I do not believe that any human understanding of the Bible can be so exhaustive and authoritative as to merit use as an “instrument of doctrinal accountability.”I believe that it is in the best interests of all to leave every believer free to interpret the Bible according the dictates of a conscience that is guided by the Holy Spirit. For it is the Holy Spirit of God that should hold preeminence in our lives as Believers.
I believe that each believer should be free to think for themselves, I believe there is a broad consensus among believers concerning the scriptures, as it should be.
I believe that true Christians love and respect the Bible.
We should believe as Christians that the Bible is a holy book in that it holds a separate and unique place in each of our lives. It is the story of God's love. We as believers are part of that story. We as Christians identify with this story and it gives meaning and direction to each of our lives in many different ways.
While I love and respect the Bible, I do not worship it. The Bible is the written word of God. In and of itself it is paper and ink, words and sentences, and has no life. The Bible is not the supreme revelation of God,Jesus the Messiah is. The Bible, points to and must be fulfilled and completed by God's Living Word. Jesus Christ, the Living Word, is the one mediator between God and man. He gives scriptures life by creating from them a spark of understanding in all believers hearts. From that understanding He calls us to a personal relationship with Him. Those who respond in faith to God's call, identify with His story and commit themselves to a life of discipleship. For them, the Bible becomes more than a reliable record of God's revelation in the past. It is the authoritative tradition from which we can view the horizons of life in both time and eternity.
I believe in its divine inspiration and its human authorship.
The story of God's love recorded in the Bible was written by men, but it is God's story. It is the story of the God who created us, gave us life and loved us enough to reveal himself and die for us. Some of the encounters between God and mankind have been documented in written records. I believe that the Spirit of God filled and inspired the writers of the documents that are collected in the Bible. The language, words, and style in which each human author wrote reflects his own individual and unique pattern of thought and understanding at that present time. The meaning and significance of what they wrote, however, transcends their own personal purposes and individual intentions and serves the purposes and intentions of God. I believe that revelations of and from God is progressive and living and did not end 2000 years ago, but is on going within the lives of each and every believer.
“Salvation is not conditioned upon our belief in, or acceptance of, a book.The Bible is NOT what saves us nor is the Bible what we must believe in order to be saved.It is God’s revelation of himself which comes through his direct action upon each of our own individual spirits. . . . God thus becomes our supreme authority and the Bible should be recognized as the authoritative record of his supreme revelation. . . . It is our supreme source of the knowledge of God and his dealings with a people. . .But the true nature of the Bible is that it is the revelation of God in and through Jesus Christ, who is the Living Word and Living Metaphor for our salvation.”
In the words of Glady S. Lewis about the bible and what it means to her as a woman, I find this to be my beliefs as well but her words do it more justice than mine. She says:
"The Bible is a collection of narratives of violence: murder, betrayal, brokenness; in our connections with it through the collegiality of our own brokenness, we find meaning for our narratives-inspiration from the violence done to us AND those which we perpetrate on others. To make it a totem, an object of worship, or a lucky charm violates its spirit and diminishes its force for healing. It is a road map for our journey, a diary for our reflection, and a compass for our direction: a text with many voices, many narrators, many themes, many interpretations...
We learn a great deal by reading the Bible about Jesus which affirms us spiritually and culturally. Especially as women. Especially Jesus and non-Jewish women. He first announced his ministry to one: the woman at the well. Jesus never got entangled with doctrine; he lived it, and while living it, told stories and took care of people. I think this is the edge women have with Jesus. He announced He was the Messiah to a non-Jewish woman-that event came out in a practical ministry setting and conversation — he wanted a drink of water. Of course, the emphasis we get is on his knowing she was a woman with a bad reputation and being kind to her anyway -- chalk one up for male rhetoric.
The Syro-Phoenician woman helped Jesus clarify his ministry by using his language against him. Does the jingo-ism and ethnic chauvinism of Jesus in that passage bother you? After he had fed the multitudes, she came asking him to heal her daughter. He said, “I can’t take the children’s bread and throw it before dogs.” He called her a dog, and I don’t think it was because she was not cute. She said, “Dogs eat crumbs under the children’s table. I would take those.” Jesus checks himself. I am helped enormously by thinking of Jesus as a teacher. I think Jesus had just re-stated the syllabus to 15 freshmen and this Syro-Phoenician woman graduate student walked up with a real question, and Jesus responded in a tone he wanted to use for the freshmen. But she, knowing how to use language and metaphor, turned it on him. Submissiveness? Bah! Balderdash! My exodus experience helps me recognize the divine and it shapes me."
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