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Did you know there is a debate about whether we are supposed to be baptized “In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19-20) OR “in the name of Jesus”?

Yes, we Christians argue over some silly things.

In my book, Dying to Religion and Empire, I talk about how some Christians view baptism as a magical incantation in which the right words need to be said in order for the magic spell to actually work. The whole thing is ridiculous.

But when Christians think that baptism is required to gain eternal life, then it also becomes important to make sure that the baptism is done in the right way with the right words.

Of course, when we realize that baptism is NOT required for eternal life, then this entire debate fades away into meaninglessness, but we already talked about this…

But let us try to solve the debate anyway … because … you know … Bible.

The Origins of the Baptism Debate

When people want be baptized “in the right way,” they argue about when baptism should take place, how much water is necessary, where the baptism can occur, who can perform the baptism, what actions should be performed during the baptism, and what words need to be said along with the baptism.

And again, according to some, if you don’t do all of it right, then it doesn’t work. Yes, just like a magic spell taught to Harry Potter at Hogwarts School of Magic…

Now I am not going to try to solve the ENTIRE baptism debate, but we might be able to solve that last one, about which words need to be said at the baptism.

The debate began because the words of Jesus in Matthew 28:19-20 seems to be at odds with the actual practice of the Apostles in the book of Acts.

In Matthew 28:19-20, Jesus instructs His apostles to “baptize … in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” So when many people get baptized, they say, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

But when we get into the book of Acts, we see that the apostles baptize “in the name of Jesus” (Acts 2:38; 8:12; 8:16; 10:48; 19:5).

So what gives? Some suggest that when Jesus says “in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” He means “in my name.” Because … you know …. the Trinity.

Of course, God the Father’s name appears to be Yahweh, and as far as we know, the Holy Spirit doesn’t have a name, so is it really accurate to say that “Jesus” is the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit?

Yet if we baptize “in the name of Jesus,” aren’t we then disobeying the very words of Jesus where He instructed us to baptize “in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”?

And the debate rages on, with both sides accusing the other of practicing illegitimate baptism.

How can we solve this?

Well, it starts by disavowing all these Christians who waste their time and energy with idiotic arguments over words … but there is also a key to help us solve the argument.

The Key to the Baptism Debate

Baptism is not a translation of the Greek word, but a transliteration.

When people translate from one language to another, they look at the word in the original language, and then provide the equivalent word in the new language. So hamartia gets translated as sin , theos as God, and so on.

But for some inexplicable reason, there are a few Greek words which Bible translators failed to translate. Instead, they transliterated these words, which involves changing the Greek letters of teh root word into English letters and then calling it good.

So Christos becomes Christ and euangelion becomes evangelism.

This is what happened with the word baptism as well. It is a transliteration rather than a translation. The Greek word is baptizma, and it was transliterated as baptism.

How does this help?

Well, if we translate the Greek word baptizma in Matthew 28:19-20, we get a clue as to what Jesus might have actually been teaching … and this leads to the one crazy suggestion about Matthew 28:19-20 that might help solve this particular baptism debate.

The 1 Crazy Suggestion about Matthew 28:19-20

So as everyone knows, Matthew 28:19-20 is the “Great Commission” in which Jesus gives some final instructions to His disciples. And he wants them to take the things He has taught and teach these to other people also.

That is, Jesus wants His disciples to go and make more disciples.

And discipleship involves teaching and training other people about what they should believe and how they should behave. It is teaching people about life and doctrine. And not just “classroom teaching” but teaching by example and showing people how to live.

Anyway, none of this is challenging, new, or crazy. Everyone knows all this.

But here is the crazy suggestion … What if we actually translated the Greek word baptizo in Matthew 28:19 instead of just transliterating it? Is that crazy, or what?

The Greek word baptizma means immersion (the verb baptizo means to immerse).

