"If Bible teachers could only remember that the 'holy men spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost' and gave us divinely inspired truth, and never for one remote moment meant to give us anything to satisfy our intellectual curiosity, they would realize that the prophets meant to give us truth to transform spirit and soul and bring us into holy living and holy believing. They never intended that we should have theological baby rattles to entertain ourselves."
- A.W. Tozer, Living As a Christian: Teachings from First Peter, p.32
This is something that I have had to struggle with for almost as long as I started to learn about God, the Bible, Christ, and any other theological thing. When I first became a "Christian," I had very little discipleship and as such my mind was left to ponder the deep things of God in a vacuum. Probably the largest errors in my early Christian life was regarding the doctrines of grace, and the Lordship of Christ.
Even while I openly professed Christ as Lord, I was basically practicing antinomianism - a distortion of Biblical Grace that allowed me to continue in my sins so long as I "rededicated" myself at some point when the guilt became too unbearable. Then, I would seek to pay penance and make empty promises about "never doing that again" to prove my commitment to someone that, in all honesty, I never wanted to exist in the first place (and I certainly wasn't living like God was real). I would ask questions like: "Is sin really harmful if it doesn't affect anything? I mean, it's not like God has struck me dead for doing anything. Does that undermine God's justice or does God just have a different sense of justice?" I was in the realm of practical atheism (and had I just admitted it, I don't think my life would have been so conflicted), but I kept pursuing theological things. After I met Jesus five years later, I came to understand that I hadn't really known anything at all.
Let me be honest: There is a large part of me that does not want anything I believe in to be true. It's because I have an internal "victim's mentality"and I try to blame my shortcomings and my doubts on everybody else. "Oh that I hadn't grown up in an Armenian family - then I wouldn't have to struggle with total depravity, limited atonement, and perseverance of the saints (doctrines which I believe to be true)." "Oh that I had been born blind, so that I wouldn't be tempted by my eyes." "Oh that I didn't have such little faith; I could have shown the world God's power by moving mountains or calling bears out to devour those who would insult me!"
Of course, when you boil it down, I'm just blaming God for things that are his right to give and not give. This plays into my learning and teaching because I often don't want the Bible to encourage holy living - I want to do whatever I desire, chalk it up to implulse/evolution/upbringing/ect. and deny that God has the power to change anything --- All while still being a force for good and doing "God's Work" in this world. My early dabblings in theology allowed me to pervert Grace into License , making "take up your cross and follow me" optional. I used the scriptures as toys and instead of letting the law of God encourage holy living, and allowing the grace that God has shown me "bring shalom" to me and give me strength against my accusers.
I have to work at this daily, as my cynical nature doesn't allow me to have blind faith.
