Cornerstone of Faith ...

What is truth?  What is fact?  Lawyers argue “the facts of case” each seeking to convince a jury that their own position is the correct one.  But how can both be right, or wrong?  Discerning truth becomes a challenging thing when evil’s influence in pervasive and powerful.  Evil cannot defeat truth, but it can mask it, obfuscate it, bury it in enigma, or make it seem unpalatable.  If evil is able to convince you to question the source of truth, how can you ever know what truth is?  With so many competing voices that all claim to know what truth is, we are faced with the dilemma of choosing where to put our faith and trust.  It is easy to say we will trust our God, but then who’s God?  The God described in the Old Testament of the Bible, the New Testament, the Talmud perhaps, the Quran, Hindu writings, those of Confucius, where do we turn to find a basis, a cornerstone from which to discern truth?

Christians point to the Bible as the source of truth.  But Lucifer has not been idle in putting forth arguments to destroy the credibility of the scriptures.  The idea that truth has been somehow “lost in translation” from scrolls that date back nearly 3000 years has merit from a logical perspective.  Any child who has ever sat in a circle and played the gossip game can attest to this.  Then there is the dilemma that even ancient texts written in the time of the Bible may not be directly attributable to sources we believe to be inspired.  Recently a “gospel of Judas” and a “gospel of Mary Magdalene” have been discovered.  Neither agrees with New Testament writings but both have been put forth as viable additions to our current collection.  Even those that were in existence at the council of Nicaea were debated with some being excluded from what we now refer to as the New Testament.  Add to this the Catholic church’s position that scripture must be the sole province of priests to interpret and what scripture there is had to be preserved and copied in caves for nearly a millennia until the printing press was invented.  Even if we accept the current collection of writings that compose the books of our Bible, there exists today no less than 10 significant “versions” of the same text.  Attempts to simplify the language of the King James version has resulted in widely differing interpretations of the same base texts. 

Science, or rather men who profess that scientific thinking is the only viable method for finding truth, have proposed that the “evidence” of evolution outweighs the miraculous accounts of our creation in the Book of Genesis, therefore the portions of scripture which deal with the fantastic must be allegories written by enlightened philosophers in an attempt to make men better than they are.  These scientists have all but declared that there can be no basis in truth of the Bible, at best idealistic ideas, at worst superstitions designed to control men by appealing to their fears of the unknown and death.  There are “creation scientists” who seek out evidence supporting the ideas of creation and the flood for instance, but as they approach science with a predefined set of ideas they are derided by their peers.  Many modern Christians seek to find a balance between the big bang / evolution and the accounts written in scripture – deciding that where science can be proven, it is there that scripture is in error.

Atheists claim their ideology, or rather lack of ideology, is the fastest growing segment in modernized nations.  The implication is that with higher education, and higher IQ, comes a lack of belief in scriptures.  Atheists assert that intellect is the key to the discovery of truth, and being bound to texts of ancient superstition is merely a cherished part of our past.  They assert that freedom from the ideas of punishment or reward at death liberate one to live in the here and now.  They have a point actually.

It is a wonder that any Christian can maintain faith in our Bible.  But then what is faith but a choice as to what to believe.  The evolutionist chooses to believe that despite the inability to take base elements from the periodic table and create life, it was done anyway.  They believe that even though it requires billions of years as the variable to evolve, combined with trillion to one odds, it happened as theorized anyway.  There are many facts on the other side of the evolutionist aisle, enough to cause doubt in the mind of any true scientist, making the theory of evolution one of choice as well.  The Atheist too must also make a choice not to believe in anything beyond what they can see, feel, touch, and describe.  Atheists do not do well with mysteries, and completely discard supernatural phenomenon, until it happens to them.  Belief is about choice first and foremost.

To answer the question of the accuracy of the content of our Bible, and the validity of the books that were included in it, one must examine the question “why” would it be our basis of truth.  The purpose of the Bible is not to define condemnation for evil, it takes no such volumes to accomplish such an obvious goal.  Rather, the Bible is a love letter that speaks incessantly of hope, love and redemption.  The Bible is given to man by a God who explains why evil exists, how to be free from it, what love means, and of an eternal destiny that will unite us with Him in the absence of all evil permanently.  The Bible is about making an informed decision as to whether to follow the God who stands behind its inspiration.  If the Bible is a lie, then the God who purports to be behind it does not exist.  There is no middle ground.  God cannot expect man to make an informed decision to follow Him based on partial truth, omissions of critical facts, or ideas that were lost in translation.  Man can only choose to love God if an accurate picture of God is provided in scripture.