So if we translated the Greek word, the verse would say this:

Go therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, immersing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you …

Jesus instructs His disciples to make disciples and to teach everything He has taught to them, so that the people they teach are immersed in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

This doesn’t necessarily mean “dunk them under water while saying a few words over their head.”

If I told you to “immerse yourself in this blog,” would you think you had to go take a bath while reading this blog? No. You would think that I was inviting you to read a lot of blog posts for the next days or weeks.

If I told my daughter to “immerse yourself in math” to prepare for the exam, would you imagine that I was telling her to go swim around in a local river with her math books under her arm? No. You would understand that I was telling her to study hard.

If I told my wife, “I want to immerse you in my love,” does this mean that I want to plunge her under the water in a swimming pool while saying “I love you”? No. It means I want to show her in tangible ways how much I really do love her.

Similarly, if Jesus says, “Go immerse people in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” is He saying, “Go dunk them under water while saying some words over them”? I think not.

Instead, Jesus is saying, “I have taught you lots of things over these past three years, and I want you to go and teach these to others also. Go immerse them in the teachings about God the Father, about Me, and about the Holy Spirit, which are the things I have taught you. Spread this teaching around the world.”

Jesus is telling His disciples that as they have immersed their lives in His for the past three years, they now must go and invite other people to immerse their lives in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Sooo … You side with those who think we should baptize “in the name of Jesus”?

No! If you think that is the point of this post, you’ve missed it entirely.

There are no magic words. It is not about what words you say.

As long as we Christians keep arguing about words, we are missing the entire point of the teachings of Jesus … and we should go immerse ourselves in His teachings some more.

Look, if you want to get dunked under water, go ahead. For some, it can be a wonderful ritual, full of symbolic significance.

But the real thing Jesus wants us to do is to learn about Him, learn about God, and learn about the Holy Spirit.

Jesus wants us to follow His example of death and resurrection so that we lay down our lives for others.

Jesus wants to show us how to die to ourselves so that we can rise again to real life in Him.

So let us all stop arguing about the method, mode, and magic words of baptism, and instead start living for Jesus and loving others like Jesus … just as He commanded us in Matthew 28:19-20.

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Does baptism save us? (1 Peter 3:21)

By Jeremy Myers

24 Comments

When people read 1 Peter 3:21, they wonder if baptism is necessary for salvation. And this is indeed what 1 Peter 3:21 seems to say:

There is also an antitype which now saves us—baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 3:21).

So does baptism save us? Yes! According to Peter, it does.

But hold on … Isn’t baptism a work? Isn’t baptism something we do? Yes, it is.

So if baptism saves us, how can it be true that eternal life is received by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone, apart from works?

The solution is relatively simple, once you understand it.

The solution to understanding 1 Peter 3:21 is to properly define the words “baptism” and “saves.” I define both of these terms in my online course, “The Gospel Dictionary.”

This post will briefly summarize how to understand the words “baptism” and “save.” More detailed explanations are found inside the course.

The meaning of the word “save”

In Scripture, the word “save” (saved, salvation, Savior, etc) almost never means “gain eternal life so you can go to heaven when you die.” This is what most Christians think the word means, and this is how most Christians use this word, but the Bible does not support such a definition.

The word “saved” simply means “deliverance” and context determines what kind of deliverance is in view. You can be delivered from enemies, sickness, drowning, premature death, and a variety of other disasters.

Whenever you see the word “saved” in the Bible, stop and think about it. Substitute in the word “delivered” or “deliverance” and then look in the context to figure out what kind of deliverance is in view. Very rarely (if ever) will it refer to gaining eternal life and going to heaven when you die.

This truth right here is going to help you understand 1 Peter 3:21 in a whole new way. While Peter does teach that baptism saves us, a careful study of the context reveals that Peter is not talking about gaining eternal life and going to heaven when we die. He has something else in view.

But to see what Peter has in view, we first need to understand the meaning of the word “baptism.”

