“Forever,
O Lord, Your word is settled in Heaven. Your faithfulness endures to all
generations; You established the earth, and it abides.” Psalm 119:89-90 NKJV
I
saw a thing making its rounds on Facebook recently which stated, “The Bible
does not need to be rewritten; it needs to be reread.” What comes
immediately to mind are those editors who would strive for gender-neutral and
more fully-inclusive language – and yet many of these would still, strictly
from memory and with no real thought, lift up “Our Father who art in Heaven
…” Some of these same self-declared editors would quote Martin Luther,
John Calvin, John Wesley, St. Augustine, and many others verbatim but will also
insist upon editing what is written in the Scriptures so as to make what is
written in and for the ages somehow “less offensive”.
Yet
these editors are not the only ones who distort what is written. The
Christians who claim to love Jesus but are willfully ignorant of what is
written in the Gospels about our Lord do a grave disservice to what is written
for us to know, and betray what has been handed down through the ages for the
good of the Church – the whole body of believers. These are the ones who
do not “seek” at all, choosing instead to make it up according to what makes
sense to them in any given circumstances.
The
stink of this, however, is that most of us are guilty to one degree or another
of trying to edit the Scriptures to fit our own lives rather than to adjust our
own lives in accordance with what is written for our well-being. We have
become a little too independent for our own good. The damage is not
strictly what we are doing to ourselves in our pride or willful ignorance; it
is the lasting damage we do to our children, our grandchildren, and our
unbelieving neighbors when they hear us claim the Christian faith but watch
us distort (or edit) what is actually written and “settled in Heaven”.
Jesus
says, “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather
with Me scatters” (Luke 11:23). Jesus, speaking as the “Word
which became flesh and dwelt among us” is teaching in accordance to the
same Word which “is settled in Heaven”. Yet we dare to
suggest we can somehow make the Eternal Word more relevant today by denying
2000 years of sound doctrine. It is little wonder we watch the TV news
with horror and disgust while lamenting a “lost generation”!
Jesus
assures His followers that if we will “seek, we shall find”.
If we do not bother to seek, however, we will find nothing. Without
Christ we already have nothing – there is no need to look for more of “nothing”
in a world that does not know The Word. Let us diligently search together
for that which “is settled in Heaven” and will “endure to all
generations”. The Bible has not become outdated or irrelevant to our time
and generation; we’ve just become a little too big for our spiritual britches!
Blessings,
Michael
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