Three dangers for evangelicals and the Bible

  1. The Bible becomes a shibboleth: we wave it around but it doesn't shape what we do. We put our faith in leadership manuals.
  2. We easily slip into 'most of Scripture is profitable'. Luther:

    If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ.

    Wherever the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved and to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that one point.

  3. Just reading an exegetical essay week by week is not enough. It's the evangelical version of penance is to sit through those sermons. If your content and your emotional delivery are not the same, people won't listen and they won't believe you. Yeah God is powerful and could use the exegetical essay. But could God even work with us rather than in spite of use?
- Al Stewart