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DAILY DEVOTIONAL 
By Carl Shank 11 Jul, 2024
Biblical Authority For All Areas of Life Do you recall the old vacation Bible school song? — “The B-I-B-L-E / Yes, That’s the Book for me / I stand alone on the Word of God / The B-I-B-L-E.” When I asked the artificial intelligence site, Calude.ai, for a recent summary of “biblical authority,” it offered the following — “Here's a concise summary of major views on biblical authority: 1. Inerrancy: The Bible is without error in all matters. 2. Infallibility: The Bible is inerrant in matters of faith and practice, but not necessarily in historical or scientific details. 3. Limited Inspiration: Only certain parts of the Bible are divinely inspired. 4. Neo-orthodox: The Bible becomes the Word of God through personal encounter. 5. Liberal: The Bible is a human document containing spiritual insights but not divine revelation. 6. Canonical Criticism: Focuses on the final form of the text as authoritative. 7. Historical-Grammatical: Emphasizes original context and language for interpretation. 8. Allegorical: Seeks hidden spiritual meanings beyond the literal text. 9. Existential: Emphasizes personal interpretation and application. 10. Post-modern: Views biblical authority as culturally constructed.” Again, AI has missed the point of “inerrancy.” Biblical inerrancy does NOT claim the Bible is without error in all matters , but rather the Bible is without error in “ all that it claims. ” While this may be seen as “infallibility,” according to AI’s summary, it really outlines what evangelicals have claimed forever as “inerrancy.” But we are ahead of ourselves. Biblical authority presumes faith-submission belief. The presupposition of most writers here, including the internet Wikipedia article on “biblical authority,” is that the Bible is just another book that can be subjected to autonomous, human critical thinking and dissecting. Once we start with a supposed “neutral” human position, we are then allowed to critique anything by anybody, including the Word of God, and even “God” himself. No one starts without critical presuppositions that inform and even dictate what the results of study and reflection and life choices involve. Those who choose to place their critical suppositions on the Bible are predisposed to disbelieve many parts of the Bible, or even reject the Bible’s claim to authority itself. This is a fact that has been demonstrated over and over again in the literature about the Bible. What we do not like, we do not like. And we therefore do not take the Bible’s precepts at face value. That is especially true in a post-modern world that has gone way beyond the old modernistic liberalism of the nineteenth and even twentieth century. We do not want God telling us what to believe, how to live and how to make choices on everything. Consequently, biblical authority is a non-starter for many people. Can a non-believer in Christ as Savior and Lord of their life submit to biblical authority? Not really, and certainly not evenly. The debate about certain Bible verses and declarations centers around a presuppositional tablet of belief and practice. The biblical Christian takes God’s Word on the authority of God himself, who cannot lie and who does not deceive. Biblical faith requires submission to the overriding Lordship of Christ over all of life and thinking. Without that submission, there is no consistent or thorough biblical authority. This does not mean that there are no hard places in the Bible to understand and relate to modern culture and society. Moreover, our natural and sinfully laced examination of the Bible darkens and prevents much understanding of these so-called “hard” places. Books and seminars and sermons on such supposed “difficulties” have failed to satisfy many people due to their internal rejection of God as Lord of their life and thought and choices. On the other hand, those who have a willing submission to God’s authority over their lives have increasingly found resolutions to such “hard” places in Scripture. Presuppositional “openness” to God and what God says in the Bible is at the forefront of biblical authority. Biblical authority is “contextual” authority. The so-called verse separations we see in our Bibles betray our understanding of biblical authority. We must always relate each “verse” to the context of that verse, locally and then extensively throughout the Bible. Picking and choosing verses we “like” or “don’t like” or have trouble with is no way to read or understand the Bible and its authority. Unfortunately, large parts of the Church of Christ over the years have fed into such an erroneous system of understanding and living out what the Bible says and means. Context is truly king here. Biblical authority is “all of life and thought” authority. Those who dichotomize faith from the rest of life have foreseen trouble with biblical authority. God gives us a “world and life” point of view in the Bible. Either we admit and accept such a viewpoint or we do not. I have a friend who helps doctors and nurses in their medical training. That training in our day is in many aspects diametrically opposed to the teaching and authority of Scripture in their professional practice and life. This anti-God study and practice militates against biblical authority in their profession. And, in a number of cases, they cannot legally practice medicine with an overriding submission to Scripture in their minds and hearts. Or, they must hide such belief and submission as they practice medicine. That does not mean we have no Christian doctors or nurses. What it does mean is that some aspects of current medical care are “off-limits” to them, if they seek to be submissive to God and the Scriptures. I admit that I am a “bottom-line” kind of Christian. There is truth and there is falsehood. Do I believe we should write and talk with and debate with unbelievers about biblical authority? Yes and no. Yes, if there is a genuine willingness to find God’s truth. No, if this is just an academic exercise with no resolution perceived or intended. At the end of the age and judgment, God is not going to adjudicate people according to where they lived or what cultural time line they occupied. His judgment will be based on his character and Word. No fudging then and there. After over forty years in Christian ministry and theological study, I have been disappointed time and again over endless debates with unbelievers over the Bible’s authority and integrity. Do I believe God preserved his Word through the ages? Yes, I believe in God’s overriding providential sovereign control of people and events and church councils and debates on the integrity of the Bible. Unless God does an invisible, yet definite, spiritual opening of eyes to see, ears to hear and hearts to understand and submit to the Bible, that never happens. We live in a world of choices. Biblical authority is a choice. “The B-I-B-L-E / Yes, That’s the Book for me / I stand alone on the Word of God / The B-I-B-L-E.”
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Oct 15, 2024

