Thursday, April 7, 2011

Who's on Top?

Within believers, a struggle often occurs between our own preconceived ideas and the truth of God's Word. A classic game of who's on top. Ulrich Zwingli, a sixteenth century reformer, summarizes this struggle well,

"Alas! Here we come upon the canker at the heart of all human systems. And it is this: we want to find support in Scripture for our own view, and so we take that view to Scripture, and if we find a text which, however artificially, we can relate to it, we do so, and in that way we wrest Scripture in order to make it say what we want it to say" (Zwingli, "On the Clarity and Certainty of the Word of God").

May God grant us His grace to be submitted to and changed by His Word and not to reverse this relationship.

J