Inerrancy is Comprehensive

Many pastors have a great concern with inerrancy. The doctrine is very important, but is of very little practical use without an insistence on comprehensiveness in exposing scripture.

With the great amount of topical preaching done in the current day having a pastor with a doctrine of inerrancy is of little practical use to his congregation if the pastor avoids teaching on many topics in scripture. It is rarely stated in a crass way by the pastor that he does not wish to preach on a topic in scripture, but many pastors have certain topics they refuse in practice to preach on.

I once heard a high profile preacher who preached an entire sermon series on inerrancy and faithfulness to scripture proudly state that he has and never will preach a sermon on giving. It is difficult to reconcile his great passion for inerrancy in scripture with his objection to preaching the fullness of scripture.

Many pastors in the current day live in this state. They insist upon the inerrancy and usefulness of all scripture while trying to hide many elements of scripture away from view.

I find one of the best ways to judge the orthodoxy of a pastor or theologian is to look at what they refuse to or never speak on. It is easy to say all the right things when a pastor or theologian picks and chooses the topics to speak on.

But what is unsaid is often where orthodoxy is made or broken. A pastor may claim to hold a "high view of scripture" but that high view is only so high as the pastor's concern to practically model that all scripture is useful.

It seems that the focus of pastors would be better to focus on a comprehensive view of scripture. An insistence on comprehensive view of scripture coupled with an inerrant view of scripture is of far greater use than simply a concern with inerrancy.

The Nature of Prayer

Prayer is in essence a conversation with God. Often the types of prayer we hear in churches are quite wrong.

You see in prayer vast theological movements as if the prayer is teaching to the congregation rather than a prayer to God. You see all the leaders of the church have done is teach the church to pray in the wrong way.

Prayer is a conversation with God. If we have walked with God for many years we have had many years of talking to God and Him speaking to us through scripture and various means.

We are on a certain set of terms with God and we should pray to him as a person and not an abstract entity we have no history or relation too.

We would not in speaking with a friend remind them of all the contents of their letters and emails to us. It is a bit different with the contents of the bible, but not terribly so.

The more theology we put into prayer the more we remove it from its fundamental aspect as conversation with God.

The second aspect of prayer is that it is petitionary. We must bring requests to God. They need not be large, but we must bring requests.

The reason for this is that we are in need and God is infinite in perfection and fullness. We properly understand our relation to God only when we express our need to God.

Maybe our needs are small, but God wishes to hear them. He is not bothered by our needs. He is infinite and desires for us to speak to him.