Replies

Thank you so much for your post!

I said: However, problems arise when anyone believes that his understanding of Scripture is the only one acceptable to God

You said: For bible believing Christians, the word of God is the unique revelation of God to his creatures. What would you have them believe? You would ask them to take the word of man or the world, over the revealed word of God. What kind of a "christian believer" would do that?

Indeed, there is only one God the Father and one Truth. And Jesus Christ is the Word of God made flesh. The Word was in the beginning, it was with God and was God (John 1) Thus the Word of God precedes Moses and the time of the Law and the Prophets, i.e. the Scriptures. Moreover, we Christians are given the Holy Spirit to lead us into the Truth (John 14:26 and I Corinthians 2:16)

The revealed Word of God transcends all and in no way do I propose that any mortal interpretation of Scripture is to be preferred. Our eyes must read the Scriptures, but the Spirit within us reads the Word.

Christ chose twelve very different personalities for His disciples. He could have made them all alike, that fact the He did not is significant.

And the disciples did not all agree on the interpretation of the Law and the Prophets. Acts 15 describes such a dispute and how the negotiation with Peter at Jerusalem helped in the ministry to the Gentiles – and how the difference between Paul and Barnabas helped spread the ministry to the Gentiles by their splitting. We see also in Revelation 1-3 where the churches each were accepted and noted for their individual strengths and weaknesses.

My point in all of this is that God permits certain differences which He uses to accomplish His will. If my Christian brother and I disagree on some interpretations of Scripture – other than the deity of Christ and the authority of the Word and the Scriptures themselves, the Great Commandment, etc. – then I defer to the wisdom of Gamaliel in Acts 5.

And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.

Well that quote from Gamaliel is biblical and it concerns Christianity, nothing else. The practice of paganism and even Baal worship, Satanism, has never ceased, and indeed is spreading even today, yet that is not from God. One needs spiritual discernment in these matters.

As you said, there is only one Truth. Bible believers hold fast to the revealed word of God and choose to err, if they do err, which we hold that we cannot, on the side of the revealed word. To excoriate the fundamentalist believer and make him the subject of mockery when he will, indeed must, hold his Lord and Savior in reverance above all the thoughts and works of mankind, is the work of the Evildoer at the worst, and a deleterious and destructive intolerance at best.