Nothing In My Hand I Bring

Colossians 2:6; John 1:12


“As salvation is wholly a gift and never a purchase, those coming to the Redeemer must bring nothing in their hand, and offer nothing as a price, but just come as they are; in so doing, even the most worthless will get welcome and the weariest rest.

Saints must be receivers to the very end, for, as one says, 'they are not wells, but cisterns into which the living waters flow. They are but the empty vessel; sovereign mercy puts them under the conduit pipe, and they receive grace upon grace, till they are filled to the brim.' In accepting Christ, it is not mere impersonal abstraction they

receive, but a true and living Saviour, human yet divine, who is their life and safety, their pattern and power. He is as real to them as their own flesh and bones, and infinitely dearer than brother or friend. And just because he saves them from their sins, the name Jesus is the name of names to them, and ever sounds sweetly in their ear. 'It is the music with which the bells of heaven ring,' George Herbert says; 'a song in a word, an ocean for comprehension, a gathering up of the hallelujahs of eternity in five letters.'”


Nothing in my hand I bring. Do you recall that old gospel hymn? “Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to thy cross I cling, Jesus I come, I come.” I love the image of a “cistern” referenced by Macdonald above. Part of my growing up years was with a cistern that fed water to our house. We had to depend on rain from heaven to feed the cistern so we could have water. And when dry spells came, we had to carry water from a neighbor’s well. We were completely dependent on God’s mercy and grace to provide water for our daily needs. The same is true of our Christian lives. Everything depends on the continuous, flowing grace of God in Christ Jesus. Apart from that we dry up and desperate in our Christian walk. How good a “cistern” are you?


A Puritan Prayer —

“O Lord, you know my mighty sins. They have brought nothing but misery. What a mess I am in! I am sold as a slave to sin, cast out of your favor, cursed in my body, and cursed in my soul. I am cursed in my name, in my relations, and in all that I have. My soul is within a step of death. 


What do I do? Where will I go? Which way will I look? Where should I flee? What place could hide me from your presence, everywhere? What could secure me from your unlimited power? Will I linger any longer like this, the way I was? No. If I waited there as I was, I would die. What then? Is there no help? No hope? None, unless I turn. 


But is there any remedy for such woeful misery? Any mercy? Yes! As sure as your promise is true, God, I will have pardon and mercy—if I now genuinely, and without reservation, turn by Christ to you. So I thank you on the bended knees of my soul, O most merciful Jehovah, that your patience has waited for me. Because if I had died as I was before, I would have perished forever. And now I adore your grace, and accept the offer of your mercy.in holiness and righteousness all the days of my life. Amen. (Joseph Alleine)


(Joseph Alleine (baptised 8 April 1634 – 17 November 1668) was an English Nonconformist pastor and author of many religious works. His chief literary work was An Alarm to the Unconverted (1672), otherwise known as The Sure Guide to Heaven, which had an enormous circulation.)


"We must unquestionably receive its [the Bible's] statements of fact,  bow before its enunciation of duty, tremble before its threatenings, 
and rest upon its promises." – B.B. Warfield


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