Fully His

Since I am a fool, I want everyone to know. Stay away from me…

Most people, thank God, are way too smart, too educated and sophisticated to be wasting their time reading my humble blog.
To those who do, I apologise profusely.

I say that on a day to day basis, using a translation, an ordinary believer can read the scriptures with confidence that he or she can understand most of it, in its plain meaning. For those who are sourcing doctrines (quite a different application), I say that we need to study the original texts of the scriptures to be sure we have the correct understanding of them. A correspondent counters that there are many different versions of the original text, though the differences are trivial, and what do you do with passages that appear in some but not all versions? And what about people acting on texts they don't really understand? How exasperating!

Yes, which original text? And yes, the differences are trivial. And yes, there's that text about handling snakes, and yes, idiots try to force their way into God's hands by imitating such things and justifying themselves and their carnal and base beliefs, using it. And yes, something about that snake handling passage seems somehow inconsistent with the rest of God's Book, just as the other New Testament pseudepigrapha also seem somehow alien to the Spirit of the Bible. And yes, even if you leave it in, it’s still forcing yourself into God's hands to try to imitate that and seek your deliverance in it.

We are not idiots, however, we have minds and spirits trained by the Word of God, if we only let Him train us.

The Bible says, “You have not lost the anointing He gave you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. The anointing He gave you teaches you everything.”

Who writes this? The human author was John the author of the gospel and the epistles and the one to whom the Revelation was granted. And yes, I don't care what bible scholars tell me, I believe it is the same person, but, yes, it doesn't really matter, as long as we really believe what it says.

Because not man, not woman, not bible scholars, not pontiffs, not saints, not bishops and presiding elders, not the king, not the emperor, not my mother or father, not you, and not me have anything to add, elaborate, amplify, enlighten, make comprehensible or comprehensive, or more useful, or more relevant, than what God the Author, the Revealer, the Sanctifier, the Enlightener, the Teacher, the Father, the Savior tells us into our obedient and welcoming ears, directly and fully and without doubt, and salvifically.

No, we are not idiots. I do not pick up snakes to prove I am a Christian. I do not speak in strange tongues to prove that the Holy Spirit is in me, upon me, and with me. I don't need to prove my faithfulness to God's Word by going out and blasting sinners, holding them up to ridicule, hating them or judging them and excluding them from the promises of God.

But though everything be taken away from me, I will not, cannot deny the Word of God, and with the saints I will stand my ground, I will defend them even when I don't agree with them one hundred per cent, and I will stand on the Word of God, because there is no other foundation, there is nothing solid in the whole created universe to stand on, except that precious, holy, divine Word, who is the Son of God, one of the Holy Triad, glorified in the heavens and on earth, and fed to us spiritual infants, verse by verse, spoonful by spoonful, day after day, until we are fully grown and mature, fully reflecting His glory, fully alive in Him with that life that has existed from before the beginning of all things, fully His.