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Discussion Forum : Scriptures and Doctrine : The Cult of Biblicism

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wayneman
Member



Joined: 2009/1/24
Posts: 453
Michigan

 The Cult of Biblicism

While surfing YouTube lately I was struck by the number of Christians making the statement that “The Word of God is Jesus, not the Bible.” I don’t know of any named religious leaders or best-selling books advocating this view. It seems to be a spontaneous movement among laypeople.

One poster asks, “Is the Word of God on your shelf, or in your heart?” Another expatiates on “The Bibleonian Captivity of the church.” One country preacher says, “The Bible is the Mark of the Beast!” (which is his country-preacher way of saying that Biblicism is the foundation of the Babylonish world religious system). Another satirically praises the Bible as “The Fourth Hypostasis of the Holy Quaternity.”

The people making these statements are not liberals but believers in the divinity, sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus, the new birth and the fullness of the Spirit. So many believers from so many different church traditions are revolting against Biblicism that I wonder if this is the first stirring of a new back-to-Jesus movement. I hope so.

The Reformers believed that Sola Scriptura (“only scripture”) would answer all questions, resolve all doctrinal disputes and provide a basis of unity for all believers.

Today there are over 32,000 warring denominations that hold this doctrine. Clearly, Sola Scriptura has not worked out the way it was supposed to. The doctrine of biblical inerrancy, which was supposed to set Truth on objective grounds and guard against “subjectivism” has instead led to the most arbitrary kind of subjectivism: we can believe whatever we want to believe, and make the Bible tell us we are right.

The reason is that the Bible, by its very nature, has no authority. It is a helpless book, totally at the mercy of its interpreters. Consider the endless debates about freewill vs. predestination, pre-trib vs. post-trib and eternal security vs. reprobation. People can make the Bible say whatever they want it to say, and the only method of interpretation we know is to hop-scotch thru the Bible stringing together proof-texts that support our pet doctrines.

We can even use inerrancy to prove that the Bible is false, if that’s what we want to believe. We are told that the Bible is the infallible, verbally inspired Word of God and that there are no errors in it. If there were a single error, that would prove it is not the Word of God, since God doesn’t make mistakes. If we don’t want to believe the Bible, then it is easy enough to list all the contradictions (Deut. 24:16 - Josh. 7:19-26; 2 Chron. 25:4 - Is. 14:21), discrepancies (Matt. 28:10,16 - Luke 24:49; Matt. 27:5 - Acts 1:18; Acts 9:7 - Acts 22:9), misattributions (Zech. 11:12-13 - Matt. 27:9) and apparent misinterpretations (Hosea 11:1 - Matt. 2:15; Zech. 9:9 - Matt. 21:1-7).

Inerrancy is one of the very few religious doctrines that can be proven wrong, but it remains the foundation of Industrial Religion.

The doctrine of inerrancy has destroyed the faith of millions by making the Bible the supreme authority of heaven and earth, and then basing its authority on a standard of journalistic perfection that it does not meet up to.

Why then do we cling so stubbornly to the creed of Biblicism? Because Biblicism is idolatry and idolatry is rooted deeply in human nature. The preacher waves the Bible and says, “This is the Word of God!” Because the Bible is an object that he can control, whereas the Living Word of God, Jesus, is a Subject who acts upon and controls us.

We all know that false teachers can put the Bible to evil use. If the Bible is the Word of God, then God has lost sovereignty over His own Word. Was Satan speaking the Word of God when he quoted Scripture to Jesus?

The Word of God is not a static deposit of truth that God has handed over to men and devils to do with as they please. The Word of God is an ongoing event: the event of God speaking to us.

May He speak to us today and deliver us from the Bibleonian Captivity!


_________________
Wayne Kraus

 2012/1/12 8:00Profile









 Re: The Cult of Biblicism

Unless I am completely misunderstanding this post... I disagree whole heartidly. Especially this part:

Quote:
The reason is that the Bible, by its very nature, has no authority. It is a helpless book, totally at the mercy of its interpreters. Consider the endless debates about freewill vs. predestination, pre-trib vs. post-trib and eternal security vs. reprobation. People can make the Bible say whatever they want it to say, and the only method of interpretation we know is to hop-scotch thru the Bible stringing together proof-texts that support our pet doctrines.



Perhaps you have never read:

2 Timothy 3:16-17 (ESV) "ALL SCRIPTURE IS BREATHED OUT BY GOD and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God[b] may be complete, equipped for every good work."

And perhaps an explanation for why people interpret the Bible in different ways is because unbelievers can NOT understand God's Word (the Bible) properly... because God made it so, as it is said here:

1 Corinthians 2:14-16 (ESV) "The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ."

These kind of beliefs popping on this forum... unchallenged... is exactly why I had decided (and am still trying to) take a hiatus from this forum. What you are saying and promoting is false, dangerous... and wrong.

You say:

Quote:
So many believers from so many different church traditions are revolting against Biblicism that I wonder if this is the first stirring of a new back-to-Jesus movement. I hope so.



I hope NOT! This is not a "back-to-Jesus" movement, it is a rejection of truth movement. It started with the "red letter" movement, which was/is people who disregard the rest of scripture (especially Paul's writings and the OT) and just hold fast to the "red letters"... the words of Christ. In their mind, the rest of scripture is not "inspired" and is not as important.

The Word of God is TRUTH... and Jesus said He was the Truth. You can not divorce the two. You can not know Jesus without the Bible.

