the importance of scripture, pt. 1

I am not sure that the necessary role that Scripture plays in the life of the Christian can be overemphasized. Scripture has to be the very foundation of my life. It is the means by which I can understand who God is and what He has done.

If I believe that God is holy, perfect, transcendent, and infinite in knowledge and wisdom, and if I believe that I am fallen, sinful, finite, imperfect, and foolish on my own, then it follows that I am absolutely dependent upon God to reveal Himself to me. If His ways are truly above my ways then it is necessary for Him to disclose Himself for me to truly know anything about Him. My finitude limits my ability to rightly understand who He is with any certainty apart from Him.

What sort of god is the god that can be rightly understood by the finite apart from any sort of self-revelation? A god fully comprehended by the finite is a finite god. However, a part of the Christian message is that the Almighty God has disclosed Himself to the weak and finite.

Someone once told me that I was putting God in a box to limit my truth claims about Him to the claims that are made in Scripture. This person wanted me to say that Scripture was one of many ways of knowing about God. Now, I will agree that we learn something about God from trees, lakes, zip lines, and camaraderie, but I believe that even our understanding of God through those things has to be informed and guided by what Scripture has said that we can learn about God through the created order. If we attempt to understand God apart from His word it is at that point that we have put Him in a box. We have implicitly made the statement that we can understand who He is on our own apart from the authority of what He has said about Himself. It is to exchange the God who is so big that we need Him to reveal Himself for a god that we can understand on our own apart from any sort of self-disclosure on the part of the god.

As a result, I see Scripture to be essential to the way a Christian understands life. Speaking from Scripture accurately is the surest way to know that what we speak is truth. I may not be able to say with any authority that it is God’s will for me to go to such and such a place and spread the Gospel. It might be, but I cannot be certain. However, I can say with all authority and certainty that it is God’s will for me to “love my neighbor.” Scripture needs to be the authority and source of truth in our lives. If it is not then we will live a life apart from the word “more sure... to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place” (2 Peter 1:19 ESV).