My first reaction is...this sounds like my journey, with the exception that I believe the Bible to be inerrant. 

I, like many believers, have had enough of fruitless efforts that are dictated by denoms instead of the love of Christ.  I think what I want out of life is to know that Christ is changing the world through me.  Not because of my efforts, but because of the life He lives in and through me.

Jesus wants to be known, he doesn’t need us to be known.  How that is accomplished is through life, everyday, not just on Sunday.

He needs to guard himself from heresy and not throw out his heritage all together, but I think he’s probably having an impact in advancing the kingdom.
My thought.

Ed.

Like Todd, I think I could hang-out with this pastor… BUT…

Since when does accepting the “social-justice” side of our faith (Read James) mean that we don’t see scripture as God’s instructive (1, 2, 3) Word?  Isn’t that what Jesus did, by example, and taught?

I read this and I see an “emergent” theology...giving license to a Baptist.  Maybe that’s just me.

I think I am going to steal the idea of hosting a poker league at the church. We just started a Guy’s Poker Night at my church and it is attracting guys from all walks of life...I don’t care whether he swears or drinks, I do worry a little bit about his thoughts on the bible, although it does sound like he is a committed believer.

I rather have all Christians like him, not believing every word of the bible, then having all Christians believe every word of the bible but not do anything (If I got to only choose those two choices)

"Do you still believe the Bible’s absolutely true without error”?  “No”.

“I’ve been taught all my life that Jesus is the only way, OK? I don’t want to say—and I hope that you won’t misinterpret this at all—I don’t want to say that I still believe that, and I don’t want to say that I don’t believe that. I’m still finding my own way as to what I believe about that”.

When a Pastor and spokesman for Jesus, can not even say definitively and absolutely that Jesus is the only way, I suppose I feel a bit sorry for him and those that follow him.

I also feel bad for Jesus, as a husband to have one of his espoused answer those questions in such a manner.

I think that this guy is on a journey… I think he is trying to figure out how to be Jesus to people around him and reconcile some of the inconsistencies he sees around him in the church.  I can’t disagree with anything he said… but it isn’t my jounrney.

Difficult as this may be for many Christians to believe, I think it is indeed possible to believe in the authority and inspiration of scripture without necessarily holding to innerrancy. (I am not necessarily putting myself in that camp, by the way...)

The authority and inspiration of scripture dates back to the Creeds and beyond (as in Peter’s statement that all scripture is inspired, for instance...) Innerrancy is a much more difficult matter. If it is in the original manuscripts, then indeed, who has them to show that, and if it is in the translations we have, then perhaps those who claim it should take a close look at all the manuscript inconsistencies pointed out in the Nestle-Aland and UBS editions of the Greek NT, and Metzger’s excellent commentary on these issues in the Greek New Testament.

In short, “innerrancy”, as modern Christians who espouse it understand it, is a pretty new idea in the history of theology. If someone says they don’t buy innerrancy but do indeed believe that the Bible is inspired and authoritative, I don’t cast them into the abyss as heretics as far as I’m concerned, although I admit that it creates more “difficulties” than it solves to believe this. This individual goes WAY past that for me however, and yet I still wouldn’t go so far as BeHim goes, because, again, we are not saved by our theology but by our trust in the real Jesus Christ who gave his life for us, regardless of the theological points in which we are mistaken.

BeHim,

How often, however, does that “inerrancy” extend in many people’s minds to their own peculiar interpretations of scripture? Therein lies the danger in clinging to inerrancy (which by my understanding of the original meaning I do believe in myself) as a “foundational essential.” We all interpret scripture. We are, I think, none of us totally right in our interpretation of the whole of scripture. Many, if not all of us, don’t actually realize this deep down I think.

Or perhaps the question is what do those foundational essentials mean? And what does inerrancy actually mean. Take someone who believes that the “pericope adulterae” from John 8 (the woman caught in adultery) does not belong in the Bible because there is evidence (VERY compelling evidence) that it was not written by John and was added later to his gospel. Are they heretical? Or the one who believes strongly that the only “inerrancy” is found in the King James Bible? All others are heretics?

And many of the great insights I get into the New Testament are based on some small knowledge of Greek. Does this mean that someone cannot understand these inerrant words unless they know Greek? There are so many treasures to mine there in the original languages. If we are unable to mine them, do we run the risk of heresy for lack of knowledge? Is that knowledge what saves us? We have 2000 years of separation from the culture of the New Testament and many of the metaphors and ideas contained therein are foreign to us. Are we doomed because we can’t figure these out today?

I probably believe much like you do as far as this issue of authority, inspiration, inerrancy, and infallibility lie. For myself, I am unwilling to brand as a heretic someone who loves Jesus but differs with me on some of these points, even if I’m convinced they are wrong about them. They and I are saved by Christ’s blood, not correct knowledge. That will come in time as the Holy Spirit directs, and not in completion till we see “face to face”.

