However when it comes to God’s word we don’t get to pick and choose what we like. Yet, many try it. I’ll have a pound of the love and a packet of the acceptance and a ton of forgiveness. Hold the sin stuff and I don’t want any of the condemnation stuff. Have you got any of that feeding the poor stuff?
God revealed his message to us in a series of documents that together make up the Bible. Each of them is true. They don’t just contain truth along with a lot of other stuff. They are all true. See 2 Timothy 3:16. We don’t get to add to it and we don’t get to take away from it.
Yet that is exactly what some do today. Have you heard of “red letter” Christians? They only take seriously what Jesus said, which in some Bibles is printed in red. Hence the name. They believe that what Jesus said is more important than what Paul, John, Peter, Luke wrote or at least should be more of a focus of our lives.
When they do they pick and choose which is hard to justify but they try by giving Christ’s word pre-eminence which looks worthy. However it ignores one fact. Jesus didn’t write the red letter books, the ones we call the gospels. They were written by Matthew, Mark, John and Luke through the controlling guidance of the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:20-21). Our record of what Jesus said comes from the same source as the books of Acts. They are all in the same category. How can you then choose to follow Luke’s record in Luke and downgrade Luke’s record in Acts?
The only way is if you subscribe to the pick and choose approach to the scripture which reduces the Bible to nothing more than a buffet of teachings and stories that you can accept or reject subjectively.
Some go down this track because they don’t like or agree with what Paul and the other New Testament writers said about certain subjects like homosexuality, women’s role in the church, and a long list of doctrines. That’s hardly a good reason to reject a Holy Spirit inspired messenger of God. Just because you disagree with the message. Incidentally there are lots of stories about people who have done that in the past and they don’t end well.
The real question is not whether you agree with Paul’s etc. teachings. The real question is whether God is speaking through Paul and Luke and John etc. If He is, then listen to and obey the message. If not, then put them in with the piles of religious writings that litter human history.
