Growing up in a church that held tight to the pleas of that Restoration Movement, I heard quite frequently that we should let the Bible speak for itself. If you don’t know what the Restoration Movement is, it’s a group of people who, in the early 19th century, started to realize that they needed to read the Bible with fresh eyes and get away from man-made creeds and ideas and traditions. They wanted to read the Bible as if they had never heard anything about God or the Bible before and just live and “do church” like the Bible said.
Now, like I said, I grew up in a church that firmly agreed with these people and did their best to live and do things in that way, but I’ll be honest…I didn’t really do that. When I read the Bible, the little that I did while growing up, I pretty much read it through the paradigms and traditions that I had learned. I wore my Church of Christ glasses whenever I read God’s Word and I interpreted it in that way.
Now, let me say that I don’t blame this shortcoming of mine on my home church. I’m just stating this so you can understand where my theology came from.
But lately, I have really been convicted of truly stepping back and reading the Bible like I had never picked up a copy before…like I had never heard a sermon before…like I had never developed an idea about God and His Word.
So often I’ll have conversations or I’ll be teaching people and someone will say something like, “Well, I think…” and I just want to say…no scream, “I don’t care what you think!!! What does God’s Word say?!”
What is it that makes us hold on to these convictions and ideas and traditions so tightly and feel like we are betraying God and ourselves if we give them up? Are we afraid that if we change our theology then that would mean that we would have to admit that maybe I was wrong or what’s worse, we’d have to admit that maybe my parents or grandparents or my preacher was wrong. It’s so interesting how we can be so trapped and handcuffed by these ideas and traditions that we just kind of created or developed from feelings and misconceptions. I don’t know about you, but when I start to understand God’s Word to say something different than what I always believed growing up, I start to feel like I have to hide that truth. I feel like if I let someone know that I’ve changed what I believe or that I no longer am so dogmatic about a certain conviction I once had, then they are going to think that I’m “going soft”.
But what do I really want? Do I want a theology and a faith that is just based on sticking with what someone tells me and the fear that comes along with maybe messing that up? Or do I want the freedom that comes from just studying and reading God’s Word and saying, “God, show me your truth. Show it to me in a way that I’ve never seen before. Give me brand new, child-like eyes to see your Word for what it truly is and says.”
John 8:31-32 “To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to MY teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”" (emphasis added)
Amen Joe!
Ditto