If what is in the Bible is incomplete, then we do not have enough information to make our decision for or against the God of the Bible.  If the information in the Bible has been altered by the designs of men, then the God who stands behind it cares not enough to preserve His own letter to us.  If the information is mere allegory then why is it presented as fact.  If the Bible is a lie, whether in part, or in full, then hope is a lie – redemption is a myth – purpose and individuality are meaningless – and death is the only real escape from the evil that surrounds us and inhabits us.  The Bible if accurate, answers all these dilemmas and gives us a complete picture of love and of evil.  Not all the things that occur in scripture are by the will of God.  Many are acts committed by men in various circumstances that illustrate evil and the consequences of evil.  But with every instance of death or destruction in the scriptures are even more instances of mercy whether accepted or rejected.

Those Christians who seek to integrate competing ideas of evolutionism and creationism are attempting to blend completely counter ideologies.  We were either created by design, or not.  There can be no middle ground.  To try to annul portions of scripture is to deny the power of the God who stands behind them.  Why bother with scripture at all, if the God behind it is a liar.  Those Christians who believe we should take the writings of Paul out of the Bible, equally deny the God who has stood behind our Bible for nearly 2000 years.  The Bible has been preserved at great peril by those who chose to abandon their homes and run from persecution in order to preserve the sacred word.  To have them die in vain for the writings of Paul, so that “modern enlightened” Christians who do not like what Paul says can remove them only now, is to have their martyred deaths and persecuted lives for nothing.  That too is not a picture of a God in whom I would serve.

But if the Bible is not a lie, if it is indeed the absolute truth, then love is real – a finality to evil is real, both in me and around me.  If the Bible is the unvarnished truth it does not change over time.  The study of it will yield even more truth as we submit ourselves to the God who was its inspiration and protector for all these generations.  The God who means to communicate with us through the instrument of His written word, longs to lead us to understand it as it was meant to be understood.  He longs to show us the deeper meaning in the stories, lives, writings, songs, failures, and successes we find throughout scripture.  He does not bury the truth in numerology that would require a supercomputer to decode.  He presents it plainly in language the audience of the day could understand.  Its principles and values live on as if written only yesterday.  Its message is truly timeless, as truth itself is timeless.

One could argue that every religion has “sacred’ texts, and that our Bible is no different than any other competing set of written works.  But there is one difference that remains, in every other religious ideology lives the notion that service must be offered in order for favor to be granted.  Only does our Bible teach about a God who does the work of saving His creations from evil – even while they choose to number themselves as His enemies.  Our God reaches out to us in love, even before we know who He is.  Our God does the work of reforming, transforming, and recreating a new character within us as we submit to Him.  In every other ideology, man finds enlightenment through his actions or abstentions – only in the Bible is man offered wisdom as a gift.  Only in the Bible are the enemies of God loved by Him, with incessant offers to save them from the evil they choose to embrace.  This difference is substantial.  It is the reason why Christianity and the scriptures behind it offer a better life than ALL the other competing ideologies.  Man simply cannot save himself.  This is a demonstrable scientific fact.  Only the Bible offers man a future without evil as a gift.

Those who argue that the Spirit of God has informed them to disregard portions of scripture are essentially arguing that God cannot make up His own mind about His word.  If God is the God behind the scriptures, why would His Spirit decide some of them should not be there?  In order for God to be God He must be consistent.  In order for truth to be truth it too must be consistent and accurate.  If the Bible contains inaccuracies or partial truths it cannot claim to be “the” truth.  Our interpretations of the meaning of scripture varies, but the words themselves remain, unchanged, and there by the intentions of a loving God.

Scripture can be used as a cornerstone of faith.  One must ultimately make a choice as to what to believe.  But putting our faith in scripture is our best hope to discover what truth is.  It is a choice to put our faith in something over which we have no control.  It is an act of trust in the God who is behind the words in His book.  It then becomes a doorway into discovering who He is, what it means to love and be loved.  It is our gateway to truth.  We will finally know truth, when we see Him face to face.  For Christ is truth.  Everything about Him is truth.  Everything about His Father, and His Spirit are truth.  There is no guile, no deceit, no omission of facts, no exaggerations, no partial truths in anything that God has said to us, or will ever say to us.  It will forever be only truth, and with that truth will come the freedom of truth, the beauty of truth, and the truly profound discovery of truth itself.  I make this choice gladly and would happily encourage anyone else to do the same.  In God, and in His word, I safely put my trust, for He alone is truth.

