#1

Over the past year, God has really opened my eyes to some very new ways of thinking. I have always been a very traditional person, ascribing myself to very conservative points of view, and always being very apprehensive about the acceptance of new ideas. At first I was very skeptical of such ideas because at first glance many of them appeared to be contradictory to everything I had been taught with up to that point.

Once such concept was that truth can be found in other places besides the bible. I first came across this idea while reading Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell for a discipleship group at my home church. Upon first reading this I was taken aback by the preposterous idea that some one would suggest that truth could be found in other places besides the Holy, infallible, Word of God. However, after really examining what the author intended by this idea, I began to see his point. What Bell was trying to convey is that everything has been created by God and that we can find truth in God’s creation. An example that was suggested by one of our group members was that there may be a message in certain music that may not necessarily be “Christian Music” but the message may be non the less something true, such as “love your neighbor” or “help your brother in need” etc. (Let me interject here that I believe we still need to really examine whether or not the idea we are looking at really is truth by comparing it with the teachings of Scripture.)

This idea that truth can be found elsewhere than scripture is also found in Holmes “The Idea of a Christian College”, where he states that “All truth is God’s truth.” Holmes is pointing at this same idea that truth, wherever it be found, can point to God.

Again, in all this we still must be very careful that the idea’s we examine are TRUE, meaning they line up with the teachings of Jesus Christ and are devoted to the Glory of His name.