I was asked this question:

So do you equivocate The Letters with scripture? I know, I know... this is the point where, if you say "yes", I slam you with that verse about not taking away from or adding to the Bible...etc. That's not my aim.

I approach truth from the standpoint of John 17:17, "Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth." Thus, every apparent 'truth' I find must, essentially, be confirmed by scripture. Every Jesus experience must be confirmed by scripture.

Do you use scripture as a benchmark? Maybe your personal Jesus-experiences or revelations? Or do you feel these Letters stand on their own?

Sorry to ask so many questions. I appreciate your openness.

Here was my loooong reply.

I equivocate God's Word with God's Word.
I do not relegate one word from His mouth as second fiddle to any other word.

Man should not add nor subtract to His Word. But that doesn't muzzle God from doing it Himself. For God is not limited and there are more than one warning about adding to and subtracting from that was written in early parts of the Torah ... and yet God, Himself, added the later parts of the Torah and New Testament ... did He not?

We should encourage each other that the Living Word is that which makes true the words in the Bible and not the other way around.

The Bible doesn't even point to the Bible. The Bible points to the Lord ... and so when I point to the Bible ... it is not for any other reason except for the highest hope that in there they might be able to focus on Jesus. And with that highest hope, it is now that I will point to the Bible (or actually the lack thereof) to demonstrate what I am talking about.

When Saul (who became Paul) was stopped on the road, he was stopped by Jesus Christ the Lord, but this was not the Jesus of the New Testament ... nor the historic Jesus. At that time none of the books of the NT had been written, not even the gospels ... and though Saul had much (if not all) of the OT memorized ... Saul, like the Pharisees of that time, were searching the scriptures in vain, for they had not come to Christ for Life. However, provided that the Lord Jesus revealed many mysteries to Paul, it was then BY FOCUSING on Jesus ... that we have two-thirds of the scriptures of the New Testament, for Paul only knew the Risen Lord by experience and experience alone.

Again, I am not saying "don't read your Bible."
I am not saying "don't read your Bible."
I am not saying "don't read your Bible." (thrice for effect.)

What I am saying is that we should NOT underestimate the effect of focusing on Jesus because the nearness of the Lord and the instruction by the Spirit (that leads us to all Truth) is the perspective FROM WHICH the scriptures are written ... and any of us so blessed by the nearness and the instruction might one day find that the Bible reads like a deja vu (spelling?)

We might find ourselves reading what Paul wrote and saying to ourselves: "That sounds like something that I would have said."

And it is to this end ... this highest hope ... that I say AMEN to the Bible, but even more so to the inspiration by which it was written and to which it points - the Risen Lord - the Living Word!

Do I require that I validate all things with my understanding of scripture? If so, what if my understanding is false? What if my understanding is incomplete?

Provided that anything "new" be tested in such a manner, which book of the New Testament would remain? Which would anyone say is completely verified with nothing new added to what has already come before? Show me a book of the Bible that contains NOTHING new, and I'll show you a publishers mis-print. For in each of the books of the New Testament there is Truth unquestioned, but surely you see what a scandal it would be at the time of its first publishing ... publishing, that is, something new alongside what was accepted before!

We live in an age where all things are neatly figured out for us. Our understanding of Truth is that of a mortician having already performed the autopsy. The cadaver lay on the table neatly arranged and dissected under bright lights ... yet behold the thing on the table is dead as anything would be that we would dissect. No twitch or motion ... the corpse has rigor mortis ... it died long ago, so take your color-by-number doctrinal guide and be happy that we have all the answers from the theologians gone before.

Yet in all of this we don't seem to understand that the Word is living and active ...

The Bible is the written word, but even without the Bible, the Living Word would not be diminished. For there was a time when there was not a Bible, nor printing press, nor King named "James."

The Word is God's sign of Life and an invitation to relate to the Lord who is present and living and active ... not an invitation to destroy it's beauty by autopsy

How many ways are there to know that I am alive? When I recently went to get my wisdom teeth removed (which explains alot of things) ... I was hooked up to alot of equipment that checked vital signs. One would beep, another would draw lines on a chart, another made a blue blip that went across a small screen, and to top it off the nurse took my pulse and anyone could feel the warmth of my skin. Before they knocked me out, I would have shook your hand, and if I wasn't sitting down then I could step on your toe, and all of these things would have shown you that I am alive. Each one was a witness to the same reality - though some of them appealed to the sense of hearing, sight, touch, and ... ahem ... smell.

Such is the nature of God's Living Word.

The Word is God's vital sign. We know God is alive, because of His Word. The Word is not merely contained as ink on paper, Jesus was the Word, and indeed we are surrounded by the Word, as the whole of the universe is held together by God's Word.

Isaiah 55:11
so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

When we read the scriptures we are reading the little written chart of God's vital signs, it tells us through another method, the exact thing that Jesus, in person, tells us, and that the creation tells us, that a shake of the hand or our finger on the pulse would tell us.

The evidence for God's existence is manifold around us, all witnessing to the same reality - which is the firm conclusion that God creates, God reveals, and God redeems.

A man seeking God in earnest though he has never seen a Bible or though he cannot read and never will ... will find ... and know authentically ... just as Paul knew and wrote about.

A man seeking understanding of God through academic pursuit and thus limiting what is permitted for discovery according to how well it matches up to what he already thinks he understands due to the popularity of his orthodox doctrine ... will find ... blindness in common with the Pharisees.

Ripening,
Trent