The following blog post contains notes and application questions from our August 12, 2018 message, The 7: The Bible. This message is part of our series, "The 7." See other messages in this series.
What is your attitude toward the Bible? As we continue our series, “The 7,” we focus on the first of the seven essential beliefs of Christianity: The Bible. The Bible is God’s story anchored in the context of history. It is our authority, our conscience, and our guide. We are firm where it is firm, and we are flexible where it is flexible.
Here are a few reminders from the first week of our series, “The 7,” talking about the essentials of the Christian faith:
Essential convictions make for a healthy, joyful, equipped, useful, fruitful Christ follower; and a church of Christ followers with essential convictions makes a healthy church.
The Bible is God’s story anchored in the context of history.
When you read your Bible, don’t ask, “What does this mean to me?” Instead, you must ask what the Authority meant, and you would do well to put yourself underneath it.
The timeless principles and truths of Scripture never change across time and culture.
Divine physician’s general warning: Ingesting false teaching WILL complicate your life, possibly eternally. Examine the Scriptures to see if the things you hear are True.
The Bible is our authority. It is our conscience, and it is our guide. We are firm where it is firm, and we are flexible where it is flexible.
To be a member at this church, you must hold to this conviction:
You don’t read your Bible as an intellectual exercise so that you know facts about God.
When you read your Bible, you want to make sure you read it as one who is approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the Word of Truth (2 Timothy 2:15).
If you accept some parts of the Bible and reject other parts, it’s not the Bible you believe in, it’s yourself you believe in.
“The world is always at peace with a lukewarm church, and a lukewarm church is always pleased with itself.” -Charles Spurgeon
“If you want to save men’s souls, you must tell them a great deal of disagreeable truth.” -Charles Spurgeon
The Bible: read it in, pray it out, pass it on.
The reason God tells you what’s right and wrong in His Word is that He wants it to go well with you. (Deuteronomy 4:40)
“The more society drifts from truth, the more society is going to hate those who speak it” -George Orwell
Truth sounds like hate to those who hate the truth
The reason the church has so little influence on culture is because culture has had so much influence on the church.
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