Acts 3:21 (Jesus) whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time. The prophets said there was going to be a period of restoration. It was spoken but was it recorded and if so where?
Is the Bible the only source of revelation concerning the restoration of all things? Is God continuing to give progressive revelation by speaking to us today because we are now able to bear it?
Is the Bible a manual for living or an introduction to a living loving relationship with Jesus the living word of God? Is everything recorded in the Bible inspired by God? Is all of the Bible inerrant and infallible as we have been told?
Challenging the sacred cow of the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible will probably cause offence to many. I do not intend to offend but I do want to challenge the view of the Bible as the “word of God” as opposed to Jesus being the true word who is God.
John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. John 10:7 So Jesus said to them again, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. There may be many sources of truth only Jesus is the Way and the Truth.
John 5:39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; 40 and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life. Have we been discipling people to search written words and not engage the living word?
John 5:45 Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope. 46 For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. The legalistic letter kills but the Spirit brings life and reveals relational truth.
Are we looking for God in the wrong place by looking only to the Bible? We preach a message from the Bible to help people find God when He is actually already at work within them. John 14:20 In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. – Resurrection day.
Have we been conditioned by religion to think God is outside of people trying get in rather than inside trying to be revealed, known and get out?
Gal 1:15 But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased 16 to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him in the Gentiles.
Gal 1:15 God’s eternal love dream separated me from my mother’s womb; his grace became my identity. 16 This is the heart of the gospel that I proclaim; it began with an unveiling of his Son in me, freeing me to announce the same sonship in the masses of non-Jewish people.
The Greek text is quite clear: “It pleased the Father to reveal his Son in me in order that I may proclaim him in the nations!” The words, en emoi, translate as “in me,” and en ethnos translate as in the Gentile nations, or the masses of non-Jewish people! Not “among” the Gentiles as most translations have it. – Mirror Bible.
1 Cor 13:9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. What is the perfect? The prefect is not the Bible as I was told but the Spirit of Truth who reveals Jesus as the living word of God who is still speaking to us today. Or when the love of God is perfected in us.
Our English Bible has been translated and then interpreted from Greek with Latin influence. There are mistranslations where people leaned to their own understanding and interpretation. Taking the Bible seriously is not the same as taking it all literally. Some books are poetic, songs, highly symbolic, history, personal opinions etc.
Is everything recorded in the Bible the truth- no. Because there are many lies and opinions of men included in the stories. Jeremiah actually says that somethings were deliberately written as lies to deceive people.
Jer 8:8 “How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie.
Jer 8:8 How can you say that you are wise and that you know my laws? Look, the laws have been changed by dishonest scribes.
Jer 8:8 “‘How can you say, “We know the score. We’re the proud owners of God’s revelation”? Look where it’s gotten you—stuck in illusion. Your religion experts have taken you for a ride! Your know-it-alls will be unmasked, caught and shown up for what they are. Look at them! They know everything but God’s Word. Do you call that “knowing”? MSG
Religious mindsets have turned the Bible into something it was never intended to be, a closed finished completed book. Did the manmade completion of the canon of scripture bring an end to any further revelation?
I don’t believe God ‘s speaking to us is complete, any more than the Bible itself says it is. Before the Bible was canonized, any Holy Spirit inspired writings were considered “scripture. “What scripture have we missed?
Do I trust a group of people in AD397 to be the authoritative arbiters of the beginning, middle and end of the canon of scripture? – NO. Have we missed out on 1600 + years of authoritative revelation and truth? Would that truth have given us more insight into the restoration of all things?
How any Christians have been influenced by preachers emphatically stating that the completed whole Bible is the inspired, inerrant and infallible word of God? Once this dogmatic pronouncement gets into our heads, our minds can become closed to further truth.
We may no longer expect to hear from any other source other than the Bible even though we are promised the Spirit of truth would be in us to guide us. We may focus on a book the early Church did not have rather than Spirit they did have.