The meaning of the word “baptism” in 1 Peter 3:21

The word baptism has caused inordinate amounts of disagreement over the years.

There was even a time when certain Christians were drowning other Christians over the question of baptism. During the Reformation, one group of Christians got so upset that others were doing baptism wrong, that they decided to baptize those other people to death by drowning them.

We don’t go this far today. Or do we?

While we may not drown people because of their views on baptism, it is not uncommon for one group of Christians to condemn another group of Christians to everlasting hell because the other group has a different view on baptism.

So we don’t drown them … but we do condemn them to everlasting punishment in hell.

Yeah … maybe things haven’t changed as much as we think.

So we argue and condemn people over the issue of infant baptism vs. adult baptism, baptism by sprinkling vs. baptism by immersion, and whether a person should be baptized in the name of Jesus vs. in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And then we have this form of baptism which is almost child abuse …

Most of these contentious issues can be cleared up simply by properly understanding and defining the word baptism. Baptism is a Greek word which means “immersion” or “submersion.”

Many Bible teachers stop right there and say that the debate between sprinkling vs. immersion is solved. They argue that if the word baptisma means immersion, then clearly, all baptisms must be by immersion.

But it is not quite as simple as that. Although baptisma means immersion, this does not mean that every baptism requires immersion into water.

When all the data is considered, the Bible describes several different kinds of baptisms, and only two of them involve water.

Along with John’s baptism and new believer’s baptism (Acts 2:41; 8:36; 10:47-48; 18:8), there is baptism into Moses (1 Cor 10:2), baptism of the cup and crucifixion (Matt 20:22; Mark 10:38; Luke 12:50), baptism by the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:4-5; 11:16; Rom 6:3-4; 1 Cor 12:13; Gal 3:26-28; Eph 4:5), and baptism with the fire of judgment (Matt 3:11; 13:25; Luke 3:16).

If you were counting, there are seven different kinds of baptism. I have a handout in the Gospel Dictionary Lesson on Baptism which nicely summarizes these seven kinds of baptism.

So it is a vast oversimplification to say that all baptism must be by immersion in water.

In light of all this, while baptism means immersion, it does not necessarily imply water. One can get baptized, or immersed, into almost anything.

To be baptized means to be fully immersed into something so that what is being baptized is completely overtaken and overwhelmed by whatever it is being baptized into.

It means to be fully identified with something, to become one with it.

So what does 1 Peter 3:21 mean?

There are some who teach that both faith and baptism are necessary for justification. Those who teach this often use 1 Peter 3:21 as a proof text for their view.

But if we know that the word “saved” does not refer to “receiving eternal life” in the Bible, we understand that Peter is not writing about the necessity of getting baptized in order to receive eternal life, but is instead referring to some form of deliverance.

Several contextual keys clue us in to what Peter has in mind.

First, it should be obvious that Peter is not referring to believer’s baptism at all, for he indicates that this baptism he is writing about is “through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Numerous other Scriptures reveal that water baptism does not actually place us in Christ, but this is done only through Spirit baptism (cf. Rom 6:3-4; 1 Cor 12:13; Gal 3:26-28; Eph 4:5).

Second, while some think that Peter is referring to believer’s baptism because of the mention of water in 3:20, Peter clarifies in 3:21 that he is not talking about the outward washing of the flesh with water but the inner purification of a good conscience toward God, which is accomplished only through the Spirit.

Finally, it should be noted that although 1 Peter 3:21 talks about how Noah and his family “were saved through water,” we should not take this to mean that the water was the instrument or means by which they were delivered from the flood. Far from it!

They were not delivered by the water; they were delivered from the water by the ark. Noah and his family passed through the waters and were delivered from the waters just as some pass through the fire, and are delivered from it.

So you take all this together, and Peter’s point is that just the ark delivered Noah and his family through the waters of the flood which threatened to take their life, so also, we too are delivered from the flood of sin that surrounds us, not by water, but by the Spirit of God (1 Peter 3:18). How? By fully immersing ourselves and identifying with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 3:18, 21).

