God Expressed as the Living, Indwelling, and Inspired Word

My Lifelong Journey in Understanding and Applying the Word of God

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God Expressed as the Living, Indwelling, and Inspired Word

The first 15 years of my life I thought I understood our Triune God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then my family moved to Philadelphia, and I was challenged in this belief.

It had nothing to do with Philadelphia. This was just where the challenge took place.

I spent my first 15 years deeply ingrained in Southern Baptist culture in North Carolina and Maryland. Additionally, I saw it through the eyes of my parents—a pastor and wife.

I saw Christianity as a relationship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Jesus as the Living Word of God. The Holy Spirit as the Indwelling of the Word of God.

The Bible was the Inspired Written Word of God. It was God-breathed as experienced originally. It revealed to us in writing the dramatic story of God’s redemption. It provided an essential, undeniable foundation, framework, and the fundamentals for our faith. The practice of my faith was centered in a prayerful understanding of what God says to us in and through scripture.

I read the Bible. Studied the Bible. Memorized portions of the Bible. Saw the Bible as a treasure from God. Saw it as God’s written, translated, and interpreted word.

Humankind was a steward of the Bible. Always reading it, translating it, interpreting it, preaching it, teaching it, and applying it in ministry. Seeking the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit in being “diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15 NASB)

My father made sure I had a copy of each new translation of the Bible released during the 1950s and 1960s.

My ultimate commitment was, is, and will be to our Triune God. My prayer life centered on the Trinity. I always sought to hear and understand the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking into my life.

The Bible helped point me in the right direction. Helped me better understand what God’s Spirit might be saying to me. Inspired me to fulfill God’s Great Commission in the Spirit of the Great Commandment.

My comforter, my teacher, my guide, my authority was the Holy Spirit speaking to me in prayerful communication out of my assurance that Jesus was my Savior and Lord. I had full commitment to our Triune God assisted by the framework, foundation, and fundamental assurance confirmed in scripture.

These personal convictions remain the same to this day. I am steadfast in my beliefs.

Philadelphia Challenged My Convictions

In Philadelphia I encountered another perspective on the Trinity and the Bible. It was an independent fundamentalist perspective.

The high school I attended had a very active Bible Club that met for prayer before school, and Bible study on Tuesdays after school.

With no Southern Baptists near me in the 1960s, I connected with this group. I became an officer during my junior year, and president my senior year.

At the same time, I was clear about places where we agreed and disagreed.

The sponsoring teacher belonged to a church called the Independent Bible Church. She was also the secretary-treasurer of an evangelist’s organization.

To her Southern Baptists and the evangelist Billy Graham were liberal. That was one of my first clues about the distance between her beliefs and mine.

This was the same time the Living Bible paraphrased translation was being released book-by-book as they were completed. This paraphrased version spoke subjectively to a more conservative view of scripture than that which was my heritage.

It was very readable, but the interpretations and applications in the early books released and used in this Bible Club—which were the Apostle Paul’s epistles—spoke to different biblical perspectives than the heritage about scripture I embraced.

It was what I called bibliolatry or Bible-worship that marginalized the Holy Spirit.

My Adulthood as a Baptist

After high school, I spent a dozen years in college and seminary pursuing various degrees. I had ministry positions in North Carolina, Kentucky, and Maryland. I studied the vitality and vibrancy of 100 Southern Baptist churches in 15 cities as a major research project for one degree.

During these 12 years I was aware of the movement within the Southern Baptist life to shift toward a bibliolatry stance. The increasing influence among pastors with a Bible Baptist movement background was strong.

I always hoped the tremendous missiological centered approaches and the significance of my denomination’s Great Commission efforts would win out over a bounded ideological approach.

But this was not to be the case.

As I moved into a missional staff position with Southern Baptists in 1979, the battle for bibliolatry went public in the denomination. It was very frustrating.

I had a decision to make.

I made the choice not to allow this conflict to blur my personal focus on being part of God’s empowerment of the Great Commission.

I sought to work with and minister among people on all sides of our denominational controversy. That is, aas long as they wanted my participation in fulfilling the Great Commission in the spirit of the Great Commandment.

I did so with a commitment to our Triune God. With the Bible as framework, foundation, and full of fundamentals without tripping over into bibliolatry. Remaining committed to God the Father and the full Trinity expressed in my life as the living, indwelling, and inspired Word.

To these commitments I remain true, have much joy in serving our Triune God, and remain steadfast in my beliefs.