Day 24. Transformed by Truth

Day 24. Transformed by Truth

What we believe about Scripture matters. It bears directly on how, to what degree, or if we are transformed.

What do you believe? Is Scripture
Authoritative?
A benchmark?
A compass?
A counsel?
Didactic?
Flawless?
Inerrant?
Inspired?
Integral?
Mythical?
Narrative?
Primary?
Revelatory?
Saving?
Sufficient?
Sustaining?
(Add your descriptors)

The list is not comprehensive, not without conflict. Yet how you view the Bible determines the degree to which you will allow it to transform you.

John Wesley believed that the Bible revealed the word of God “so far as it was sufficient for salvation.” Does the need for salvation drive transformation?

Yet Wesley, self-proclaimed “man of one Book,” knew that the Bible itself was not sufficient for understanding all that God has and is revealing to us. "When challenged for his authority on any question, his first appeal was to the Holy Bible... Even so, he was well aware that Scripture alone rarely settled any controverted point of doctrine... [Wesley would] also appeal to the “primitive church,” tradition;... the good offices of critical reason; and vital Christian experience [encounter with the Holy Spirit]... as dynamic and interactive aids to interpretation of the Word of Scripture." (Source: Albert Outler)

This methodology has come to be known in our generation as the Wesley Quadralateral. “The living core of the Christian Faith revealed in Scripture, illumined by tradition, vivified in experience, confirmed by reason.”

Even then, what you believe about the Bible matters. And even then, knowing is not enough. Jesus concluded the Sermon on the Mount by saying, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them [emphasis added] will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock." (Matthew 7:24-25)

Let me add another descriptor, “foundational.” What are your actions founded on?

Blessings,

Rick