The Narrow Path Ministries

Today someone posted a quote on Facebook from a pretty popular ministry leader:

"It is difficult to value a book (Bible) that the apostles did not have over the Holy Spirit, which they did have."

Now, it is pretty hard to disagree with the main gist of this quote, because obviously we should value the HS as God. But there is something lurking in this quote that seems a tad insidious, although I cannot exactly state why it bothers me.

So, why does it bother me?

TK

If it's a question of value alone, certainly the quote is a good one. I'd rather have the Holy Spirit than the Bible.

But the quote bothers me a bit b/c it hints at some sort of disagreement b/w the two... and where the 'Spirit' disagrees with the Bible, one has to question what spirit it is.

I think what may be bothering you, is that whereas the words of the bible are objective, the claim to be led of the Spirit can be subjective. I'm sure we have all noticed people who have said "God told me this" or "The Spirit reavealed that to me". But we find that others who make the same claim have been "led" to the opposite conclusion.
Now we all know that virtually any bible passage can be interpreted in a dozen ways as well, so we may not think of it as being any more objective. However, there are ways which help us decide which of the biblical interpretations is more likely to be correct, such as looking at the wording in the original language, or seeing how the interpretation jives with other passages, etc. But without using the bible or other early Christian writings as a check, how is it possible to determine which person was truly moved by the Spirit?

Also, they actually did have half the bible. And the rest of it they (apostles and/or disciples) wrote, inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Thanks everyone.

Yeah, he seems to be setting up an unnecessary tension between the two, like you have to go with one over the other.

That's not fair, which I guess is why it bugs me!

TK

"It is difficult to value a book (Bible) that the apostles did not have over the Holy Spirit, which they did have."



Now, it is pretty hard to disagree with the main gist of this quote,because obviously we should value the HS as God. But there is something lurking in this quote that seems a tad insidious, although I cannot exactly state why it bothers me.

So, why does it bother me?






It may bother you because without scripture to confirm the message is God's Will , how could you discern it's not from an evil spirit. It's like Satan saying "Has God really said" , when you don't have scripture. When you have scripture you can answer "yes God really said."

I think steve7150 is correct. How much work does the Spirit do without The Word?

Would you know anything about the Holy Spirit or the Apostles without the Bible? Can oral tradition accurately maintain a message for 2000 years?

My unspoken (and unprovable?) assumption is that God intended the Bible as we know it all along. The Bible is not an accident.

Like Johns the Baptists converts said 'We have not even 'heard' of the Holy Spirit' (Acts 19:2). And how did we recieve the Holy Spirit? By believing what we 'heard' (Galatians 3:2)
Boy this sounds like the two extremes represented in another post. To deny the work of Gods Word, which includes the 'Gospel', that reveals Jesus to us, to bring us to God, is like saying I dont need food anymore because I'm no longer hungry. But man cannot live on bread alone...

Probably another reason it rubbed you the wrong way is it seems to intentionally be minimizing the importance of scripture by saying "a book" and then putting "Bible" in parenthesis. Of course the Bible is "a book," but it's also much more than "a book."