A Basis For Truth ...

Logic dictates a few truths about the nature of a Supreme Being we call God. Evil self-destructs over time, so a true God must only contain what we call good, no evil of any kind. As we can see that both evil and good exist in our world, something must have gone wrong with the plans of God. A God of love could not demand our affections but only ask for them. A God of love must somehow let us know what is going with Himself and with evil in order for us to make an informed choice of whether to love Him or not. Obviously someone chose not to love Him as evil now exists.

The question for us is where to go to find this communication from God to us regarding the state of things. In the beginning of our world, when man used 100% of his brain instead of the meager percentage we use now, God spoke directly with mankind. He walked with Adam and Eve in the perfection of the Garden of Eden in the evenings together. Adam and Eve passed their knowledge of God down orally to their children, and children’s children. Even Noah lived for 400 years after the flood. But in the years that followed, man’s life expectancy was greatly reduced, and his knowledge of God began to fade from the earth until Abraham. Abraham began a quest to find God once again, and God heard his pleas. God spoke directly with Abraham, and even visited him a few times in person in the guise of a traveler.

Abraham was blessed of God and began passing his information on God down through his genealogy who also had a few personal experiences with God (Jacob wrestling with the Angel, and dreaming of the ladder to heaven; Joseph interpreting dreams to pharaoh, etc.). But over the years the children of Israel became slaves in the land of Egypt, and began losing sight of God once again. Moses came and restored the reality of God in the eyes, minds, and hearts of the people once again. Moses in the time He spent with God in the mountains of Sinai began writing the first few “books” of the Bible, originally called the Torah. This was the first written manuscript of communication between God and man. It was written by Moses but inspired by God. The man was not perfect, but the communication would have to be, or the message of God would not come cleanly to His people and we would be misled. We cannot make an informed decision to love someone, based on half-truths, innuendo, or outright lies and misrepresentations. Therefore Logic again dictates that God must be accurate in His communication with us, or the point of communicating itself would be lost.

Over the next few centuries as the history of God’s originally chosen people would unfold. Leaders, Prophets, Judges, Priests, Kings, and humble servants would arise and chronicle the interactions of God with His people. Their hope was founded in the original promises of God to Adam and Eve, that a Messiah would come. The Messiah would take away the sins of the people, redeem them to God, and be our deliverer. Many prophesied about the details a Messiah would fulfill in His lifetime. But by the time of his predicted appearing the children of Israel had so degraded their view of God, that they wished only for a deliverer from the bondage of Rome. They had lost sight of the greater mission of the promised Messiah, to redeem them to God. So when Christ appeared on the scene, the religious leaders of the day thought only to maintain their power and control over the masses, and rejected the cornerstone of their faith.

After the ascension of our Lord to heaven, His disciples began once again chronicling the interactions of our God with His people, as well as His extension of Salvation to ALL men, not just those of Israel. Many new books were written, generally carrying the name of the Author, again inspired by the Holy Spirit but written by men. In roughly 325 AD the council of Nicaea under Roman emperor Constantine, sifted through the manuscripts of the day, sorting out the historical from the sacred and compiling what is now known as our Bible. Our Bible is then a collection of smaller books, written by authors from time of Moses until the time of the disciples, last of which was John the Revelator who penned the last book from the Isle of Patmos.

There were always books that claimed divine inspiration but for one reason or another were not included in the 66 volumes that now comprise our Bible. Might we have lost something important in the collecting process? Possibly. But remember the point of communication from God is to allow us to make an informed decision about whether to love Him or not. If what we were missing were critical enough to affect that decision, our decisions would be moot. Therefore Logic dictates that the information included in the Bible must be accurate and complete enough to make our informed decisions. And so we now use the Bible as our basis of truth. We compare new communication with the messages we read within it to determine the validity of the new information. If it builds upon what we know, we tend to be accepting, if it destroys what is written, we tend to reject it.

Logic dictates other less positive news for us as well. The presence of evil in our world creates a virtual guarantee that despite its final outcome in loss, it will nonetheless war with fervor against all that is good. One of the most effective ways of countering the influence of good in the world is to develop alternative ideas to it. People will not choose pain if the alternate choice of joy is available. But people may become confused if there are several choices available which all claim to result in joy, when in fact only one does. And so comes the invention of counterfeits, items that resemble the original, but are lacking in the quality or content of the original masterwork. In the spiritual world, this required counterfeiting the mission of our Messiah. Horace was introduced in Egyptian religions with many of the same characteristics we were to expect in our Messiah. But Horace does not meet all the requirements and so the counterfeit is revealed. Still, just the existence of a single counterfeit is enough to destroy the faith of many in what is real.

