Stretch your mind, not your credulity.

If you alter or obscure the Biblical portrait of God in order to attract converts, you don't get converts to God, you get converts to an illusion. This is not evangelism, but deception - Pastor John Piper

Last Updated: 1 December, 2021

At root, evangelical anti-intellectualism is both a scandal and a sin. It is a scandal in the sense of being an offense and a stumbling block that needlessly hinders serious people from considering the Christian faith and coming to Christ. It is a sin because it is a refusal, contrary to Jesus' two great commandments, to love the Lord our God with our minds. Anti-intellectualism is quite simply a sin. Evangelicals must address it as such, beyond all excuses, evasions, or rationalizations of false piety.

Oz Guinness

Doctrinal preaching certainly bores the hypocrites; but it is only doctrinal preaching that will save Christ’s sheep.

J. I. Packer

When religion is handed down among us by hereditary succession, it is not surprising to find youth of sense and spirit beginning to question the truth of the system in which they were brought up. And it is not surprising to see them abandon a position which they are unable to defend.

J.P. Moreland

The book Christians believe contains truth from God, the Bible, does not contain all the truth (not even close), nor does it claim to do so. There is so much that is true that the Bible (or any book) could not possibly contain it all. English translations of the Bible have about 750,000 words. That’s nowhere near enough for all the true things. However, it is just the right amount for God’s revelation of Himself to us. It is also more than enough to give you a saving insight into the word of truth (the gospel of your salvation).  So many words, with a correspondingly large sentence count, which are then also divided into verses and paragraphs, can generate a few challenges. For that reason, there’s no shortage of not-so-clear statements and hard-to-understand sayings.

So, inevitably, many Bible believers and Bible readers (not always the same...) harbour all kinds of not-so-true ideas. While I’m a fan of truth (especially truth-in-action), history, including Church history, has many examples of pseudo-truth that dresses deception in truth’s clothes and then cleverly re-labels the lie with a truth-veneer. There have been many so-called truths foisted on the world by various Orwellian “Ministries of Truth”. Many stories could be told of the world-shaking, negative, life-diminishing changes wrought in the name of “truth”. Recent and remote history is full of examples where the world was turned on its head by false ideas passionately believed and acted out.

The Bible does not give us a truth entirely relative to the culture in which it is being discussed. The Bible’s truth is not a creation of ancient Hebrews or the early Christians (Jew or Gentile). The orthodox Christian view is that both the ancient Hebrews and the early Christians received truth from God. God is the very source of truth, and He speaks truth to us - His creatures. We, the creatures, are expected, naturally enough, to fall into line with His revealed truth.[1] Some do, and some don’t - even if they are Bible scholars. Now any truth, especially Bible truth, can set you on a journey to someplace you may not want to go. That’s because knowing the truth can lead to (sometimes radical) change. Well, it can, if you are open to the truth you discover and are willing to embrace it and act on it, not simply know it. Truth embraced and followed may cause you to change what you believe, your thinking, values, behaviours, and, most importantly, your relationship to God - your Father.

My aim is to give you a bit of a nudge down the path, start you on a journey of discovery, and help you stay the course. To discover and to journey, you will need skills that you may not possess or perhaps may simply not recognise. Being able to think critically and logically is one skill that you simply can't do without. Being able to think deeply about something - to get 'right into it' - is also helpful. With deep thinking, perhaps that's just a case of finding the time, the leisure, the commitment and the discipline to see something through.

Remember, too, that when you approach Bible study and doctrine, critical thinking (or deep thinking for that matter) does not, as a rule, lead you to some new revelation or transcendent discovery. Well, it may be a new revelation for you or your Church, but in most cases, you will find your most recent fantastic revelation already discussed somewhere. Sometimes in books that are centuries old. Across the Church’s many centuries, those who have gone before you have thought about, discussed, debated, disputed, concluded and documented their thoughts on the Word and doctrine, with far greater depth and breadth than you are likely to bring to the table. That does not mean that these discussers, disputers and documenters have got it right - but don’t dismiss their work out of hand.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions and to read (a lot). Learning and growing will take effort. I don’t want to turn us all into clerics who (almost by definition) have a dry religious outlook, nor should we become scholars who are bereft of passion for the wonder, truth and saving grace of the Word.

Scholarship should not intimidate you to the point of debilitating doubt or drive you to complete scepticism about the meaning of what you read in the Bible - especially when the plain meaning of scripture seems more plausible than the scholars’ opinions.

Greg Sheridan suggests that A lot of what many of them [Bible scholars] have said is plain wrong, and some of it weirdly and bizarrely and demonstrably wrong. [2]

However, having said that, it’s worth noting that Bible scholarship has added much-needed clarity in any number of areas. It’s not all bad.

So don’t be intimidated by Bible scholarship to the extent that you doubt your own good judgement. Be wary, though, of your own unchecked thoughts. Practice some discernment about your own opinions as well. Learn to spit out the pips. Not everything you are going to mentally consume is going to be worth retaining. However, as Pastor John Piper says over at Desiring God:

...Sorry, but the best things have to be dug for. If you rake, you get leaves; if you dig, you get diamonds. And if you’ve got a raking mind, you’ll settle for leaves. If you’ve got a digging mind, you’ll get diamonds...

Endnotes

[1]  He [God] is the truth in its absolute fullness. He, therefore, is the primary, the original truth, the source of all truth, the truth in all truth. He is the ground of the truth – of the true being – of all things, of their knowability and conceivability, the ideal and archetype of all truth, of all ethical being, of all the rules and laws, in light of which the nature and manifestation of all things should be judged and on which they should be modelled. God is the source and origin of the knowledge of truth in all areas of life.

Herman Bavinck: “Reformed Dogmatics”

[2] Sheridan, Greg. Christians: The urgent case for Jesus in our world (pp. 60-61). Allen & Unwin.