Biblical Interpretation Reconsidered

Greetings to the group.

I offer the following quote as all too typical of the way a large segment of the church regards scripture and nature:
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"...trust the Bible, as Jesus did ('it is written'; 'Scripture cannot be broken' John 10:35). And Jesus never separated biblical morality from biblical history. Indeed, Jesus told Nicodemus (John 3:12): 'I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?' If Jesus was wrong about earthly things (like a recent creation and a global Flood-Luke 17:26-27), why should we believe what He says about heavenly things? And in the passage above, Jesus taught about the moral issue of marriage by connecting it with the fact of the creation of man and woman as Genesis says! The Sabbath commandment, another moral issue, was given explicitly because God created the heavens and earth in six normal-length days and 'rested' on the seventh day (Exodus 20:8-11). If you compromise the Bible, then what is to stop you from compromising Christ? We all need to learn to not take our views to the Bible but let the Bible dictate what our views should be. God is never wrong, so we should trust Him. If we elevate our words to be equal to God's then we are trying to equate ourselves with God. If we regard 'nature' as the '67th book of the Bible', as Dr **** teaches this means that man's fallible science, which tells us of 'nature', has been elevated to the status of Scripture. That's the problem. Remember John 1:1-3."
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Can any of you suggest an approach (or better have had success with an approach) that can move such believers from this "wooden" take on God's word? Or, perhaps, what moved you from this view?

I'm preparing a collection of FAQs related to our interests from the list and other resources. (Names always deleted)

Thank you.

Jack Haas
Received on Wed Dec 17 15:14:36 2003