Greg Proffit Writing

Tag: Christianity

  • The Bible Is Not The Sole Repository Of Truth

    The Bible Is Not The Sole Repository Of Truth

    A man standing in the pages of the Bible pushing it open. The Bible is not the sole repository of truth.
    The letter kills but the Spirit gives life, making the Bible both the most life-giving, and potentially dangerous, book ever. Within its pages is not the only place truth can be found.

    # 33 on my, 99 Life Tips – A List is: The Bible, while true if rightly understood in terms of scope and purpose, is not a science book, nor is it the sole repository of truth.

    I believe in God (generally), and I’m a Christian (specifically – with my own non-standard definition). As such, my tips for life and my writing touch on this topic. This is another Bible associated tip. It is related to the one preceding it, which suggests that the reader see the Bible as a spiritual menu. I believe that the Bible is true. However, not in the same way that a scientific research paper, or a mathematics text book is true. And, the main point with this tip is to insist to the reader that it (The Bible), is not the sole repository of truth. It’s ok to find truth outside the box.

    God hasn’t gone mute and is still speaking

    It is odd that anyone who believes the Bible at all would think that it is the complete record of all truth for all time. There are several verses in both Testaments that make the assertion that God is both a ”speaker” and that He is still speaking. Here is a very small sampling (Psalm 29 (all); Hebrews 1:1,2; Hebrews 12:25 (”speaketh” – Greek present, active, participle signifying continuous and repeated action). 

    Colorful artist's rendering of an expanding scene of the universe
    Creators gonna Create…this “extra-biblical” truth is baking intelligent noodles everywhere

    If that is not enough, the fact that cosmologists have discovered an ever-expanding universe is enough to bake anyone’s noodle. Talk about a metaphysical and philosophical quagmire. Into what is the universe expanding? What exactly is the previously non-existent space (area) that is being annexed? This fact even poses problems for evolutionists. What is in this frontier space area that is evolving? In response to environmental pressures in an environment that does not exist? Right…

    This also poses problems for classical physicists. The first law of thermodynamics states that matter can be neither created nor destroyed. And yet…the universe expands. Something is being created by something to fill something. This premise seems more like an article of faith than empirically verifiable science. Here is an article from Scientific American with some impressive mental gymnastics attempting to explain the contradiction.

    Thus endeth the digression

    OK, enough of that digression. Back on the road here. Truth isn’t confined to the Bible. You can find it everywhere. I find it in the midst of the most elaborate lies…in great literary works of fiction. I also find it in sunsets, Grateful Dead songs, Quentin Tarantino movies, and in the gliding flight of a hawk in a lazy summer sky. Not that those those other sources have equal authority to be esteemed as on par with the Bible. Truth is not stagnant. It is still being disseminated.

    ”Sometimes the light’s all shining on me, other times I can barely see…”

    ~ Grateful Dead: Truckin’

    Look, the Bible is ”living literature” as Jordan Peterson says in his book list. I like that. Although not written in the canon of scripture, it rings true to me. As living literature, it speaks to each person differently at different times. 

    Two important things I’ve learned about reading it. The first is, it is most definitely not a book for me to read to find out how you should live. One passage compares scriptural truth to a mirror. You don’t look at yourself in a mirror to find out how someone else looks. The minute a Bible reader does that, they’ve veered from the purpose of the texts. 

    The second is: When you hear truth in its pages, be a doer and not a hearer only. (John 7:17, James 1:23,24). Otherwise, reading it is doing you more harm than good.

    Suppose God is the Author of all truth, wherever it is found

    Here’s an interesting thing to contemplate. What if we agreed that God is the author of all truth wherever you find it? And, that as such, it is impossible for God to lie. Yes, I know. That means there is something an all-powerful God cannot or at least will not do. If we accept that premise, it becomes easy to see that the Bible is not the sole repository of truth. It becomes possible to believe that God can speak to you at any time, from any source. It might even make you open your ears, and pay closer attention, no? After all both of the following are true. 

    ”You ain’t gonna learn what you don’t want to know.”

    ~ Grateful Dead: Black-Throated Wind

    and;

    ”It is senseless to pay to educate a fool since he has no heart for learning.”

    ~ Proverbs 17:16, New Living Translation

    Reality

    In one of the most oft-quoted verses, Jesus states, 

    ”I am The Way, The Truth, and The Life…”

    ~ NT, John 14:6

    That Greek word for Truth is alētheia. This word does not limit itself to doctrinal, logged, codified truth. It is the word for REALITY. If we accept as true what Jesus says about being, Himself, Reality, then, of course we must admit that the Bible is not the last, sole, comprehensive repository of all truth. 

