But I know that you do not have the love of God within you. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me…Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?

John 5:42-47

Sometimes people pick and choose what they like from the Bible – and that’s their “religion”.  The Pharisees did that in Jesus’ time too.  Here we have Jesus scolding them for rejecting Him.  In the previous passage, when Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath, they seethed.  They despised Him.  They wanted to kill Him!  Yet all of Scripture testifies to the coming Savior.

When we read the word “Scripture,” graphe in the Greek, in the New Testament, we must remember that the speaker, in this case Jesus, is usually talking about what we call the “Old Testament” – those were the only “Scriptures” of the time. Later, in some of the letters of Paul, “Scriptures” included  handful of the writings that the Early Church had started to put together; but even then, most of what comprised the “Scriptures” was the Old Testament – the law, the history, the wisdom literature and the prophets.

I have heard people say, “I am really a New Testament Christian” or “I don’t like the God of the Old Testament”—we see this in individuals, we see this in the world’s assessment of Christianity and sometimes we see this in churches of today.  There are even some pastors and theologians who question basic tents of the Christian faith—the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, the Baptism of the Holy Spirit…But if people believe parts of the Bible to be untrue, doesn’t this call the whole Bible into question for them?  And if the Bible is the source of our beliefs and they do not trust the Bible, what are they putting their faith in?  The parts that “sound good”?

Humanism is the belief that the individual should be elevated and should be central—it is the pervasive way of thinking in Western society.  Truth is relative in this way of thinking—there is your truth and there is my truth. This is the Church of Oprah—where your experience is the guiding influence, where your feelings take precedence, where you can’t trust anyone but yourself.  This way of thinking has crowded out the idea that there is an Absolute Truth and an Absolute Authority.  The Bible is the Absolute Truth and God is the Absolute Authority.

All Scripture is breathed out by God and
profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction,
and for training in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16).

When people call themselves Christians, but don’t believe the Bible to be the very Word of God, what sort of religion are they creating for themselves?  Peter says, “I want to remind you that in the last days scoffers will come, mocking the truth and following their own desires” (2 Peter 3:3).

If anyone doubts, encourage them to read the Bible.  Tell them to read it ALL.  Not just the Psalms or the Red Letters. God’s Word is a change agent: “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12).

Reading and studying Scripture is our part of the equation—God will do the rest!