Mondays with MacDonald (on the purpose and limits of the Bible)

by Steve Douglas

October 4th, 2010 | 4 Comments

Sad, indeed, would the whole matter be, if the Bible had told us everything God meant us to believe. But herein is the Bible itself greatly wronged. It nowhere lays claim to be regarded as the Word, the Way, the Truth. The Bible leads us to Jesus, the inexhaustible, the ever unfolding Revelation of God. It is Christ “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” not the Bible, save as leading to him. And why are we told that these treasures are hid in him who is the Revelation of God? Is it that we should despair of finding them and cease to seek them? Are they not hid in him that they may be revealed to us in due time—that is, when we are in need of them? Is not their hiding in him the mediatorial step towards their unfolding in us? Is he not the Truth?—the Truth to men? Is he not the High Priest of his brethren, to answer all the troubled questionings that arise in their dim humanity?
…
The one use of the Bible is to make us look at Jesus, that through him we might know his Father and our Father, his God and our God. Till we thus know Him, let us hold the Bible dear as the moon of our darkness, by which we travel towards the east; not dear as the sun whence her light cometh, and towards which we haste, that, walking in the sun himself, we may no more need the mirror that reflected his absent brightness.

from Unspoken Sermons, Vol. 1, “The Higher Faith“

Related posts:

  1. Mondays with MacDonald (on Francis Chan vs. Rob Bell) The lord of life complains of men for not judging right. To say on the authority of the Bible that God does a thing no...
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October 4th, 2010

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  • Anonymous

    I was telling my ACE faculty this morning that the Christian school needed to teach more Bible. We need to have people knowledgeable enough to know what we don’t know. And use the God-given creativity to adapt to the world they encounter.

  • http://cliff-martin.blogspot.com Cliff Martin

    “Monday’s with …”
    Dare we hope that our future Monday’s might be so adorned?

    • http://undeception.com/ Steve

      Indeed! Actually, last Monday was the first installment, in case you missed
      it.

  • http://thecreationofanevolutionist.blogspot.com/ Mike Beidler

    What’s eerie is that I emailed this very quote to Steve the night before he posted the already-written piece. A sign from God, I say!