You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to meat Antioch,at Iconium, and at Lystra—which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you,continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings,which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete,equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:10-17
In school, I remember that students either LOVED or hated dissecting various degrees of animals, from worms and bugs, to frogs, and everything in between. Nowadays, I'm not sure you can do that in many schools, for budgetary, and (I suppose) humanitarian reasons. It used to be that such things were mandatory for a grade. What is more, it used to be that most parents would side with the teacher as opposed to their child when being forced to participate in the project, or they'd get a failing grade. Now, however, there seems to be a real problem with authority. In truth, though, the problem with Authority began much earlier than this movement to dissect or not. It began in the Garden of Eden, and has been in our rebellious hearts ever since.
These days, we have a difficult time reaching younger people. Many grew up in church, and have a hard time with the content of the study (much like in our example above). Many grew up learning the Authoritative word of God much in the manner one is taught Fairy Tales. Too many people, as adults, struggle with the images they have in their heads of Biblical History being drawn as campy, cutsie cartoons, leading many to believe that they, just as in Aesop's Fables or Mother Goose, are simply moral stories or cautionary tales. It feeds in to a rebellious spirit that is natural in every human being that "I can simply take what I want out of the Bible, because some of it is just guidance, while other parts are important." We now face, because of this, a watered down Christianity that serves itching ears, desiring to be a moral compass (while accepting all forms of sins that both the Old and New Testament warn will not let one enter the Kingdom), and completely denying the Power of God.
It is time that we all make this declaration: we believe the Word of God is true. All of it. Yet, it needs to go beyond merely this, for if we believe it, then we must live it out. The Bible MUST be the infallible, authoritative word of God, or it's nothing.
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