So I think one day we will no longer use the bible. In fact I think we will forget the bible. Why? Because when we are in our glorified bodies with Jesus, why would we turn to a page when we could turn to Him? So yeah...the bible is NOT the most important aspect to faith in Jesus. I am glad we have it, I am glad that we can study it, but it will me TRASH to us one day comparied to being in God presence.

Pretend you dropped something indescribably tasty and good on the floor. Then you called your dog in, and pointed at it. What would the dog do? He’d look at your hand, and not the indescribably good thing.

Your hand is scripture.  God is the indescribably good thing.  But what do we look at?

scripture points to God, but it isn’t God.  God can’t be crammed into a book. God didn’t tell women to be silent in church; Paul did, and while Paul may have been a saint, he was human and a sinner and a product of his environment as we all are. Slavery is probably a better example—how many churches prior to the civil war used a literal inerrant reading of scripture to justify, even demand, the enslavement of human beings by other human beings?  Almost all of the churches in the South.  That sin had to be purged from our society at the cost of thousands of lives.

I think sometimes we get close to worshipping the book rather than God, and that’s idolatry. The bible is the living Word that God uses to speak to us.

BeHim,

You write “This is the problem Peter… there is One Truth; NOT truth according to the individual’s peculiar ideas.”

Wow, I agree!

However, this is exactly why I’m getting off this discussion now, and I think why this particular individual in the article has swerved the way he does. BeHim, to me you have made it clear for quite a LONG while that if someone disagrees with your particular interpretations of scripture, that they are wrong, or worse… I am trying to give a little more grace here.

I believe in objective truth, and I trust the Bible as the Word of God. I don’t believe in objective knowledge (by us… here… now...) and I don’t believe that 21st century man understands the Bible the way those who first read/heard it did. I have changed and grown somewhat in my understanding if the Bible and biblical theology over the years, which means that I have, at times, been WRONG in my understanding of the truth. There are undoubtedly areas where I am currently wrong. If I knew what they were, I’d change them now, but alas… I change and grow. There are undoubtedly many things that I’m sure of that won’t change. That I can trust Jesus and the Word are a couple of them. I might add other items from the creeds of the churches. Other items, such as how the end times will work out or whether inerrancy as “fundamentalists” have explained it is true might not be.

You wrote [As a Christian I do not believe we are on a “journey”]. My brother, the implications of that statement are preposterous. Do you mean to say that you’ve totally arrived? That you are totally orthodox in thought, practice, deed, et cetera? Now? On Earth?

My understanding of what you are saying is, then, this. You seem unwilling to allow that someone who believes in Jesus but differs from you on important matters of doctrine or interpretation might be a genuine follower of Christ. I am willing to accept that if he says he loves Jesus, then I will believe that he does. EVEN if I disagree with his conclusions and interpretations.

Peace!

For me it started out great and got even better!

I am not a scholar . . . just an ordinary person who somehow happened onto this website. I’ve read through the entire thread, looking up words I did not know and have much to work out in my head now. I think that somehow God intended for me to go on this journey with you gentlemen.

Does God make mistakes? My pastor recently did a sermon on this and I have had some suspisions myself. i.e. Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden, Noah and the Flood.  King Soloman is my greatest source of confusion. Here was this man given all of the trust and Glory of God which he in turn abused and misused and in turn angered God. My point is that if God errors, then maybe God’s word errors too. God knows his people error, so might it be possible that translators error? After all we are made in His image, right?

I love the pastor in this article. It reminds me of a scaled down version of the x3church.

Wow!!! What a hoopla… BeHim, I must agree with all you have said concerning the Scripyure and that God is with out blemish, spot or wrinkle, the Saviour of man’s soul. I too find it hard to believe that on this so called Christian Blog that there are so many “Christians” who have a hard time accepting the Word of God (John 1:1) as being a trash can waiting to happen. For almost 6,000 years has the word been protected from destruction by Satan and his demons, both seen and unseen.

The most convincing of all the proofs and arguments for the verbal inspiration of the scriptures is the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ regarded them and treated them as such. He Himself submitted to their authority.

When assaulted by Satan, three times He replied, “It is written,” and it is particularly to be noted that the point of each of His quotations and the force of each reply lay in a single word--"Man shall not live by bread alone” etc.; “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God;” “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”

When tempted by the Pharisees, who asked Him, “Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?” He answered, “Have ye not read?” etc. (Matt. 19:4-5).

To the Sadducees He said, “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures” (Matt. 22:29).

On another occasion He accused the Pharisees of “Making the Word of God of none effect thro’ their tradition” (Mark 7:13).

On another occasion, when speaking of the Word of God, He declared “The scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35).

Sufficient has been adduced to show that the Lord Jesus regarded the scriptures as the Word of God in the most absolute sense. In view of this fact let Christians beware of detracting in the smallest degree from the perfect and full inspiration of the Holy scriptures.

Having said that, good night.