I remember that one of our lecturers in Bible school said something like, “We need to interpret the world based on the Bible rather than the Bible based on the world.” A simple but profound statement.
I’ve thought about that statement in the last couple weeks as I was reading about, thinking about and teaching about homosexuality. It’s a hot topic with strong opinions on all possible sides. I realized that although there is still controversy among those who uphold the Bible as the source of truth, without it there is no concrete guide for behaviour. Without the Bible’s direction deciding what is appropriate and ‘normal’ is subject to logic and perspective, which very quickly becomes twisted.
For example, there are those who believe we need to be liberated sexually; be free without any restrictions. This would mean getting rid of marriage and removing cultural taboos (ie. incest is wrong).
To me this seems absolutely ridiculous and yet I can see that if the Bible was removed with all of its wisdom and guidance for life, such thinking could start to make sense. This is exactly what Paul talks about in Romans 1 where people replace God for creation and so, thinking themselves wise, actually become fools.
On this issue (homosexuality) specifically it seems really obvious to me that we need to use the Bible as our standard and source of truth. But as I said to the students, no matter what the issue, whenever we come to the Bible and read something that disagrees with what we’ve thought before we have to make a decision. Will we hold to our beliefs (even beliefs we really like) or will we choose to trust God and His word even though we don’t like it? Are we going to hold tight to our experience or ask God to show us how our experience fits into His truth, trusting it to be true even if He doesn’t resolve that tension for us?
As I’ve been working through all kinds of thoughts and opinions I am so thankful that we don’t just have logic to rely on. I’m thankful that we have a source of objective truth to speak into issues of life.
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