Read your Bible: Reason #4 - The Bible is more reliable than human experience.

How do you know what is moral?  How do you know what is true?  How do you know God?  How do you know that you are right with God?  

Your answers to these questions should be tied in some way to the Word of God, the Bible.  However, it is tempting to answer those questions (especially the final two) with some life experience outside of Scripture that relates to those questions.  This is a natural response because we see God active in our lives every day and we are tempted to think His past activity in our life is more trustworthy than His speech.  Although these experiences are very real and may encourage us in our walk with the Lord, they should never be the foundation of our faith.  Our foundation must always be God’s Word.

I met Mr. Finch on his porch many years ago.  He was always willing to chat, and I enjoyed sharing God’s message with him.  We sat on his porch because there was no room in his house.  He was a collector of everything and a keeper of what he collected.  On the porch, he collected one select group of items especially–cats.  Stray cats from the neighborhood knew where to come to get a meal and they were always lazing around.  So he fed them regularly.  I used to sit with Mr. Finch watching his cats, swatting away the flies in the humid southern summer, and try to talk about eternal matters. 

One particular conversation is still fresh in my mind.  Mr. Finch emphatically declared that he was good with God, so I asked him how he knew this to be the case.  Calmly, he recounted why.   He shared details of a time when he was younger and in a tragic accident that brought him close to death’s door.  However, there in the hospital, as he felt his life slipping away, he also experienced calm, and such a wonderful, almost exhilarating sense that he knew if this was what he would face when he died, he was fine.  God had shown him he had nothing to worry about.

I shared with him that I was glad he had faith, but suggested that there were a more reliable foundation for faith.  When we really examine Mr. Finch's faith, it was founded on an experience and nothing else.  However, there is something much more reliable than a nice feeling that we get when close to death.  There is the very Words of God.  After all, most people have Mr. Finch's type of reaction to pain medication given to them in the hospital.  And the same could be said in most human experiences.  Your experiences can be explained away, forgotten, or misinterpreted.  The Bible, on the other hand, is fixed and certain.  It makes up a much more reliable source for our foundation.

Perhaps our life’s experiences can serve as an additional confirmation to what we already believe to be true from Scripture.  However, we should not use these to dictate what is true from God’s Word.  Our life’s experiences must always be subservient.  Consider the following differences between God’s Word and life’s experiences below:

God’s Word	Life’s Experiences
Remains Fixed	Fluctuate
Eternal	Temporal
Objective	Subjective
Has one correct interpretation.	Can be interpreted wrongly and in multiple ways.

In 2 Peter 1:16-21, Peter remembers what must be among the top ten human experiences ever – the transfiguration of Jesus.  And yet, Peter states that God’s Word is more reliable than even that experience.  Jesus’ transfiguration was a mountaintop experience only enjoyed by three “earthly” men (Peter, James, and John).  At this event, they saw Jesus brilliantly demonstrate His glory while speaking with Moses and Elijah.  According to Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus’ face shown like the sun, and a voice from heaven called out commanding the three men that Jesus was God’s Son and they must listen to Him.  What an amazing experience!  And yet the Word of God is even more reliable still.

“For when [Jesus] received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,’ we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.  And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts” (2 Peter 1:16-20, ESV, emphasis mine).

A fourth reason why we must read the Bible in this New Year is that the Bible is more reliable than human experience.  Let me ask you again, my friend, are you building your faith and your Christian life on a list of past experiences, or on what you know to be true from God’s holy Word, the Bible?  If you are not diligent reading His Word each day, then I dare say you cannot be building on this foundation.  So, let me encourage you again to get into the Bible.  Meet daily with the Lord in your time with Him.

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