Having done this, I had the opportunity to show these to the late Dr. Roy Lowrie. Dr. Lowrie kindly listened to my quick presentation of my work. Then, in his deep, stoic voice, he said, “Glen this is nice. However, remember only God’s Word is inspired.” Dr. Lowrie was teaching me a very important lesson. It was that God’s Word is the only source of absolute truth and has been, is and will always be superior to anything man writes.
Another time I was in a seminar that Dr. Lowrie was presenting and I can still see him holding up two books. One was a book written by a man and the second was the Bible. He told us that there are only three ways we can compare these two books. He then held the Bible in one hand and put the book written by man in between himself and the Bible. He explained how we can read the Bible through the “lens” of man’s words. Anything in the Bible that is contradicted by what man says would be discarded as being false.
Then he placed the Bible and man’s book side by side. Here he told us that we can view these two books as being of equal validity. As we compare the two, we can pull things we like out of each book and develop our own idea of what is true.
Finally, he placed the Bible in between man’s book and himself. His words are still audible in my mind as he told us that this is the only right way to compare what man says to what God has said. We must look at all human knowledge through the lens of Scripture. If something that man says is contrary to the written Word of God, it should be discarded as error. We must hold the Bible as being the only source of absolute truth and must use it as our foundation for all that we teach to others.
The Bible declares that God’s Word is eternal and is, therefore, never changing. It must be the only foundation on which one can build a worldview and have a proper understanding of all of life’s issues that we mentioned in last week’s blog. &When we are determining our beliefs about the origin and sanctity of life, the creation of this universe, the institution of marriage, etc., we must remember that, as Dr. Lowrie told me, only God’s Word is inspired.
There are men today, including many Christians, who are interpreting the Bible from man’s point of view. This can be seen when they teach on such topics as the age of the earth, homosexuality and same sex marriage, or a host of other topics. They read into Scripture what man has written claiming that so-called science or our culture has “proven” certain things to be true that are in direct conflict with what God’s Word clearly states.
As I stated in my last post, everyone of us will come to a “crisis of belief” when one has to make the decision of whether or not he/she is going to accept or deny the authority of the Bible. Christian parents, educators and pastors, must believe the Bible to be what it says it is—the eternal, inspired, inerrant Word of God. I would encourage you to read Psalm 19:7-11 and 2 Timothy 3:16-17.
We are in a fiercely contested culture war. It is a war of ideas/worldviews and it is targeting the next generation. If we are going to win the war and teach our children truth so that they will win the battle for their hearts and minds, we must build our own worldviews on the only true foundation—the inspired, infallible, inerrant Word of God. How are you interpreting all of life? What lens are you using in your teaching—man’s knowledge or God’s Word?