Thursday 3 May 2018

THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE IN PRACTICE

'Since Scripture is our only final and authoritative source in understanding truths about God and his relation to the created order, two things are required of us. First,we must submit to and embrace all that Scripture does teach, despite its agreement or disagreement with the values and teaching of our culture. If the authority of Scripture means anything, it means that our mistaken ideas must change to conform to Scripture's teachings, and we must resist at every turn the temptation to conform Scripture's teaching to what seems so clear and true to us from our culture. Granted, this is easier said than  done. Nonetheless, this must be our goal and earnest desire if we are to honor God and his Word in the process of our theological formulation. Second, we must also be ready to stop our theological formulations at the point that Scripture's revealed truth stops. We can violate the authority of Scripture as much by going beyond what it says into areas wherein Scripture is silent as we can by distorting and reshaping what it actually does say to fit the mindset of our culture. In other words we must discipline our minds and our theology to conform to Scripture and to be content to say what it says and remain silent where it is silent.' 
Bruce Ware, God's Greater Glory: The Exalted God of Scripture and the Christian Faith, p.99.