Guest Post: Ron Scates

On Wednesdays we “walk in the Word” through study & application of Biblical doctrine. Rightly understanding Biblical doctrine fuels doxology, delight in Jesus, & gospel centered discipleship. Today we hear from a battle tested servant of Jesus.
 
Ron Scates is a mentor, friend, and model of commitment to the authority of God’s Word. Ron has demonstrated this throughout his ministry, preaching and leading without compromise while incurring great personal cost from those who oppose the authority of Scripture. Anyone who knows Ron sees the authenticity of God's authority in his life. Ron has served as senior pastor at churches in Baltimore, Dallas, and San Antonio. Ron currently serves on the board of World Reformed Fellowship, The Lausanne Movement, is an elder in a church plant movement in Indonesia, and mentors church planters in S. Texas. What Ron writes below, Ron lives every day in his life and leadership. Ron is the old man in the middle of the photo.

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                   A Christian is a person under authority
So, what is yours and my supreme authority in matters of what we believe and how we live our lives? For the past 4000 years or so, both the Old Testament Church and the New Testament Church has claimed that Scripture is more than a mere collection of humanly produced documents, but is actually God's self-revelation recorded by writers who were inspired by His Holy Spirit. Thus, Scripture is that supreme authority as to what constitutes authentic faith and life. The Apostle Paul emphatically pleads this case in his second letter to Timothy ( 3:16-17 ) when he states, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work."

Perhaps the most important word in verse 16 is that word "all". To hold to the authority of Scripture means that our faith and how we live is not based on parts of Scripture, especially just the parts that we like and/or are comfortable with, but are shaped by every word from Genesis 1:1 through Revelation 22:21. To not believe that premise sets the believer up to falling prey to THE most horrific, and most prevelant, sin there is: idolatry. A true Christian is someone who knows the real God at more than second hand...and who knows God in Christ in a personal way....not just about God. So, to really know the One True Living God is to know the God who reveals Himself through the WHOLE of the Bible. For some, this becomes problematic as they encounter texts that portray God in ways they don't like ( ie God striking down Uzzah in 2 Samuel 6 when Uzzah tries to steady the Ark of the Covenant on an ox cart !! ), or a Jesus who's anything but meek and mild ( "You brood of vipers...." ). "Let's just stay with the God of John 3:16."  That sounds and feels so good, but leads ultimately down a path to idolatry:  worshiping a truncated god, not the full, robust God who reveals Himself in a full-orbed way in the whole of the Old and New Testaments. John Calvin, in his INSTITUTES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION ( 1:11.45 ) speaks of the human heart as being a "perpetual idol factory": that though we may not fashion literal golden calves to worship, we are sinfully prone to fashion a god seemingly more palatable, and manageable, than the angular, undomesticated, un-defanged, un-declawed Deity reveaked in the whole of Scripture. To believe, and live out, the authority of Scripture is to believe that both 2 Samuel 6 and John 3:16 are equally true; that holding them ( and other similar texts ) in tension actually leaves us with the authentic God who commands a healthy reverent fear, while simultaneously embracing us with the arms of a loving Savior who is willing to literally go to hell and back to accomplish our salvation, along with the redemption of His entire Creation.

 Calvin also says that, as human beings, we can never really know who we are until we know who God is. Until you and I know the One True God in the entirety of His self-revelation, we will be prone to think more highly, or lowly, of ourselves....that possibly we are can be our own gods, often tempted to make Him in our image rather than vice versa. 

                    God's Word as Formative Authority
How do you and I give more than mere lip service to the whole idea of the authority of Scripture? In my first semester of seminary I ran across an address by Martin Luther to his preaching students. In the address, he said that they will never be good preachers unless they read through the entire Bible every year. I wanted to be a good and faithful preacher, so I committed myself to that discipline, and I've never stopped. I'm convinced that that should be the goal of every Christian, not just preachers. Every believer is daily being marinated in the current culture of darkness, death, tyranny, and stupidity. What will be your plumbline for discerning Truth while being constantly bombarded by social media deception and deceit? What will be your anchor that holds your sanity intact as the culture gives way around you and threatens to sweep you away with it? The only answer that holds true is to practice a commitment to the authority of Scripture that fleshes itself out in a daily discipline of reading God's Word while asking the Holy Spirit to be the "spectacles" that give us a clear picture of Who the Lord God Almighty REALLY is as our Creator, Judge, and Redeemer.

                         Make it Practical and Personal
Get yourself a Bible reading calendar ( there are many available online- including this website!) and invest @25 minutes a day in bringing the totality of your faith under the whole counsel of God's Word....attending to, not contending with, the whole of Biblical truth. That is how you set your anchor for the living of these days.

Try it. You'll never be the same.
 
You can read more on the authority of Scripture HERE

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