Throughout my life the Lord has led me places where at the time I had no idea of just how significant it would be in preparing me for the future.  It’s astonishing to me how many of these there are and how clueless I have been along the way.  One example is that in my final semester of college I chose 1) to write a paper and 2) the subject was the inerrancy of the Bible.  I approached it with an open mind, read lots of material on both sides, and came to a firm conclusion.  I have been thankful for that time and again.

I read a paper tonight which isn’t the first and last word on the subject by any means, but I found that it had a number of good points that I had not considered recently or at all.  I recommend it to you. 

I ‘ll cite two paragraphs to spark your interest.

Denison either misunderstands or misconstrues the concept of the “slippery slope.” Personally, rather than using the phrase “slippery slope,” I prefer to speak of the denial of biblical inerrancy as a “gateway heresy,” deliberately drawing from the characterization of marijuana as a “gateway drug.” Those who argue that marijuana is a “gateway drug” are not claiming that every person who smokes marijuana must necessarily move on to heroin. Neither are they claiming that every heroin addict also is a marijuana user. Rather, they are attempting to demonstrate that marijuana use leads to the use of other drugs often enough to be statistically significant.

Likewise, history demonstrates a clear statistical pattern of people who first reject biblical inerrancy and then reject other important Christian doctrines. One could cite individual anecdotes such as Southern Seminary Professor Crawford Howell Toy, who abandoned biblical inerrancy and eventually left orthodox Christianity. Another approach would be to analyze such groups as the homosexuality-affirming Alliance of Baptists and compare the percentage of their membership affirming inerrancy with the percentage of Southern Baptists affirming inerrancy. In doing this, the objective would not be to demonstrate that no exceptions exist, but simply to show that most who become heretics deny inerrancy first, and that the denial of inerrancy strongly predisposes one to deny other important Christian doctrines as well. One can agree with Denison that it is possible for a person to deny biblical inerrancy and yet cling to some of the Bible’s important teachings, yet we can also say that however possible this state may be, it often does not endure over the span of generations in the majority of those who deny the inerrancy of the Bible. The well-beaten path, trodden by Mainline denominations and institutions all around us, is from the denial of inerrancy to the denial of other vital Christian doctrines.

John MacArthur preached on “The Centrality of Forgiveness in Unity” last year in TMC Faculty/Staff chapel and it was so beneficial that copies were made for everyone.  Fortunately, I’m on the list and was mailed a copy.  The whole message is good, but I especially liked this portion and so I typed it out and made an audio clip (mp3) from the CD for you, my dear readers.

And then one final thought.  And maybe this is the most important one for you to keep in mind.  All the injuries committed against you, all the injustices committed against you, all the offenses committed against you are your trials by which God perfects you. 

You have to change how you view them.  People often say to me, How do you deal with your critics?  How do you deal with people that say terrible things about you?  How do you deal with people that lie about you?  How do you deal with people that put stuff on the internet that is not true about you?  How do you deal with that? 

The simple answer is this.  Look, I’m not perfect.  I need perfecting.  And whatever God chooses to allow to come against me I have to embrace as a trial which in the purposes of God is designed for me to be more like Christ.

So you embrace those things.  You felt like you were not treated right.  You felt like you were treated in an unfair way.  You felt like you were misrepresented.  You felt like you were misunderstood.

Oh my, I hear that, that’s a daily thing for me.  You would be amazed at what people say I said.  Or say I did, or didn’t do.  All those injuries, all those offenses, all those assaults and attacks are the trials that perfect me.  That’s why James said, “Count it all joy when you fall into various trials.”  Because those are the things that perfect your faith.

Peter said it this way, 1 Peter 5:10, “After you have suffered a while, the Lord make you perfect.” Or Paul said it in 2 Corinthians 12:7 that he was content with persecutions, trials, suffering.  Because when he was weak then he was strong.  God’s strength is perfected in his weakness.

So embrace all of those iniquities in life.  Embrace all of those things that don’t seem fair to you.  Embrace all of the false accusations, all the offenses against you, all the sins against you.  Embrace them.  They are the God-permitted trials which when responded to correctly become the very things that make you strong.

This is a long quote from a dead guy, so you ‘re going to be tempted to skip it.  Go ahead, I dare you.

Epictetus was a Stoic philosopher who lived in the 1st century AD.  This is a portion of his section entitled “Of Providence.” 

“I declare, by Zeus and all the gods, one single fact of nature would suffice to make him that is reverent and grateful realize the providence of God: no great matter, I mean; take the mere fact that milk is produced from grass and cheese from milk and wool from skin.  Who is it that has created or contrived these things?

“‘No one, ‘ he says.

“Oh the depth of man’s stupidity and shamelessness!…

“If we had sense we ought to do nothing else, in public and in private, than praise and bless God and pay him due thanks.  Ought we not, as we dig and plough and eat, to sing the hymn to God?  ‘Great is God that he gave us these instruments wherewith we shall till the earth.  Great is God that he has given us hands, and power to swallow, and a belly, and the power to grow without knowing it, and to draw our breath in sleep. ‘  At every moment we ought to sing these praises and above all the greatest and divinest praise, that God gave us the faculty to comprehend these gifts and to use the way of reason.

“More than that: since most of you are walking in blindness, should there not be some one to discharge this duty and sing praises to God for all?  What else can a lame old man as I am do but chant the praise of God?  If, indeed, I were a nightingale I should sing as a nightingale, if a swan, as a swan: but as I am a rational creature I must praise God.  This is my task, and I do it: and I will not abandon this duty, so long as it is given me; and I invite you all to join in this same song.

Epictetus was not a Christian, but he was not as blind as many others who lived in his world and in ours.  He did live part of his life in Rome, and Paul wrote to the Romans in the 1st century:

Romans 1:18-23 (NIV) “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.”

(Translation from C. K. Barrett, The New Testament Background: Selected Documents, 1st ed., p. 67.)