Dan Scott wrote this article and it confirmed my thoughts about Bible Study. I hope you will read this and think about the implications concerning our society in our spiritual areas of life. God bless us as we strive to move forward and closer to our Father and His word.
"The most important change within the Christian church in our times – and perhaps since the apostolic age -- has been how we view scripture.
Over a hundred years ago, certain methods of interpreting scripture began shaking Protestant’s confidence in the Bible. As a result, the Bible has slowly become only one important influence among many for forming a believer’s views and governing his or her behavior. It makes a great difference, you see, whether one views the Bible as the Word of God or is simply a human work about God.
Most of our great Protestant denominations – especially in Europe and The United States -- now define the Bible as a record of how the ancient Hebrews thought about God, ethics and justice. In this view, one may certainly use these ancient Hebrew stories to shine light on our contemporary issues. However, viewing the Bible as a revelation of God’s law, applicable to all times and all cultures, seems hopelessly antiquated. It even seems like a dangerous misuse of Holy Scripture.
Christians who think of themselves as “conservative” or “orthodox” naturally reject the liberal Protestant view of scripture. Nonetheless, Bible studies are not at the top priority for most self-professed conservative believers either. In fact, many conservative churches have replaced their historical Bible-centeredness with mere cultural conservatism. That approach has removed any sense of moral authority from Evangelical preaching. To the culture around us, our opinions now seem to rest merely upon our conservative tastes and cultural habits; not upon the foundation of eternal Truth. Unbelievers are asking us, “What makes your personal tastes and cultural values more important than ours?”
This question is getting harder for us to answer.
Our loss of the Bible – by liberals because of their deliberate intellectual shift away from orthodoxy, and by conservatives because of intellectual sloth and a worship of numerical and material success – have gradually gutted the American church of its ability to shepherd its flock. This has resulted in making our views about homosexuality look like a pathological overreaction to people whose personal choices just happen to differ from ours.
Our view of the Bible is therefore crucial. Without it we do not have a solid basis for addressing homosexuality or any other contemporary issue."
-Dan Scott, “What About Homosexuality?”, Christ Church Nashville.
