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.

Personality Is Not Faith or Orthodoxy

Among churches which are concerned with upholding a creed at times you will find the issue that the churches cannot distinguish between the creed and the culture of the church. It is interesting that in certain creedal churches those who have been raised in the church, who share in the personality of the church because they have been raised in the culture, are given a nearly complete pass in regards to orthodoxy.

It is interesting that in creedal churches some of the most worrisome expressions of faith come from those who have never been outside of that denomination. It is not that the denomination has failed in teaching the creed but rather the denomination is blind to the fact that those who have been raised in the denomination are at clear odds with the creed.

These people may be promoted to eldership without the bat of an eye even though they are at odds with the creed. Often it is not the easiest to see but no one ever questions them even when they say error because they have never not been in the church and feel like the other in the church.

And here is the great error. True religion is not something one is born into. True religion is not a shared culture of how we act on the surface. It is of course of great benefit to be born into a believing community and raised in a Christian way. But Christianity is not simply a lack of a rejection of what one has been taught by one's Christian family.

Christianity is a religion which must become personal and take root. It is not as if we are Christian simply by not leaving the church we grew up in and not rejecting its teaching. You see some people grow up in a church and remain and yet seem to have no active element to their faith.

They may remain because of community or all the good business networking connections they have gained. Or maybe other members of the church are clients. But faith is always active. Faith is a new beginning each person takes before God. It is necessarily more than a lack of a rejection of what one has been taught.