I remember being the perfect father.

I could traverse the labyrinth of parenting with my skill and keen sense of direction. When I corrected my children to the right, taught them respect and honor, gave them a satisfactory foundation to be a contributing member of our family and society, my job was complete. They would rise up as young adults and thank me for the hard times of correction and discipline because it made them the mighty men and women that they would one day be.

And then my first child was born.

As long as I live I will never forget standing in front of the warming table in the birthing suite at Wilson Hospital. My daughter had just taken her first breaths and was trying out her eyes in the new and bright world. Nothing before that day prepared me for the immense weight of inadequacy that fused itself to me in that moment. It was not her preparation for the “real world” that I felt inadequate towards, nor her training in work ethic. It was something else that I had never considered beforehand. “Eighteen years,” I whispered under my breath, “to teach you about the God that gave you to me.” I stopped and watched her wrap her hand around my finger, “How am I supposed to do that?”
To this day I am not certain as to why it was that thought that permeated my thinking, it hadn’t been in my consideration even minutes before. But from that day on it has been a driving force behind many of my questions of how to raise this young girl.

Thinking I would just figure it out, I found myself overwhelmed again in the same manner as my second daughter took her first breaths. It occurred to me, as I looked at her, that I hadn’t answered the question I asked myself eighteen months ago at the same table.

“How does someone like me teach his daughters about God?”

As they began to grow up, I tried the best I could to push this question to the back of my thoughts and just get to raising them the way I set out to. When they were wrong I would correct them. When they were naughty I would discipline them. When they were messy I would make them clean up their own mess. When they were good I was neutral because that was just meeting expectations. In all of this, it was the way I handled discipline that first got to me.

Why was it that I was fine suspending Christian graces when it came to discipline?

Why was the fruit of the Spirit something that I resisted when it came to correcting my children? I argued it was out of love but I did not understand agape love. It certainly was not joyful or peaceful. Patience?! Far from it. Kindness.. Goodness… Faithfulness….. Gentleness…… Self-control? Blow after blow this passage crushed me to inadequacy once again. Where was my grace towards my daughters?

What were they learning about God?

One must wonder if the curiosity buried deep within the mind of man is a remnant of what was lost at the fall.
We once faced God directly; the very source of truth and life was in fellowship with His creatures. What more could be known that ought to have been known? Ever since that fellowship was broken by us, we have been bumping around trying to find that solid ground of Eden again.

Even the very existence of disputable matters of reality and theology ought to hint to us that we have lost something that was once quite dear. What was once a knowledge of God has now become a knowledge of good and evil. This being a foreign knowledge to a created being, it has destroyed us. We no longer look at evil with absolute disgust. No longer look at God with perfect admiration. No longer even look at God.

In desperation, we seek to construct the fullest picture of these less-than-fully-known realities. Perhaps this is part of why Paul warns Christians to avoid quarreling over words and disputable matters. Even to the point of each party being fully convinced in their own mind. That drives me crazy! Just tell us if we ought to observe one day over another! Just tell us who the real followers of Christ are! Eliminate the doubt!

Give us certainty.

For many aspects of practical living and theological disputations the certainty never comes. When we challenge Christ to tell us the Gospel he multiplies bread and heals leprosy; pictures and hints. When we question God’s righteousness in saving some and condemning others He ask us who we think we are to even ask such a question.

Perhaps God is not making a mistake in keeping large swaths of reality away from His creatures in their fallen state. Perhaps we do not realize that the sin that resides in us would cause us to despise Him if we were to gain a full understanding of who He is. Perhaps we are meant to trust the Lord with all of our hearts and lean not on our own understanding.

Perhaps our ignorance teaches us that all the answers lie with Someone other than us.

Psalm 139:1-6
O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.

Mankind has awoken to find himself in a pit.

He looks about, encompassed on all sides by an unscalable wall, there is no way down or around.
He looks up, and in the distance sees a light at the very top, beckoning him, calling to him. Open pastures are above.

He gropes at the wall in hope that by some means he can muster up what it takes to get himself out.

The markings on the sides of the pit tell stories of others who have been there before.

There was one named "Good Works" and he wrote that he had once climbed to a height greater than any other, touching the side of the pit nearly 10' up.

"Philosophy" had boasted that he had looked at the light, all those thousands of feet up, longer than anyone before him

"Wisdom" sketched out how to live productively at the bottom of this pit, and muse about what the significance of the light may be and what its source could be

But there was another pair of markings, ancient, as if as old as the pit itself.

