The Holy Scriptures
The Holy Scriptures
A person might point to the Bible he holds in his hands, and say, "This is the word of God, my only authority for religious faith and practice". Then he might point to the head that sits on his shoulders and say, “My own thoughts, reasonings, opinions, and feelings have no such authority.”
The issue is whether we should allow our own minds to...
The person above, who pointed to the head on his shoulders may so strongly believe the statement he made, that he would be willing to have that very head cut off rather than withdraw his statement. And he should be so willing, because there are clear and solemn warnings at the beginning, middle, and end of the Bible against adding to the word of God or taking away from it (Deu 4:2, Prv 30:6,4:2, Rev 22:18-19).
The Bible claims for itself that...
(Isa 55:8-9 1Co 2:1-16).
Here is a simple example. In the Bible, God reveals that he thinks he is the Heavenly Father. But many people think God should be the Earth Mother and they refer to God as "She". Now they should say, "Lord, if you think you are my Heavenly Father, then so will I think". Instead they say, "I think God is my Earth Mother, and I'm not going to change my thoughts on this matter for any patriarchal god, so I'll change the scriptures to accommodate my thoughts."
Getting back to the statement at the beginning of this lesson... It raises interesting questions about the function of the human mind with regard to interpreting God’s word. Were we to switch off our minds and stop thinking, then we would be unable to hear, understand, or respond to the word of God. Whilst the thoughts of God alone are the authority for religious faith and practice, the purpose of God’s word is to reveal his thoughts to our minds. Therefore our thoughts and minds must function when it comes to interpreting God’s word.
God himself says, "Come now and let us reason together" (Isa 1:18-20). If we are to reason together with God, surely we must have our minds switched on, and we must be thinking about what God says.
One cannot establish Biblical authority without employing human judgment and forming human opinion. Only when I use the head on my shoulders for reasoning, can I use the Book in my hands for authority.
When God says, "My thoughts are higher than your thoughts" he does not intend us to stop thinking, because he says, "Let us reason together". In fact, this is a simple example of how we apply our minds to God’s word. As we think about these two statements, we understand, without much difficulty, that we are to let God’s thoughts modify our thoughts, but our thoughts must never meddle with God’s.
The Place for Human Reasoning