    ”Maybe you’ll find direction around some corner where it’s been waiting to meet you.”

    ~ Grateful Dead: Box of Rain

  • Where is your faith?

    One of my favorite NT passages is in Luke chapter 8. Jesus is with his disciples and decides to go to ”the other side” of the Sea of Galilee. They get into a boat and off they sail. Jesus falls asleep in the boat on the way across, leaving the navigation in the hands of accomplished fishermen, many of whom have grown up around this lake and made their livelihoods from it. 

    But, a storm of high wind comes down on the lake, sunken as it is in the topography of the region, and the boat begins to fill with water, threatening to swamp the boat miles from shore.

    These seasoned fishermen, who have undoubtedly been in boats during storms on this body of water before, decide that now is a good time to wake up the carpenter from his nap to tell him, Master, we perish.. And the carpenter from Nazareth rebuked the wind and the waves so that the lake became calm again. Then, in my favorite part of the story, he turns to the disciples and says, ”Where is your faith…”?

    Luke’s narrative says, ”then they were afraid…”.

    Excuse me?

    Then…they were afraid?

    They must have been at least troubled, if not outright terrified, to have awakened Jesus to tell him the boat was filling with water and they were going to drown. And now that the wind and water are calm again these seasoned fishermen are afraid?

    You’d think that the act of waking him up would have shown their faith. It seems that Jesus would have had no need to ask where their faith was. They called on him, after all. But apparently, they had done so just so he wouldn’t sleep through the tragedy. Clearly, they were astonished by what he had done to save them. They sure hadn’t expected this. Now they are more afraid of the solution than they had been of the problem.

    Not exactly fear inducing, eh? Or is it?

    I try to see my place in this story. This small vessel is so tossed by wind-whipped waves out on the open lake that it is taking in water, yet Jesus is asleep? That would have been one heckuva rolling, bucking little boat, but he was undisturbed. Would that have inspired me…or angered me? Would I have remembered that at the start of the journey he had said, ”Let us go to the other side” and since we weren’t yet at the other side the journey wasn’t over? Would I have thought he didn’t care? (In another gospel, they did think that). When he finally does wake up to calm the situation just by speaking, would that have changed my life forever? Would I have finally realized who this person is, and in light of that, how foolish my fear is?

    Like all of us, these men had placed their faith somewhere. Maybe in themselves and their seamanship. Maybe in their ability to predict the weather. Maybe in general circumstances. Maybe they knew they were good swimmers. I can’t know. I’m sure Jesus’ question was rhetorical. He knew that all of us put faith in something, but in a pinch, it may not be the right thing.

    I suspect that Jesus knew these men were rugged, working class, tough, and pretty fearless. I suspect he knew they were self-reliant, independent, and resilient. They would have needed a pretty close brush with mortality, even though this was likely a very familiar occurrence to many of these men. But not at this magnitude. Not with wind at this ferocity.

    Jesus knows how to bring each of us to zero. He knows how to bring you to the end of yourself. He knows that as long as you’re trusting in you, you cannot be simultaneously trusting in Him.

    Not far from where this little boat eventually made safe landfall, Jesus said, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs in the Kingdom of God. Only those who recognize their bankrupt spiritual state are fit for the Kingdom. He has a way of breaking all of us who say we want to follow Him. Even if it means we’re in the storm of our lives, and it looks like He’s sleeping through it and completely oblivious.

  • Thoughts On Cain & Abel

    It occurred to me today that the first murder recorded in the Bible was the killing of Abel by his brother, Cain. I’ve read the story many times, but it never registered that this was the first mention of homicide. More interesting to me today, was the realization that this was a religiously motivated murder. 

    So, combining the concepts, there is a lot going on. There’s fratricide, religious murder, and the first homicide all rolled up into the same event. 

    People have many different views of the Bible. The inclusion of this story has many lessons for the reader, no matter what view may be taken.

    One is this, all murder is fratricide. We’re all members of the same human family.

    Another is that a person who tries to earn favor with God by works (as Cain did in bringing an offering consisting of the works of his own hands), will be outraged when those works don’t secure the righteousness they think it will. 

    That rage can be multiplied and converted to murder when coupled with jealousy towards one who is deemed to be righteous, not by working for it, but by believing for it, as Abel was.

    It is curious to see the relationships between religious works, disappointment, jealousy, anger, and murder. It is sadly curious that the combination of these is stronger than blood.

    This thread runs through the Bible (and human history) and culminates with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ by the religious rulers of his day. Let’s take heed and try to treat each other with decency and respect, we’re family after all.