The Bible is good for pointing us to Jesus, but man’s interpretations have led to division and 30,000+ denominations all arguing their doctrinal and theological versions of the truth using the Bible
Man has used the Bible to misrepresent the true nature of a loving God to be an angry harsh disciplinarian and therefore turn people away from the one it was supposed to point them towards.
You can’t just use a book to prove God is real. Trying to convince someone about God using the Bible alone without experience is logically flawed. God wants to encounter people today just like He always has.
People in the Bible stories believed because they experienced either God Himself or someone whose testimony pointed them to God. Adam, Noah, Enoch, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Elders, Isaiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Disciples, Paul, etc. all experienced God.
You can’t use the Bible to prove the Bible is true which evangelicals try to do. Using verses from the same book to prove a point about the book to someone who does not believe it is akin to using a rope to push something.
Can God speak to us through the Bible yes of course He can but it is not His only or necessarily His preferred method. God’s preferred method even in the Bible is face to face encounter. God will try to get through to us using every method possible.
If we are going to see what God said through the prophets about the restoration of all things we need to engage the Spirit of truth. There may be many things to be restored that go beyond what is written in any scriptures because God is still speaking and revealing.
John 3:12 If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? John 16:12 I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.
As we learn to navigate the realms of heaven, we will discover many wonders beyond what are recorded in the Bible. Perhaps the maps and writings of explorers and forerunners will help us, but we will still need face to face intimacy and relationship with God Himself.
Just because true scripture is inspired, useful for teaching and correction, doesn’t mean we are to jump to the conclusion that all the stories and parables are to be taken literally or just accepted at face value. We always need Holy Spirit’s guidance to know what the truth is to apply today and was true at the time it was written.
How much of what is in the Bible was written primarily for the people in that time? Does the law which is now obsolete still apply? Does what was written to the generation following Jesus about the end still apply post AD70?
How much of what is prophecy in the Bible do we think is still in the future? Are we still looking for things that have already been fulfilled? Rapture, final judgment, great tribulation, resurrection, new heavens and new earth, end of the age are they future or past?
There are views of the Bible in its fulfilment that are futurist, historicist, partial and full preterist. Is it mostly still to happen? Has it happened but keeps happening? Or has it been all or mostly fulfilled in the generation Jesus addressed?
Matt 23:36 Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
2 Cor 1:20 For as many as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes; therefore, also through Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us.
Every promise and covenant are fulfilled in Jesus and the New Covenant.
Eph 1:10 with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth, in Him.
Rom 13:8 Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. 9 and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilment of the law.
If Jesus has promised to converse with us in a face-to-face relationship with Him where does the Bible fit into our lives? Has the Bible become a substitute for that real relationship with Jesus? Has the Bible become the mediator between God and man?
Has the Bible become the cornerstone and foundation of Christian faith?
1 Cor 3:11 For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Relationship with the Truth, Jesus is the foundation that God has already laid in all His children waiting to be revealed.
Jesus is the Truth. Wherever truth is found it must be from Jesus, but the conclusions and interpretations about truth people make are not necessarily true. We need a living relationship with a person Jesus the WAY the TRUTH the LIFE.
Jesus came to complete and fulfil the story prophesied long ago. 2 Cor 1:20 For as many as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes; therefore, also through Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us.
Heb 1:1 God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, 2 in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. 3 And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature and upholds all things by the word of His power.
Jesus came to unveil the true narrative of God’s nature and purpose. Jesus came to undo all the works of the evil one – lies. Jesus came to reveal the truth as the Truth.
Jesus came and challenged all DIY religious understanding. Jesus came to turn every deceptive theological doctrine and concept derived from man’s interpretation of what God had spoken into truth.
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
John 1:4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. 5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. Is this not equally true today?
John 1:14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. 16 For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. 17 For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.
John 1:1 To go back to the very beginning is to find the Word already present there; face to face with God. The Word is I am: God’s eloquence echoes and concludes in him. The Word equals God. The Word is not the Bible but Jesus.
John 1:2 The beginning mirrors the Word face to face with God. (Nothing that is witnessed in the Word distracts from who God is. ” If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” [John 14:9])
John 1:3 The Logos (Jesus) is the source; everything commences in him. He remains the exclusive Parent reference to their existence. There is nothing original, except the Word! The Logic of God defines the only possible place where humankind can trace their genesis.
