God's Word?

Our Christian faith stands or falls on what we do with the Word of God. In the 1600s it was only the learned church priests who had the authority to read and explain the Bible to ordinary men and women, and then along came two things which changed everything for ever. The Reformation movement believed that God’s Holy Word could and should be made available to all, and just about the same time the printing press was invented. Then it became possible to print the Bible in mass numbers, and place them into the hands of the ordinary population in England who could read. The Roman Catholic church of the day protested and even became violent because they believed this was a book which could not be trusted in the hands of uneducated people, even if they could read. However, almost overnight, the Bible was accepted by a hungry people, and the Word of God was read, and acted on. The nation was in the throes of a revival, and all because the Bible was freely available.

We have moved on since then, but we still have the Bible as the authoritative Word of God, and is still held in high esteem by these same Reformed Churches, right? Well, maybe not so much. After all, we can read, but we can also ‘read-into’ the pages of the Word now, so some church leaders, professors and Bible colleges are open to liberal thinking which says that maybe Adam and Eve were not real people. Maybe the Garden of Eden is an allegory. Then there’s Noah’s Ark. Did it really exist? Could all those living animals get onto a boat and in pairs? And what about Jonah? Surely a big fish couldn’t have swallowed him and spat him out after He accepted God’s command to preach? I mean, really?? Of course, the virgin birth, and later resurrection of Jesus is a bit far fetched, and ‘way too unscientific! Ah ha...maybe that’s the problem, we have become  scientific now, in fact evolution is waiting in the wings to be accepted in place of creation, at least in part, of most seriously minded, thinking Christians. By that definition then, anyone who accepts the Bible as the inerrant and literal Word of God, is not to be taken seriously.

If we go back to the 1600s, where the Roman Catholic Church of the day was the stumbling block to ordinary people receiving the truth of the Bible, would it be true to say that in today’s world, it is the turn of the Reformed Church leaders and academia to convince us that we cannot take the whole Bible as inerrant? We have redefined sin, and reinvented the plain words of Scripture to suit ourselves, and so it appears that the Word of God can only be trusted (once again) in the hands of those very learned professors of major Colleges and Churches who can translate it properly for us. If you have read this far, well done, but you are probably saying it doesn’t apply to ‘my Church’ anyway. Oh really? Are you sure? Have you checked lately? Just saying.