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The Crucible Part 2 Analysis

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Prologue

It all started with a conversation, no…an argument, no…a debate, no…a conversation.

The conversation was with a friend over a topic that is a deeply contentious issue in our current culture. We disagreed. I have a fairly diverse friend-group so these types of arguments conversations happen quite often. What made this conversation unique was that our disagreement was not political in nature but biblical. In short, he thought the Bible was clear about this particular thing. I was less than convinced.

Part I
The Bible is Clear

The trouble with speaking about Biblical clarity is that the Bible, so often, isn’t clear. There is a difference between “using” scripture and “loving” scripture. When people begin a sentence with “The …show more content…

So how do we read the Bible right?

Part II
Scripture is not the Word of God

Okay, okay…

Don’t dismiss me as a heretic just yet. Take a deep breath.

The Bible is the word of God but not the Word of God. See what I did there?

The Bible is the word of God that bears witness to the Word of God — Jesus Christ.

John’s Gospel tells us that the Word became flesh — not ink.

The Bible did not create the heavens and the earth — the Word (Christ) did.

The Bible is not a member of the Trinity. Christ is.

The Bible is not perfect. (There are parts we now consider obsolete; e.g. Levitical codes.)

Christ is the perfection of God as a human being.

The Bible is penultimate. But Christ is supreme.

The Bible is not the object of our worship. Christ is.

The difference is not trivial. Biblicism is a rival faith to Christianity. Furthermore, Biblicism is often a clever way of avoiding the witness of Christ to maintain the status quo. The highest view of Scripture is not the one that seeks to make an idol of the Bible (biblicism), but the one that allows the biblical text to exalt Christ as the living Word over all creation.

Let Scripture be Scripture.
Let Christ be Christ.

So repeat after me:
1. Jesus reveals God.
2. Scripture witnesses to Jesus.

If we can grasp these two simple truths, we are well on our way to reading the Bible right.

Part III
A Christocentric Reading of Scripture

1. Jesus reveals God.
The

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