Over the years, I’ve been given to expressing an increasingly strong conviction of mine about the Bible as it relates to the Word of God. I’ve often expressed it as simply that the two are not one and the same, specifically that the former is a reflection of the latter. Simply said (perhaps overly so), “The Bible is not the Word of God,” any more than I am Jesus Christ. The Bible being faulted, limited, human while the Word of God is Truth transcendant and divine. This has gotten me in no little trouble with my fellow Christian brothers and sisters, esp. of those given to more fundamentalist leanings.
In trying to explain my point of view, I’ve noticed that I’ve had trouble conveying my thoughts, beliefs, and convictions because when I speak with my brothers and sisters in Christ we often use the same words to name very different perspectives on things. Today I was inspired by remembering a personal story that I think does justice to explaining where I’m coming from. It shows how I can disagree with my fellow Christians about the Bible’s ontological nature vis-á-vis the Word of God, yet agree to its Truth.