Once again Saturday morning finds me just returned home from a visit to my local Ford dealership, this time performed at their request rather than a normal need for an oil change. While waiting there, I chanced upon the above quote and, with my mind yet traversing the subject of “deifying Scripture, somehow the singer’s statement registered with me. This old man is very much a “mental ruminant”, always chewing on some “regurgitated” thinking not yet quite digested; and what holds my attention, at the moment, is wondering why we are so scared to simply “give the Bible back to God”, in terms of Him defining it for us instead of the other way around. Immediately, of course, most will tell me that we already do so by confessing it to be “inspired”. What exactly does that last expression mean to us, however? Is it no more than the Almighty once “breathing” His voice into certain prophets and a handful of disciples, that which was spoken sanctified and set in concrete? Is it, in reality, yet alive, Deity in communication with us, utilizing Biblical text as a directional “rod and staff”, leading us step by step in our journey? Thomas Merton, in his book “Springs of Contemplation”, defines it as “a judgment on a deep level somewhere down in the ground of our body”, assigning it to the Holy Ghost and adding “it gives us the conviction that, when we follow such leading, we are on the right track”. I agree, my only hesitation being his failure, like so many others, to give the Spirit His own identity as the Third “Person” of the Trinity. One way or another in this, it seems, we find it much easier to keep Christ in a box, our faith, indeed our salvation, a matter of our own doctrinal interpretation……
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