I AM A BELIEVER
 |
| Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash |
I will tell you what this means.
It means
that I believe in God the Father, the Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth,
and all that is, seen and unseen. I believe in Jesus, Son of God and Saviour of
the world, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary, who
is the only perfect hero who ever lived, sinless, guileless, all good, executed
on a cross at Calvary, fulfilling a plan ordained by God from the beginning of
time. I believe in the Holy Spirit, who helps and teaches me to follow the way
of God, and who assures me of eternal life.
It means that I know that I am a sinner, but I also know that God has saved me and is shaping me to be the person He wants me to be. I know that I am not inherently good. Like the worst sinner you can imagine, if left to myself, I have tendencies that could make me as despicable and hateful as Adolf Hitler or King Leopold II of Belgium, and any good I ever do is because God works through me. God has not left me to myself. My Lord and my God Jesus has fully paid for my sins with His precious blood and has set me free from bondage to depravity and the satan’s tyranny. The Almighty Creator of the universe has been merciful to me and given me the privilege to learn about Him, and His Holy Spirit makes me live better than my depraved self would do. I am rough on the edges, but God is changing me from the inside out.
 |
| Photo by Edwin Andrade on Unsplash |
It means
that I believe that God is good all the time, even when it does not make sense
to me, and when it does not feel good to me. I believe that God’s commands are
always good and are good to me and for me even if they do not feel good,
because God is good all the time. I believe that all things must work
together for my ultimate good and salvation because God watches over me, and
not even a hair can fall from my head without the will of the Almighty God, who
is my Father.
It means
that I believe that the Bible is God’s Word. It is without error and
cannot have errors, and the instructions in it are for my good. I believe that the
Holy Bible, comprising of the 66 Books of the Old and New Testaments, is true
and trustworthy, and it corresponds to the way things are. There is no picking
and choosing for me because to do that is to reject the whole Bible. For if I cannot
believe and accept some parts of it, on what basis can I believe and accept
other parts of it? The Bible is the framework I have chosen for my life. It
informs my worldview on everything (life, death, family, marriage, success,
failure, work, learning, sexuality, music, play, etc.). The Bible undergirds what
is ethical and moral for me, defines what is sin and righteousness, is the
standard for all my other associations.
It means
that I am sure that sin is the source of all evil. It is because of sin
that we have all forms of injustice and need movements that were instituted primarily
to defeat these injustices. I believe that the utopia we long for will only
come when Jesus comes again. I believe that Jesus will right every wrong,
balance every scale, and bring ultimate justice and everlasting peace. Therefore,
I choose justice and do not give in to despair no matter the torments and
turbulence of this present world. It is why I oppose oppression, yet I seek to
have compassion for not only the oppressed but the oppressors too.
This does
not mean that I have suspended my brain or reasoning: my faith is strongly
rooted in my reasoning and consciousness. It is because of God’s Word that
I know that not everything is linear; some things are multidimensional, with
nuances. Things do not have to be just A or B; we can have the whole alphabets,
and not just the contemporary Latin alphabet script-form, but Nsibidi, or Arabic,
or any other script, including emojis. I realise that while some things may be black
and white, we have a whole spectrum of colours, and this does not change the nature
of truth. So, I am still a feminist because I am a believer. Yet, my
belief makes me know that feminism does not have the ultimate answer or
solution. On this ground also, I believe that marriage, as ordained by God,
is monogamous and heterosexual and that every form of fornication and adultery
is sinful, yet I believe that consensual sexual relations between adults
should not be criminalized. It is why I also believe that patriarchy
should be dismantled, yet I believe that the husband should be the head
of his home. I am a believer first, before anything else.
I am a
believer. This means that while I have not got it all figured out yet, as
I journey through life, I commit to making God’s Word my guidepost. That
is the source of my illumination and my rebuke. I will make some mistakes, I
will get some things wrong, but God’s Word is never wrong. I intend to view everything through the prism of my belief and I will not conform my belief to meet any standard of political correctness or cultural acceptance. Therefore, I
invite you to consider this as you engage with me and my thoughts and writings.
If you disagree with my premises and conclusions and think that I am mistaken
based on the Bible, I welcome you to engage me based on the Bible and point out
my errors based on the Bible.
Some may
find the contents and extent of my belief disagreeable or even offensive, but I
still believe. My opinions, trajectory and worldview may not make any sense to
you unless you believe in whom I have believed. Whatever lens with which you
engage with me, remember that I am a believer. This is my primary identity. Sometimes,
we will have to agree to disagree, so long as it is not oppressive because I
will always disagree with oppression, even if I am the oppressor.
I am a
believer. You can also call me a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ, a follower
of the Way because, Jesus the Christ said that He is the Way, the Truth, and
the Life. My allegiance is to Jesus Christ, to God's Word, not to any church or pastor or denomination or tradition or school of thought.