So where Good offers us the volume of the Bible, Evil must also present some alternatives to keep us confused. Enter all the other competitor books claiming divine inspiration for their origin, but all have one single element in common; they each and every one – undo principle teachings of the Bible. The Quran may be the most insidious. This is because outright lies are easier to detect, and dispute. But lies mixed with half-truths are much harder to ferret out and reveal the distinctions that cause the errors they produce. The Islamic faith traces back its God to the same God of Abraham. The Quran accepts many of the Biblical patriarchs as “prophets” of God, including Christ. So by not denying Him outright, the Quran attempts to reduce His role in our Salvation, denying His divinity. But the end result of this teaching winds up with the same religious basis of every other counterfeit religious system – the idea that man can save himself and achieve perfection by sheer will and the actions he performs.

Evil must attack the key principles of our Salvation in order to defeat it. Evil first attacks the idea that we even need to be “saved”. Evil markets evil to us as fun, excitement, and the only reason for living – why would anyone want to be saved from that? Next, for those who see through the illusions that evil presents in its marketing, evil suggests that if you do need to be saved, you can do it yourself. This idea of self-reliance, and focus on self, is the base principle for all that is evil in the first place. Keeping self at the center of our religion, defeats Christ’s ability to offer us real change. If we believe we can in effect, save ourselves, we do not need a Savior, and therefore are excellent candidates for religions systems such as Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, or even New Agers. Then for those who see through this illusion of self-based salvation, evil offers competing Saviors. Enter the dynamic cult figures such as Jim Jones or David Koresh; men who use the Bible to mislead sheep into following them hook, line, and sinker. Though the numbers are smaller, the principle of counterfeiting what God offers is an effective strategy against the good our God offers.

Next, in order to muddy the water further, evil introduces external written manuscripts as having equal weight with what is found in existing scripture. The gospel of Judas was recently discovered in Palestine, and as such it is immediately offered equal weight with any other gospel by those who do not believe in the scriptures anyway. The same phenomenon happens with the gospel of Mary Magdalene, and Mary the Mother of Christ. There is no way to verify the authors are who they claim to be, in addition, like always, these “gospels” disagree with the truths we know from the real Bible. But it is not just with old texts that falsehood arises, ideas like those of Joseph Smith and the Mormon faith arise. More modern texts have arrived that offer alternative ideas to those of the original scriptures.

And this entire conversation to this point has only dealt with the written forms of communication between God and us. There is an entirely different method that He sometimes, albeit rarely employs, that is face to face communication through prophecy, dreams, and real world encounter. Many claim to have heard from God directly, and most then usually begin by telling us how scripture is mistaken. That of course is the first clue the source of their supernatural experience is probably NOT of God. Truth as we have discussed can deepen, but not be overturned in its fundamental form. I make a distinction between the doctrines we may cling to that are supposed to be ideas that help us understand some characteristic about God, and the idea that our God exists, and is who He says He is. The latter is fundamental and cannot be undone, the former is more subjective and may in fact completely change as our knowledge of truth deepens. The idea that you can save yourself is a fundamental lie that cannot be altered, while the process for how Christ removes sin from you is up for much further discussion.

We should be open to finding more meaning in the scriptures we read than just what meets the eye. For example there are those that suggest the story of the flood is not literal, but only an allegory about the eventual destruction of evil in our world. This is one of those deceptive half-truths. The story is an excellent allegory, and could be used to teach us real world lessons for life right now. But it remains also a literal story of the history of God’s interaction with us. Where prophecy is concerned often there is more than one meaning that could be applied. Perhaps this is just another deepening of truth rather than discarding of it. Perhaps we should apply multiple meanings and see where each leads. As discussed before the most effective part of the process of studying truth begins with submitting the will, the ideas, and the dreams of the student to the Master – Christ.

Logic allows us a degree of certainty that our Bible is accurate, literal, inspired of God, preserved by Him over the years, and given to us as a gift to discern truth from error. Without this fundamental tool we would not have a basis to make an informed decision regarding the character of God who offers us unconditional love and hopes to see it returned. We can safely place our faith in both our God and His written word to us, and safely ignore what we come across that lies in conflict with what we know to be true. While it is good to evolve doctrines, and deepen truth, it will not ever change the fact that Christ is our Lord, Son of the living God, and Savior. Our Bible established this fact, and our lives will affirm it when lived in submission to Him.