The Scripture Cannot Be Broken

We have become occupied around here for several months with discussion of the Church: not just local church, but the entire Body of believers in Jesus everywhere.  Occupied with it's history, it's condition in the world now, and it's future.  Truth be told, I am thinking about these things primarily for selfish reasons.  I want to have some significance in God's business during my short stay on this planet.  I dread insignificance (don't you?) and am deeply encouraged by relationship with God, by what He has revealed to me in the Bible about His love for me, about my having a role in His great purpose and plan (however small that role may be).  You know, I guess, about "You are the potter;  I am the clay."  That is, the appropriate way to think about our relationship to God is with humility, at every turn letting Him be God. 

A part of this humility is letting God's Word have authority over me (us).  Jesus declared: "Your Word is truth." (Jn. 17:17). He added elsewhere, "If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken." (Jn.10:34-35). "Laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the traditions of men…, making the word of God of no effect through your traditions." (Mk. 7:8, 13). Paul declared that "All scripture is given by inspiration of God…."(2 Tim. 3:16). The Scripture is the Word of God (Rom. 9:6) and God cannot err (Titus 1:2). Jesus said, "'It is written'…by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." (Mt. 4:4). Since the Bible is the revelation of God in words, we must take its authority seriously.  By that I mean that God, via the message of the Bible, has the right to instruct us what to do, as well as to put boundaries around our behaviors. 

Can I say that I am a follower of Jesus, or in any sense claim to be under God's authority, if I am willing to set aside the Bible when considering what is right and wrong?  Can I say I belong to God (in the sense of being one of His people) if I deny the authority of His Word over my life?

The results of denying God's authority is illustrated everywhere every day.  Consider this report, keeping in mind that the leader mentioned is the highest ranking leader of a major American Christian denomination.  

So I call on you to be alert to teachers, messengers, spirits, who call you to slip out from under God's authority, and to follow their new plan:  their new, modern, deeper understanding of the ways of God.   The great apostasy Paul wrote of so much is for real. 

We all feel the need for significance.  But I want to be significant as a servant of God, not as a servant of the Devil.

-Guest post by David Nitz