PrintToday's "Moment with Mark" (75)
4 February, 2013
"Your problem is that you don't know the Scriptures, and you don't know the power of God. (Mark 12:24 NLT)
The Sadducees were a group of religious leaders who were more into politics than true faith. They recognised only the authority of the Torah (first 5 books in the Old Testament) and they did not believe in the resurrection. If the Pharisees were the conservative evangelicals of their day, then the Sadducees were the theological liberals.
Their questioning of Jesus was a sham, being based upon a doctrine they did not accept (the resurrection). Jesus responded by saying (in effect), "You have one great problem but it consists of two parts. First, you are ignorant when it comes to the Scriptures (ouch!!). Second, you don't know the power of God".
You know, it occurs to me that the same two factors can be found as the cause of many of the theological tensions and functional disagreements in the Christian Church today. There are those who major almost exclusively on the centrality of the Scriptures. They could never be charged with ignorance of the Bible. They live and breathe it - and are proud to be so recognised. They attend Bible studies. They go to Bible-teaching conventions. They insist on doctrinal purity (according to their interpretation of the Bible, of course).
None of these activities are wrong or evil. They may know the Bible but do they know the power of God? Often (but not always) the answer has to be 'No'.
Then there is the other group who place a lot of emphasis on the power of God that has to be experienced. These people are very much experienced-orientated, always pursuing the next and latest "fad" in their desire to claim yet another extravagant experience. If it just happens that this experience does not quite fit within the teaching of Scripture, that doesn't seem to matter. Theological integrity does not have a high value with most of these folk.
What is needed today more than ever are people who know the Scriptures AND the power of God. These folk recognise the supreme authority of Scripture in all things of belief and practice. But what's the point if we have the theory correct but it only ever remains theory? What is the value of having a medicine bottle labelled correctly if the bottle is empty.
What's the point of having an experience if the justification for the experience requires us to compromise the authority of Scripture?
No, what is needed is a great company of people who know the Word of God an d who also know the power of God through His Word.
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