I am a
believer. I believe. What do you believe?
*Background
Gist: This article was conceived in 2012. At the time, I was writing more
frequently, and I anticipated growth. I had seen people who professed the same
belief prevaricate or equivocate because they wanted to be acceptable or have
access to some favours. I did not want any ambiguities about my worldview, neither
did I want to compromise. I wanted to be held accountable by my belief in the
Holy Bible comprising of 66 Books as God’s Word. It has taken me about 8 years
to write this, and this piece refused to leave me alone. It took several forms
in my head, but I knew that if I was ever going take writing as seriously as I
desire, it must be written. Thank you for taking the time to read through, regardless
of your beliefs. I implore you to engage with this and my other writings.
Comments
Second: If the bible bible teaches that sin defiles the land, how then do you look the other way when people engage in sexual immorality? Surely you do not believe that actions such as theft, murder, perjury (lying) should be glossed over. Why then do we chose to denounce and/or oppose certain sins and not others?
The supreme example of this type of leadership is modeled by Jesus' relationship with the Church, and that is what Paul the Apostle calls on in his often misquoted and misunderstood instruction in Ephesians 5 vs 22 to 24. See vs 23: For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. He further tells the husbands in vs 25 to 33, how to lead. Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. This is everything that patriarchy is not. That is why I am utterly opposed to patriarchy.
Also, please note that the Biblical instructions are for husbands to be heads of their homes, not for sons to be heads of their mothers, or for brothers to be heads of their sisters. Human relations are multidimensional and when people equate biblical husband headship with patriarchy, they create a binary that is not supported by the Bible.
But I am not so sure about your absolute position on the Bible as we have it compiled today.
That the Bible as we have it compiled today is the literal word of God.
Or that God's word is summed up in the 66 books compiled in the Bible.
The early believers did not have this compiled Holy Bible but they were no less believers.
👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
Would you criminalise arrogance?
Does the non-criminal nature of arrogance and lust make them less sinister than they actually are? Does it equate with glossing over or looking away?
The opposite of criminalisation is not endorsement. I do not endorse homosexuality or commercial sex, yet I consider their criminalisation in some countries as hypocritical and oppressive.
In my opinion, governments should not legislate personal lives, where the actions involve mutual agency and do not have potential to cause any actual harm beyond the consenting parties involved.
The authority of the narrations and the instructions is not the writers themselves, but God. The Old Testament is the foundation of the New Testament. The selection of the canon was deliberate. Even though the early church had the established Scriptures of the Old Testament, they used the writings of the apostles to establish doctrine and to teach. These apostles were commissioned by Jesus and their writings and teachings were inspired by the Holy Spirit. At the time the 66 Books as Bible was established, there were many other texts, and of course, some of the texts containing some apostolic teachings were lost. But the Church discovered the 27 books we have as the New Testament today after subjecting them to the following scrutiny:
1) Did the author of the text have apostolic authority?
2) Did the text agree with the Old Testament and other authenticated New Testament canon?
3) Could the text be verifiable in early Church history? That is, was it cited as Scripture or commented on by the early church leaders?
If anyone claims to believe, yet rejects any of the 66 Books as Scripture, what do they really believe? Because, the way I see it, to reject one is to reject all. The real problem is not with which parts of Scripture is available to a believer. Some Believers are not literate and some do not have access to the 66 books of the Bible. The real problem is with rejecting any of it.
However, humans sin, including believers. And God's forgiveness extends to all types of sins, including polygamy.
There is no pristine culture that is existing today. All cultures have evolved over time, and some aspects of these cultures are sinful.
These texts that you mentioned are called apocryphal texts. The Roman Catholic Church refers to them as deuterocanonical, which points to the fact that they are different. The Jewish Bible also excludes these books. These books are useful and good to read, but are only instructive for me as far as they agree with the 39 Books of the Old Testament and the 27 Books of the New Testament. I have read a few of them and I hope to read more. But I do not read them as Scripture wholly inspired by God and inerrant and infallible. That's the difference. The reasons they did not make the cut are sufficient for me.
If other books are discovered, there is one test that would be almost impossible to administer now - Can we verify with the early Church that it is Scripture?
Definitely, God's Word cannot be limited to the Bible. Not everything Jesus said and did from His birth to His resurrection are recorded in the Bible. But what is in the 66 Books of the Bible is enough for me (and indeed all of us) to know God and be instructed by God. Any other discovery must be subject to what is revealed in these 66 Books. I will not believe and be instructed by any revelation that does not agree with the 66 Books of the Bible.
On the carnality of the criteria, well, if they decided to use their own divine revelation as the criteria, how would they have confirmed that? If I say that something has been revealed to me by God, how do you know whether I am telling the truth or I am lying? How do you know that I did not receive the revelation from the satan? There has to be the criteria of alignment with other Scripture texts.