I am one of those people who believe that the authority of Christ and Scripture are so tethered that they mutually stand and fall together. Destroy the authority of Scripture in your life and you destroy the authority of Christ. Those words penned by flawed men and spoken by God still mesmerize me. They are words that are divinely inspired, inerrant regarding heavenly truth, completely profitable and undeniably authoritative. 

“The word of the Lord came to …” and “God spoke through …” are nearly, but not quite, as great a miracle as the incarnation itself. Without violating who the man was, his research, his literary style, his theological emphasis, and what he believed to be true, God’s word came through the pages of Scripture without error or blemish. 

Years ago, I visited a church that emphasized what they called the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues. I came from a background that had dismissed such phenomenon, or rather, ignored would be more accurate. At first I thought they were odd, not due to dress or outside interests, but due to their uncommon enthusiasm for the Lord, unlike anything I had witnessed among highly committed followers, including myself. It is not that this was my first encounter with tongue talkers, but it was my first encounter with a group that had something that required my respect. 

It was not that I was in some way unexcited about Christ. I was fully engaged, highly interested and pursuing Him with all my heart, and deeply studying His Word. However, these folks were unusual; I could see it, but at the time had no idea what it was. Later, it struck me. They had abandoned themselves to Christ with a demonstrative freedom that I had never before witnessed. It wasn’t that they sang, it was that they sang from somewhere deep within themselves; that was hard to explain. It wasn’t that they preached; it was that they preached with an expectation and a responsiveness that made one think that God was present. It is hard to articulate with our concert-like atmospheres, our electronically-charged teaching presentations, all the mood lighting, platform props and espresso in hand as we worship today. (This is observation, not at all criticism).

It was like this: they believed that God could and would do all the stuff Christ promised He would do through His Holy Spirit, and often it happened. I, on the other hand, was fellowshipping with a more pessimistic segment of Christianity. It was more like, “We believe, but be reasonable. We believe, but we are not going to leave any paradoxes like, ‘Why do some not get healed?’” 

So here is the difference in one last very slow-pitch presentation so you can get a hit off my point. They had a reverence for God. They believed Christ was still doing what He did in the Scripture, despite the death of twelve or fourteen men. Tongues, healing, prophesy and the like are still in play, still used by God to invade our world with other-world presence. My group at the time was debating if God still did those things. They were not only embracing it but also experiencing it, and it was creating among them a holy worship of their God. 

When you remove Scripture as authority, you remove God. Let’s not do that; let’s continue to believe, even in those areas that challenge us to the core of our being. I’m not looking for an answer for every one of my paradoxes; I am looking for the prayer of faith and a word of prophecy that is based upon and flows out of the Scripture of God driven right into my heart of need.