How the Resurrection of Jesus Defeats Five Common Temptations In the Church (4/5)

2 Corinthians 3:18 - And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (ESV)

Beholding is becoming. Or in Paul’s inspired words, “Beholding the glory...being transformed into the same image.” Listen to the communal language, “And we all.” Easter requires a week of weeks to even come close to beholding the glory of the risen Lord. It is a great season to ask, “what is resurrected Lord transforming in the resurrection community as we behold him?” Here is the fourth common temptation in the church that the Lord is transforming.

Temptation Four: Misusing the Bible

The Bible is the great unused resource in many churches and misused in others. In a candid admission, a former bishop of a large mainline denomination said, “We have lost our confidence in the gospel.” He based this on membership decline, congregational closures, and statistically infrequent evangelism and outreach among her members. I wanted to ask, “Do you think your loss of confidence in the gospel might come from the erosion of Biblical authority in your teaching and literacy among your constituency?” Activism, justice work, and mercy are sometimes pitted against Biblical exposition and evangelism, and it need not be. There is more than sufficient authority and solid foundation and living energy coursing through the Scriptures to  call us to actually take a stand against racial and gender inequality, and to sustain activism which can be brutally exhausting. Justice work motivated by our Just and justifying God revealed in Christ can be sustained even though the wrong seems oft so strong, because God is the ruler yet, and he is all about putting all of his enemies under his feet (1 Corinthians 15.25). One day racism will have to bow, and sex trafficking will be destroyed, and the commodification of women will be dispelled as the covenantal commitment of the Groom comes with a shout and a sound of a trumpet and the cry of an archangel (1 Thessalonians 4.16)!

Others have a substantial, wholehearted commitment to the inerrancy and infallibility of the Scriptures and miss the point of the Scriptures. Yes, there are true principles found through the Bible. There is also healthy advice, archeological information, captivating history, hero stories, laws particular to national Israel, and laws for everyone, glimpses into the glory of science, manuals for households, wisdom, and many other categories. None of these are an end in themselves. All of them are written to point to the point: Jesus! The B.i.b.l.e. is not less than “Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth” but it is so much more than that. It is a trustworthy manual and a map, but more! It bears witness to our resurrected Lord! Sure the Bible talks about the good life, but it actually comes alive in Jesus.

Jesus’ commitment to use the Scriptures and to use them in a particular way is evident. Luke writes that on the Emmaus way where, “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24.27). Also, when Jesus joined the resurrection community, “He said to them, ‘These are the things that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures’” (Luke 24.44-45).

Here is an extended reflection on a helpful resource in understanding the relationship between the Scriptures and the gospel (formal and material principle): http://trinitypastor.blogspot.com/2014/08/a-vintage-resource-to-help-gungor-and.html