The problem in the church is not that people put too much stock in the Bible! Are you kidding me?

The problem is that not enough people even open their Bibles.

This is not some new movement, it is total ignorance. Studying and memorizing and reading and holding fast to the Bible is NOT a cult, and seriously I consider it almost blasphemous to even suggest such a thing.

Krispy

 2012/1/12 8:21
KingJimmy
Member



Joined: 2003/5/8
Posts: 4419
Charlotte, NC

 Re: The Cult of Biblicism

The doctrine of inerrancy does not deny that the Bible, as we now have it, contains "errors" within it. It states that the original auotgraphs were inspired and entirely without error. Unfortunately, copyists errors have been introduced over the years. The scholarly discipline of textual criticism has allowed us to reconstruct the original manuscripts with a high degree of accuracy, and affirms the complete trustworthiness of the Scriptures.

You are correct in saying that the Bible itself is not the supreme authority. The Scriptures, in and of themselves, are just words on paper. The "authority" however, that they carry, is because the words that were written on those pages were inspired by men upon whom God breathed so as to help communicate and preserve the story of redemption from one generation to the next.

The authority of the believer to minister the story of redemption is manifold. It equally depends on the personal relationship of the believer to Christ, the ministry and gifts the Holy Spirit has given such a man, and a complete dependency upon the Scriptures.

While there may be a "cult of Biblicism" out there, that is, men and women who use the Scriptures as if it were nothing but dead letter, this danger does not come from leaning upon the word of God as being inspired, authortative, infalliable, and entirely without error. The real danger comes from thinking one can depart from it, whenever they so wish.


_________________
Jimmy H

 2012/1/12 8:27Profile









 Re:

I agree KJ... thanks for bringing out those points.

Krispy

 2012/1/12 8:29
wayneman
Member



Joined: 2009/1/24
Posts: 453
Michigan

 Re:

You guys are defending the Bible, as if that is what is under attack here. I am not assaulting the Bible; I am talking about what the Industrial Church has done to the Bible - the Paper Pope, the rod of authority by which the clergy rule over the flock, the psychological tyranny of dogmatism, etc.


_________________
Wayne Kraus

 2012/1/12 8:40Profile









 Re:

You paint with an extremely broad brush, dont ya think? While I certainly agree that there are some very serious issues in most churches today, how do you justify your overall and wide-sweeping judgementalism? I think each church should be weighed on their own, and unless you have been inside every church I would hold off making such wide-sweeping judgements. (and I say that having been guilty of doing that myself in the past!)

And be careful because you are using that broad brush to paint the betrothed bride of Christ in a lot of cases. Thats not a position we should enter into lightly.

I maintain that the main issue in most churches is that they do NOT take the Bible seriously enough... not that they take the Bible too seriously.

Certainly we can make the Bible an idol, we can make an idol out of anything. John Calvin said our hearts are nothing but idol making factories, and regardless of what one thinks of John Calvin... everyone has to agree with him on that "point".

But taking the Bible too seriously is NOT an issue in the western church today.

And I also have found, after much self examination, that when I make broad statements of what is wrong with the church I am often times doing it from a position of self-righteousness... thinking (but not admitting that I am thinking) that I am better and have it all together.

Be very careful, my friend. Fear and trembling is advised.

Krispy

 2012/1/12 8:55
wayneman
Member



Joined: 2009/1/24
Posts: 453
Michigan

 Re:

It is not that "we can make an idol of the Bible" - we *have* made and idol out of the Bible and bibliolatry is a multi-billion dollar industry. Granted, it has lost market share to the Osteens and Warrens, but I don't represent them either...


_________________
Wayne Kraus

 2012/1/12 9:05Profile
Lysa
Member



Joined: 2008/10/25
Posts: 3699
East TN for now!

 Re: The Cult of Biblicism

Quote:
wayneman wrote:
The Reformers believed that Sola Scriptura (“only scripture”) would answer all questions, resolve all doctrinal disputes and provide a basis of unity for all believers.


I know that’s what they hoped for but that’s sure not what they got!

It’s just like Martin Luther had no idea when he wrote his books for the church that the peasants would take his ideas to the streets and kill 1000 lords and tear down the churches and drag out the nuns and bishops but they did!

And who KNEW that when Timothy wrote "ALL SCRIPTURE IS BREATHED OUT BY GOD and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God[b] may be complete, equipped for every good work," (2 Timothy 3:16-17) ... what man would do with it or how far they would take it to the extremes.

Love the article Wayneman!! You should write more, brother!

God bless you,
Lisa


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Lisa

 2012/1/12 9:13Profile
KingJimmy
Member



Joined: 2003/5/8
Posts: 4419
Charlotte, NC

 Re:

Ok wayne, I will give you the benefit of the doubt here that you weren't challenging the actual authority and inspiration of Scriptures, though to me, it certainly looks like you were. I do agree with you in pointing out that there are men who pastor churches that are authoritarians in their spirit, and that they harshly and unjustly "rule" over the people given to their charge. Sometimes they use the Bible to this end, but at other times, they use other things such as their "vision" for the church.


_________________
Jimmy H

 2012/1/12 9:22Profile









 Re:

Then maybe I am misunderstanding you, Wayne.

Are you saying that the Bible is not important? What is the Bible's place in the life of the believer? Should we not bother to study the Bible?

Surely there is something here that I am not understanding. Enlighten me.

Krispy

 2012/1/12 9:22





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