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Finding the truth is the debate over scholarship, language, style, accessibility, cultural relevance, manuscript credibility, doctrine. Perhaps those things are less important than God’s promises to preserve his perfect words for every generation forever. And perhaps when we find the perfectly preserved words of God, those things sort themselves out. Could it be that the Holy Spirit will lead true believers in all truth and he will not lead his children to error? Is it possible that enemies of the true word of God have sent truth seekers down many intellectual rabbit trails? Could it be that Paul was right when he disparaged learning without the Holy Spirit, he wrote ever learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth? Could this be the condition of today’s so called Christians, caught up in hyper-intellectualism and by overly trusting intellect, they’re practising self-glorification?
Is it possible that Satan and his earthly agents have successfully appealed to the imaginations of men? That men, valuing their own faculties of reason over God’s revealed truth, have presumed to know good and evil, have become as gods? What are the real issues regarding Bibles and truth? Must we all learn ancient Hebrew and Greek and textual criticism and submit to a scholarly consensus? And must we be educated and indoctrinated into some hierarchy of information credibility system, albeit a Sanhedrin council, Vatican council, seminary or Bible college? Is the truth inaccessible to the ignorant? Must it be the sole jurisdiction of the learned and their arcane reference materials?
And must we, the uninitiated, sit at the feet of the great men of the earth, lapping up every word as though from the very mouth of God? Is the truth of Scripture so impossible for the unlearned to reach that scholarly intermediaries must stand in the gap, lest poor, ignorant fools like I go astray and stumble into eternal damnation. Heaven forbid that frail men should stand in place of the Holy Spirit of God and the perfectly preserved Word of God, steering the thoughts and actions of we pathetic ignoramuses. I can imagine what Jesus thought when the esteemed scholars of Israel called him unlearn it and referred to his disciples as ignorant, while ironically marvelling at their deep knowledge of Scripture. What a disparaging thought that without nearly 10 books claiming to be the Word of God, hundreds of study Bibles, thousands of commentaries, dozens of lexicons and interlinear Bibles, and the study of ancient languages, no one today has access to God’s perfect preserved words.
How can this be? I speak facetiously. Alas, there is hope. We have the wise men of Christendom to tell us the truth. They say the truth no longer exists in written form. It disintegrated and lies under the rubble of some forgotten Middle Eastern ruins. Yes, that must be it. Mankind once had the truth, but God failed to preserve it. Instead, human errors compounded further alienating the truth. Yet we must take hope. Scholars tell us there is a glimmer of truth in those flawed and godless scholarly copies. And we have an even greater hope in brilliant scholars who say they understand ancient tomes, codes and creeds, and can apply modern translational mechanisms to them to reveal true meanings that we, the unworthy, would otherwise have no direct access to. What a blessing. Again I speak facetiously. What a relief to realize that despite God’s supposed abandonment of his people to errant books, he has given us mediators of truth men who can be trusted to tell the unwashed what God really means.
Is it presumptuous to declare, I have found the perfect infallible and inerrant words of God that God made good on his promise to preserve them? Or is it presumptuous to say God didn’t preserve his perfect words? But one can trust the great minds of men of letters to render close facsimiles. Yet should we decry scholarship? I think not. Rather, all thoughts should be subject to the infallible, inerrant preserved words of God. That, of course, is not possible unless it exists. Thus the scholar that says it doesn’t exist must turn to his own mind and to the minds of other fallible men. Surely this is not what God intended. Jesus said, error produces error. The formula is deductively simple truth produces truth, and corruption produces corruption. Yet men of supposed logic will insist that we learn truth from error. Is that very premise not a self-refuting argument? Can one legitimately declare their source materials errant while arrogantly standing on preaching poems presuming to declare God’s truth from such skewed writings? Is that not a farce?
Even the Catholic Church is not nearly that foolish to deny papal infallibility and then presume to dispense truth. No, they claim truth at every level of their hierarchy of information credibility system, never denying the chair of St. Peter as the infallible and inerrant fountain of all truth on earth. O foolish Protestant and Baptist scholars seeking the acclaim of how you have been sold a Jesuit bill of goods and in exchange for seats in high places, have forsaken the God breathed authority that once gave your predecessors freedom from such despicable, status quo religion. O foolish Protestants and Baptists, even the Jesuit engineers of your folly hold you in contempt as you happily ride the Jesus peace train back to Rome, singing Rock of Ages and Amazing Grace. And like your mama, you say, I sit a queen and she’ll see no sorrow. What folly.