Peter is teaching a sanctification truth. If you want to avoid have your life ruined by sin, Peter says, then learn what it means to have died to sin in Jesus Christ, and to have been raised to new life through His resurrection.

Jesus is the ark that saves us from the flood of sin that surrounds us. If you want to be delivered from the devastating and destructive consequences of sin (see Sin), then you need to follow the ways, teachings, examples, and instructions of Jesus, and especially what He showed us through His death, burial, and resurrection.

So Peter is not saying that you have to get dunked under water in order to go to heaven when you die. That is not his point at all!

In 1 Peter 3:21, Peter is not writing about how to gain eternal life. Instead, Peter is writing about how to live the Christian life.

He writes that the best way to live free from sin like Jesus Christ is to identify with Jesus and follow Him in every way we can.

Want to learn more about the gospel? Take my new course, "The Gospel According to Scripture."

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Here is a short video that summarizes the ideas in this post:

You will never believe how Jesus spent $3,150,000,000 in 2014!

By Jeremy Myers

51 Comments

Arthur Sido recently brought to my attention that in 2014, United States churches spent $3,150,000,000 on church buildings.

$3,150,000,000

And this amount is down 80% since 2002!

I wrote about this in one of my books (I cannot recall which one), and I have written previously on this blog about how churches spend money. See:

But it recently occurred to me that since Christians are the representatives of Jesus Christ on earth, since we are His ambassadors, since we are the “Body of Christ,” this means that when we spend $3,150,000,000 on church buildings in one year, it is Jesus Christ spending this amount of money in one year.

We are spending HIS money.

And it really made me wonder … If Jesus had $3,150,000,000 to spend, do I really think He would spend it on church buildings?

Somehow, I really, really doubt it…

Romans 8:28-30 and the “Golden Chain of Salvation”

By Jeremy Myers

26 Comments

Yesterday we considered the problem with the Calvinistic ordo salutis in Romans 8:28-30.

I suggested that there is a different way of understanding this text in light of Paul’s overall argument. We consider this alternative today.

The “Golden Chain” of Romans 8:28-30

The first thing to consider is the “golden chain” which begins with the foreknowledge of God and ends with glorification.

Through repeated use of the plural pronoun “whom” (Gk., ous), all those whom God foreknew are also those who arrive at glorification. That is, the same group which is identified by the “whom” in Romans 8:29 seem to be the exact same group which reach glorification in Romans 8:30.

Most Calvinists would agree with this, and say that this proves that God has some sort of eternal divine foreknowledge of all things. But note what happens when we apply this sort of foreknowledge to Romans 8:29-30.

All those whom God foreknew (which is everybody and everything), are also those who are predestined, called, justified, and glorified. Understanding God’s foreknowledge in Romans 8:29-30 as encompassing all people leads to the inevitable conclusion that all people will be glorified. But if only a certain group of people out of all humanity will be glorified, then this leads us backward through the “golden chain” to see that God’s foreknowledge is also limited to a certain group of people.

In other words, we must either say that this verse teaches universalism, or that we have misunderstood the terms and logic Paul uses in this text. I vote for the latter.

Greg Boyd is exactly right when he says this about Romans 8:28-30:

If Paul is using the term proginōskō (lit., “to know before”) in a cognitive sense—that is, to say that God possessed certain information ahead of time—then far from implying that God foreknows everything, this text would actually be denying that God foreknows everything.

… It is more likely that Paul is using the term know in the customary Semitic sense of affection rather than in a merely cognitive sense. To “know” someone is to love that one. So to “foreknow” someone means to love that one ahead of time. Three chapters later Paul refers to Israel as “[God’s] people whom he foreknew” (Rom 11:2). If this is in fact its meaning in 8:29, then Paul is simply claiming that God loved the church before he called them just as he loved Israel before he called them.

