The absolute truth
While there are many things that are in various shades of grey, the bible is black and white, it is the absolute truth, so I have realized.
A year-long lesson from my Lord taught me well.
I have been a victim of the postmodern world, which promotes relativism whereby nothing is absolute. I used those views to doubt the bible, using my own discretion to sift out what needs to be applied.
It is up to your own interpretation, I had said. How can you say this is the absolute? It is open to different interpretations. I had said. Really, it is up to the individual how she applies.
I have been looking at my world through a postmodern scope.
I appreciate the postmodern scholars’ studies. Much of those studies are valuable. Yes, human language is imprecise, is ambiguous, is volatile. Yes, human experience and culture shape our understanding and hence the truth we have come to know. Hence, there is no absolute truth. Truth is relative, those scholars offer.
So anything goes. Someone’s moving his bowel in the public is a form of art. Creativity is when cornflake boxes are glued together with coke cans.
When the Word conflicts with my own selfish desire, embracing relativism dampens my ability to acknowledge that the Bible, the Word is the absolute truth.
When it comes to the bible, there should be no private interpretation. The Holy Spirit dwelling in me will tell me what is the absolute truth. However, when the familiar voice from the serpent says, “did God really said that?”, I am all too ready to give in to my sinful nature and build my own truth based on the bible.
From that hard lesson that has kept me pretty low for a long period of time, I realized that the doubts that I had about His Word did not come from the difficulty of interpreting His Word. It came from my reluctance to give in to the authority of His Word and just obey, especially when by obeying, my selfish desires would be left unfulfilled.
So from now on, more obedience, less intellectual relativism.
A year-long lesson from my Lord taught me well.
I have been a victim of the postmodern world, which promotes relativism whereby nothing is absolute. I used those views to doubt the bible, using my own discretion to sift out what needs to be applied.
It is up to your own interpretation, I had said. How can you say this is the absolute? It is open to different interpretations. I had said. Really, it is up to the individual how she applies.
I have been looking at my world through a postmodern scope.
I appreciate the postmodern scholars’ studies. Much of those studies are valuable. Yes, human language is imprecise, is ambiguous, is volatile. Yes, human experience and culture shape our understanding and hence the truth we have come to know. Hence, there is no absolute truth. Truth is relative, those scholars offer.
So anything goes. Someone’s moving his bowel in the public is a form of art. Creativity is when cornflake boxes are glued together with coke cans.
When the Word conflicts with my own selfish desire, embracing relativism dampens my ability to acknowledge that the Bible, the Word is the absolute truth.
When it comes to the bible, there should be no private interpretation. The Holy Spirit dwelling in me will tell me what is the absolute truth. However, when the familiar voice from the serpent says, “did God really said that?”, I am all too ready to give in to my sinful nature and build my own truth based on the bible.
From that hard lesson that has kept me pretty low for a long period of time, I realized that the doubts that I had about His Word did not come from the difficulty of interpreting His Word. It came from my reluctance to give in to the authority of His Word and just obey, especially when by obeying, my selfish desires would be left unfulfilled.
So from now on, more obedience, less intellectual relativism.
posted by eternal bough at 12:23 AM
3 Comments:
Yay. I am happy for you.
"I have been a victim of the postmodern world, which promotes relativism whereby nothing is absolute."
Gosh that is exactly what my friend at money desk was telling me the other day. Are all you reporters on the same wavelength?
OM: you helped me out in that area too. really thank you. you challenged my thoughts even though it means friction just so as you can uphold his truth. thanks again. else I will still be carrying that cloud of heaviness about me - doubts.
paddy: not sure about the same wavelenth thing. well, those who chose journalism as a career has a sort of personality that makes them want to overturn all stones to see whether there are worms, centipedes underneath. Is your friend a christian? If she/he is, she/he might be interested in this book by Gene Edward Veith: How to love God with all your mind: how to think like a christian in the postmodern world. I am going down to Lifestyle to get that book before my mind is further corrupted by the postmodernists. Maybe your friend would like to get one.
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