The Truth Project 4: Theology

The main thrust of this section is about God revealing Himself to man, and Del concentrates almost entirely on scripture and the revelation there. I don't see Del as Sola Scriptura in a hard line sense, but I think he comes close. For one thing, he seems to confuse "the Word" with the Bible, reading "scripture" whenever he sees "word"...... except John 1:1 (not mentioned) where it would be a little off to think it could read, "In the beginning was the Bible and the Bible was with God and...." if you see what I mean. My point is that scripture is a part of the revelation of God's Word, but it is not "the Word." Del even cites John 5:39-40 "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." But he does not apply what the meaning of a relationship with Christ or putting on the mind of Christ means as far as guidance, and does not approach the fact that Jesus promised a "comforter" for our guide. This is fairly common for those who require concrete authority; something written in stone. I always think of someone with that kind of requirement as asking God to show how to live in a way that brings him close to God. God says, "I will give you a guide," and the guy says, "Hold on, you don't mean this 'Holy Spirit' do you? 'Cause I have heard about this 'Spirit;' He tells you to turn left without warning or explanation and never gives a description of the complete route." God says, "Well, yes, that's what I had in mind," and the guy says, "Tellya what, I've got this set of directions worked up from letters by people who have gone that way some time back, how about if I just use that?" God says, "Well, if that's what YOU want, but I have to tell you that a LOT of people have missed the path that way." Please note that the famous citation from Paul to Timothy describes scripture as "useful." Think of them as a tool for the Spirit, but not as our "guide." We say that interpretation of scripture requires the Spirit, but we don't seem to start with the Spirit when we need guidance.

One thing that Del did explain well, and a new thought to me, was that God as a "Jealous God" is not jealous as we normally think of jealousy, but hates anything that stands between us and a relationship with Him. That would include ANYthing that we make into an idol.