How do you look at God's Word? part 2

I remember when I was younger, there was this phrase - "God said it, I believe it, that settles it." To me this meant whatever God said, I was to do it no questions asked. It was simple and sounded easy to do, also it was a "catchy phrase." (Personal commentary I have always been a sucker for "catchy phrases.") In order to carry out this "catchy phrase" all you had to do was read the Bible and do what it said. What could be easier than that? The truth of the matter is that no one does this, because to do this literally, it would mean actually reliving the 1st century in the 20th century (when the phrase came out). That was not going to happen, so what ended up happening was picking and choosing what you believed and practiced. It was never stated this blatantly, but was glossed over with better terms. Of course, this was a cause of much division and still is, because we pick and choose different facts to be important.

Our fellowship also had a "catch phrase." It was - Restoring New Testament Christianity. We believed that the Christianity practiced in the 1st century had to be right because it came directly from the apostles inspired by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it seemed logical that if we could reproduce 1st century Christianity we would be obeying God. All we needed was a pattern. A search was made and out of a combination of commands, examples and inferences a pattern for the church was established including a five-step plan of salvation, five items of worship and an organizational chart. This was done by very sincere men seeking to unify a much divided and often ineffectual Christian church. But their goal has not been reached, we are still divided and are not reaching the majority of people.

More next time -

shalom Johnny