am sure that there are exceptions to this reality, but I believe that those are outliers rather than the general rule.
Our culture is inundated with the belief that people are somehow more than they truly are (I’m not a theologian but I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night!). That we are capable of interpreting what is right and what is wrong, what is male and what is female and what is biblical and what is heresy. This is the reason why many are choosing to ignore scripture and the theological study of the past two thousand years. That even some Christians believe that they personally have somehow overcome ancient and antiquated concepts of morality and have figured out God’s real desires are free from the taint of men. This might build an unending faith in our own version of God but not in the real God of the universe and not in Jesus.
This type of picking and choosing also shows a desire to limit faith to feelings that “show” people the way God “should be”. There is a dangerous idea that it is possible to have faith without the belief that it is even possible to know the will of God because, “there is no way God would think that, it just doesn’t feel right!” That is actually the exact opposite of having faith. Unbelief is the belief that there is no fundamental truth outside the observable universe. This belief also stems from the idea that we are to listen to our hearts and our feelings to determine what is right though this concept is non-biblical and damning.
There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. – Proverbs 14:12
On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ – Matthew 7:22-23
The enemy plays on our emotions and our feelings not the Lord. Often times when we are felt led by God it is the exact opposite. That is why we should check scripture in order to make sure that we are not being misled. Faith is about belief in something without any logical proof. It is about a belief in truth not in a feeling or in some subjective concept of what truth is.
Though the Bible does not tell us everything about everything, it does tell us everything that we need to know to be saved and to live a life that brings glory to God. Though the belief in the inerrancy of the Bible is not a matter of salvation it is just like good works; symptomatic of salvation. When we believe that we can rely on ourselves to determine the will of God we start injecting our concept of what the will of God should be. We no longer rely on a God who is anything more than a social construct. A happy hippy Jesus that cares nothing about our sin and only cares about us being happy and unoffensive. Unfortunately, that Jesus is not the one that save souls. God gave us His Word not as a menu, but as a glimpse into His will and desire for us. To truly understand our faith requires us to hold to fundamental truths and to have faith in the truth, you must have scripture to base that truth upon. To do otherwise is in fact the definition of being an unbeliever.