John 1:4 His life is the light that defines our lives. (In his life mankind discovers the light of life.) 1:5 The darkness was pierced and could not comprehend or diminish this light. (Darkness represents mankind’s ignorance of his redeemed identity and innocence [Isa 9:2-4, Isa 60:1-3, Eph 4:18, Col 1:13-15].)
John 1:9 A new day for humanity has come. The authentic light of life that illuminates everyone was about to dawn in the world! The incarnation would make the image of God visible in human form. In him who is the blueprint of our lives there is more than enough light to displace the darkness in every human life.
John 1:12 Everyone who realizes their association in him, convinced that he is their original life and that his name defines them, God gives the assurance that they are indeed his offspring, begotten of him; he sanctions the legitimacy of their sonship.
John 1:13 These are the ones who discover their genesis in God, beyond their natural conception! This is not about our blood lineage or whether we were a wanted- or unwanted-child; this is about our God begotteness. We are his dream come true and not the invention of our parents. You are indeed the greatest idea God ever had! (See Jeremiah 1:5; 29:11 & John 3:2-7)
John 1:14 Suddenly the invisible, eternal Word takes on visible form – the Incarnation on display in a flesh and blood person as in a mirror! In him, and now confirmed in us! The most accurate tangible display of God’s eternal thought finds expression in human life!
John 1:14 The Word became a human being; we are his address; he resides in us! He captivates our gaze! The glory we see there is not a religious replica; he is the authentic begotten son. The glory (that we lost in Adam) returns in fullness! Only grace can communicate truth in such complete context!
John 1:16 He is the source of our completeness. Everyone may now realize his or her own completeness as evidenced in him. This is grace where no grace was due!
John 1:17 The law was given through Moses; grace and truth have their genesis in Jesus Christ. Against the stark backdrop of the law, with Moses representing the condemned state of mankind, Jesus Christ unveils grace and truth!
John 1:18 Until this moment God remained invisible; now the authentic, incarnate begotten Son, the blueprint of our design who represents the innermost being of God, the Son who is in the bosom of the Father, brings him into full view! He is the official authority qualified to announce God! He is our guide who accurately declares and interprets the invisible God within.
Some people see the Bible as an outdated book of primitive, barbaric fairy tales that we have moved beyond. And so they ignore it, missing all of the progressive and enlightened ideas that first entered human history through the writers of the Bible— ideas and ideals we still fall far short of, ideas and ideals that are still way ahead of our present consciousness and practice.
And then there are the folks who talk about how important and central and inspired the Bible is but then butcher it with their stilted literalism and stifling interpretations, assuming that it says one thing and if you just get that one thing, then you’ve read it well. Rob Bell
In the beginning (God) was the origin from which all things were born out of. In God there is the capacity of multiple beginnings, not just one. Therefore, as sons and daughters of God we are standing on the threshold of giving birth to new worlds filled with unimaginable life and eternal splendour. Michael Danforth
We need to continually hear God’s voice in relationship to be heirs and co-heirs to see creation set free from its bondage to corruption. As sons we need an intimate relationship with our Father, Brother and Friend so we can be revealed on the earth and answer creations groan.
Let’s engage Jesus the living word of God for restoration. Ask Him to reveal: What religious doctrines have negatively influenced your thinking? What has been robbed from your life? What is missing from your life? What is broken in your life? What has been lost in your life? What needs to be restored in your life?
Look into the eyes of the truth the living word of God and see the way the truth the life revealed in love.
Close your eyes and begin to think of Jesus and let that form in your imagination. Look into the eyes of the truth. Let Jesus give you direct revelation of the truth about Himself and about who you are as a son.
Ask Jesus to reveal any lies, wrong thinking, beliefs, doctrine, theology that has robbed you, limited or restricted you. Ask Jesus to reveal and deconstruct your belief systems.
Ask Jesus to restore the truth of all things to you by face to face revelation.