INNIE OR OUTIE?

by Aaron

I had a very interesting question posed to me at Element today, one that actually led to someone deciding to leave Element as their home church. The question essentially came down to scripture and whether we allow God’s word to dictate what we hold as truth verses our own experiences.

Essentially the person I was talking to had an experience that has caused them to view certain scriptures a certain way. They were explaining a text to me, from the King James Version, and telling me how the English Standard Version has it all wrong.

Now, I can have a conversation about translation style, which texts are used in the translation, translating committees…all that stuff, but what this person had a problem with was that the text from the ESV didn’t agree with them. I tried to explain the team of scholars behind the ESV and the Greek text verses the Latin Vulgate, but none of it mattered because they simply liked the words the King James Version used and it had nothing to do with correct translation at all.

Today in service I talked about letting God search us deep into our core, one of the ways He does this is through His Word. We must be a people who allow God’s word to CHANGE us, to read out of a text what it was meant to say, and never to read INTO a text our biases and prejudices.

If you have ever had a question about what Element teaches or believes I would like you to understand this: we will be a church that is grounded in God’s word as tightly as we can be. That means that we will allow God’s text to speak to us, to change us, to be our rule for life and faith…we will do our best to never read into a text what is not there.

I know this is not a popular stance to take in our world of individualism today, but we must base our lives on the One who is unchanging, Jesus, and not upon the changing winds of our experience.