A Gateway, Not The Way
“I’ll be back. Until then just read the Book. Everything you need to know is in the Book.”
It may sound overly harsh, but it seems to me that far too many Christians today live as if these were the parting words of Jesus to his disciples then and now.
To be clear, they were not.
“But when he, the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.”1
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you . . .After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes”2
One of the great debates in the early church was over the authority of the Torah (referred to as “The Law”) in the lives of Gentile believers.
Torah (the first five books of the Bible, known as the Books of Moses or The Pentateuch) were and are Scripture. And like all Scripture, they are to be held in high esteemed, even revered. But not worshiped!
The New Testament makes it abundantly clear - God’s Word is Jesus.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . . . The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”3
“In the past, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his son.”4
Bibliolatry is the term used to refer to the misplaced worship of God’s people for the Scriptures rather than the God who gave us those Scriptures.
Consider these words of Jesus (The Word) to the brilliant but blind teachers of Scripture in his day -
“You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”5
But now back to that great debate in the early church. The one about placing Gentile believers under the authority of Torah, which, once again, I remind you, was and is sacred Scripture.
After much debate and no little disagreement, it was Peter who silenced the bibliolaters at what was known as the Jerusalem Council. Acts 15 describes it like this -
“After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: Brothers you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us.”6
I love the Bible. I love reading and studying it. Most of all I love teaching the Bible to others. But as I’ve grown in my awareness of the Spirit of Jesus at work in and around me, I’ve come to understand more and more that the Bible is not the end. The Bible is the means to the end. And Jesus described that end when he said to the theological giants in his day “you refuse to come to me to have life.”
Scripture is a gateway into another world. That world is the Kingdom of God, which Jesus clearly taught was “among you.”* (And most biblical scholars agree that our Lord was speaking of himself when he told the people that God’s kingdom was among them.)
God’s kingdom is among us today. And it is among us in the presence of Jesus, who promised to send his Spirit to empower us and guide us into all truth. Alathian is the Greek word translated “truth” in English. It is also translated “reality.”
The Spirit of Jesus is the one who leads us into reality. The reality of Jesus himself, living and working in our lives. The reality of the Kingdom of God in the midst of the broken failing kingdoms of this world, which we place far too much trust in and allegiance to.
Let me say it again - Scripture is a gateway into another world, a world where we encounter the fullness of God’s Word, Jesus Christ.
We were never meant to camp out at the gate. Never meant to obsess over the gate. As beautiful as that gate is, and as sacred as it always shall be, it is just that, the gate.
Rigid, black-and-white, intolerant teaching and the attitude that produces, sustains, and feeds upon it is the product of gate worshipers. And like those misguided Jewish Christians in the early church who were adamant about making Gentiles into Jews, so that all disciples of Jesus would walk alike, talk alike, look alike, vote alike, and so forth . . . today’s gate worshiping teachers are doing the same thing.
And they are misusing Scripture. Misusing it because they are making it the end and not the means to the end in the lives of God’s people. Most tragic of all, this mishandling of Scripture is hindering and crippling the Spirit of truth and power, who is the answer to the dried up, powerless, worldly, political, institutionalized church so alive (or should I say dead) and well in our day.
There. I said it. It’s a bitter pill to swallow. And I don’t claim to be a prophet, but I know what I see, and I don’t like it. It’s a burden I carry. Always. It’s a throbbing pain that aches in the deepest place of my spirit.
No, I’m not grinding an axe in this post. I’m not upset over some recent event in my life. I’m just feeling the need to return to the original reason I began Church on the Edge.7
Trust me when I say that hitting the send button for this post won’t be easy. Nevertheless, the words of Jeremiah are ringing in my ears -
“But if I say, ‘I will not mention his word or speak any more in his name,’ his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.”8
In Christ,
Dan
Check out my podcasts from Church on the Edge and my books on Kindle.
You can listen to my weekly messages at Embrace Church, High Point.
John 16:13.
Acts 1:8-9.
John 1:1, 14.
Hebrews 1:1-2.
John 5:39-40.
Acts 15:7-8.
https://medium.com/church-on-the-edge/the-cost-of-authenticity-884a028d5c0f
Jeremiah 20:9.