Sorry I’m late for all who are staying up on this Friday night wondering where the blog is. I had a friend over as we had to watch last night’s Smallville together that we missed last night. For those who haven’t seen it, an awesome episode. For now, let’s get to the blog for tonight. Readers know that we’re going through the Bible looking for clues to the Trinity. We’re in the prologue of John and tonight, we look at verse 8.
He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
This verse has tie-ins with the one before and the one after but as I said last night, we are going through these simply so we can grasp the prologue as a whole. John the Baptist is a character that we would call a foil in literature. His purpose in the plot is to tell us about the main character who is the Word and the Light.
This is something for those of us who do any sort of evangelism need to keep in mind. It is easy to think the story is all about you, when it really isn’t. I do believe God shares many gifts with those who play a good part in the story, but the main role is to be played by him. He gets all the glory in the end. The actors on stage do not serve to point to themselves but to honor the author whose work they are performing.
This is a danger we can put many in. We can see many of our favorite authors as practically infallable. Our pastors are usually seen as beyond question. This is a great error we need to get past. I don’t care how good an apologist your favorite author might be or how spiritual your favorite preacher might be. He is not infallable. This is going to be the case even for this blog. I state things because I believe those things to be true and I wouldn’t put them up unless I thought I was, but that doesn’t mean I’m necessarily right. I can make mistakes. If I make one, then it is up to my critics and friends to point it out.
There is a saying that I believe comes from tToism that says that a finger is great for pointing to the moon, but woe to him who mistakes the finger for the moon. There are many things that can reveal God to us, but woe to him who mistakes the things for the end. This can even happen with Scripture. I have seen people who speak of the Word in John 1:1 and think that’s talking about the Bible.
The Bible is the most important book we have, it is something we should treasure and cherish, I do believe it is infallable and inerrant, but it is certainly not God. We are not to worship the Bible. We study the Bible not for the sake of it but for the sake of knowing its author.
Keep your eye on the light. Let us make sure we are not distracted by anything that keeps us from the first thing, knowing Christ.
We shall look at the next verse tomorrow.
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