One of these was written by the one called "Law", it spoke of life above, the perfections and the glories; it condemned those in the pit for not being the same. "There is no way one could escape this pit." It claimed, "You may be able to clamor at the sides, but even in your best attempt, you will never get out"

The second, written by one named "Prophet", spoke of a plan of escape. "Not on your own" it began, "will you ever reach the top, but there is One coming who will be able to bring you out." Mankind continued to read, "He will live as those above. Perfect. Holy. He is the Creator of us all, even of the one called 'Law'. He will come down the pit from the land above and live here. A perfect life, His. One that will scale the unscalable wall, one that will climb the impossible. He comes down to do one thing, Mankind, to bring you up from this pit, this inescapable pit, to the glories above."

Mankind stumbled back, shocked to see his name written in the most ancient script. "Who is this 'Prophet', that he knows my name even before I was called it?"

His eye caught the last of the markings on the pit's side. Written low, underneath Prophet's writing so that all could see.

"Apostle is my name," it said, "the one spoken of by Prophet has come. He is the Ruler of the land above. Just as Prophet wrote, He lived a life like no other. He showed us the way out. He showed us the rope in this pit, that rope called 'Faith'. It has been here ever since the beginning, and it is only by this rope that you will be rescued. Leave behind what you learned from Philosophy, he only loves to look at the light. Leave behind what you learned from Wisdom, he only speaks of things he doesn't understand because he doesn't hold the rope. Leave behind what you learned from Good Works, he will only tempt you to let go of the rope to try once again to climb the pit.

"Turn from these, grab the rope, and be pulled to safety."

Whether known to us or not, the question of the nature, efficacy, and sufficiency of the Bible is called into question all the time. It’s reinterpretation and explaining away has found its way into pulpits, seminaries, and even the minds and hearts of Christians all throughout our culture. As the effects of modern naturalistic philosophy works its way through the Christian worldview it sweeps up any semblance of supernatural reality and throws it out under the assumption of its mythical origins.
 
Worse still is that while the church has been making some headway in wrestling with this issue of modernistic philosophy it has been utterly blindsided by post-modernity; a worldview that we are still not prepared to handle.
 
We are called to hold to the Scriptures and their certainty, not because they make sense to us, but because of their origin. The Scriptures do indeed make sense, but our concept of that cannot be the basis of our trust in them.
 
We are called to hold to the Scriptures and their efficacy, not because we have seen them do amazing things in our lives, but because of the God behind them. The Scriptures do indeed work amazing acts in our lives, but our view of this is biased and cannot be the basis of our trust in this ability.
 
We are called to hold to the Scriptures and their sufficiency because they are the very words of God, who spoke through the mouths of godly men to express His exact mind.
 
Modern philosophy and Biblical Christianity are incompatible. In modern philosophy, simply put, the individual mind comes out as authoritative. “I exist because I conceptualize such” is not compatible with our Creator saying, “You exist because I made you thus.”
 
Post-modern Philosophy and Biblical Christianity are incompatible. In Post-modern philosophy, simply put, the individual being within a community of likeminded agreeance comes out as authoritative. “This is our truth” is not compatible with the Lord’s pronouncement, “I am the Lord, I declare what is true.”
 
The authority of God is expressed to His church, not in what we agree upon theologically (creeds, councils, etc), not in what we have devised based on human cunning and conviction (systematic theology, apologetical prowess), but in the very word of God as has come down to us. If we give up that ground there is no hindrance, no limit, and no correction on the direction our sinful minds, beings, and ‘communities’ will take us. We will soon be thinking of our convictions as authoritative and treat those who disagree with disdain rather than grace. Those who agree with us are our friends and “in” with us, those who disagree with us on disputable matters find themselves “out.”


I say that I hold to Scripture alone as the authority in all things pertaining to life, godliness, worldview, and the faith delivered to the saints; that it is so not because I have made up my mind about it (because my mind is faulty), it is so not because those that surround me agree (because they don’t and their faculties are faulty), it is so because God has spoken and it is apparent in the word of God as the Spirit of God gives eyes to see and ears to hear.
 
You may wonder if I am presupposing my conclusion. My answer is indeed I am, just as everyone does in these discussions.
 
If I am a naturalistic materialist I presuppose the validity of my conclusions in logic, ethics, morality, truth, and error; and their consistency with all that surrounds me.
 
If I am a post-modernistic subjectivist I presuppose the validity of my community in all arenas of life, including: the subjectivity of truth, the inconsequential nature of pure logic or reason, and the morality of tolerance.
 
However, as a biblical Christian I presuppose the validity of the perception of a Creator who has spoken, and how what He has said is consistent with all that surrounds me.
 
The Christian can no more remove the Scriptures of our basis of God’s expressed authority than a modernist remove his brain. The Scriptures must remain as they claim to be: the very words of God spoken authoritatively to His people throughout the ages. Any less than this will find us stranded in inconsistency trying to make a patchwork of a worldview hold together.
 
God has spoken. Do you have ears to hear?