… What God loved ahead of time (ultimately from the foundation of the world) was the bride of Christ, the body of Christ, the church considered as a corporate whole (Boyd, Satan and the Problem of Evil, 118. Such a view is not without significant lexical challenges, however. See Olson, Beyond Calvinism and Arminianism, 152-173).

Whatever foreknowledge Paul is talking about, he is not referring to some sort of exhaustive, all-encompassing knowledge of all events and all people from before all time, for this would lead to the conclusion that all those whom God foreknows will end up in glorification.

Paul’s Golden Chain in Romans 8:28-30

So what is Paul saying?

First, we must remember that in Scripture, and especially in Pauline theology, Jesus Christ is the ultimate elect one, and individual people become elect, not through an eternal divine decree from God, but by joining with Christ by faith.

In other words, God does not predestine or elect people to be in Christ; no, God elects Jesus, and by default, all who join with Jesus by faith also become elect as members of the “body of Christ.”

Second, we must also recall that election is not to eternal life, but to service.

God does not choose, out of the mass of humanity, some to spend eternity with Him in heaven, while all others are destined for eternal suffering in hell. This is not the biblical teaching of election.

Instead, election is to service, and God chooses some out of the mass of humanity to serve Him or perform certain tasks to accomplish His will in human history.

While He sometimes chooses unregenerate individuals for this purpose (such as King Cyrus, Judas, and a few others), all who are in Jesus Christ automatically become “elect” in Christ. That is, all who become members of the body of Christ are also elected or chosen by God to serve God’s purposes in this world.

These two points help us understand what Paul is saying in Romans 8:28-30.

Note that when Paul introduces the idea of God’s calling in Romans 8:28, he says that this calling is “according to His purpose.” And what is God’s purpose? In Romans 8:29, Paul states that those whom God foreknew, He predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.

This calling of God is a calling upon believers to serve God’s purposes. Since all who are called are also justified, Paul cannot be referring to some sort of general call of the gospel to the world, but rather to a calling of God to believers to serve Him and come into conformity to Jesus Christ, “that He might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8:29).

We can see this more clearly if we include some elements in Paul’s “golden chain” which he left out.

For example, though Scripture includes proclaiming the gospel, human faith, Spiritual regeneration, and sanctification into the theological chain of events which contribute to the “salvation package,” Paul makes no mention of these.

Why not?

Maybe it was because he understood these other terms to be synonyms with the terms he did mention, or maybe it was because Paul’s list of terms places an emphasis on God’s role in salvation.

If we were to include these other four terms inside Paul’s chain of events, the list would look like this: Foreknowledge, predestination, proclaiming the gospel, faith, regeneration, calling, justification, faithfulness, sanctification, glorification.

Note that in this list, regeneration, calling, and justification are simultaneous events which follow faith but precede sanctification (cf. Jude 1). When a person responds to the gospel in faith, God regenerates them to new life, calls them to a specific purpose, and declares them righteous in His sight.

I do not, of course, want to add words to what Paul is saying. He included the terms he did because he wanted to make a specific point to his readers.

In Romans 8, Paul’s emphasis is on God’s part in the plan of salvation. There is nothing in Romans 8:28-30 about a human’s responsibility to believe in Jesus or to walk by faith for sanctification.

Paul is emphasizing God’s role while ignoring man’s role, but this does not mean that mankind has no role.

In the overall scheme of redemption, God alone is the one who foreknows what He will do, takes steps to make sure it happens, calls believers to a greater purpose in service to Him, justifies those who believe, and glorifies for eternity all whom He justified.

In Romans 8:28-30, Paul is not talking about an eternal decree from eternity past about to whom He would give eternal life, but rather, God’s plan from eternity past to bring those who believe in Jesus into conformity to the image of Jesus Christ, which does not fully occur until glorification (cf. Eph 1:4; 4:1; 5:27; Col 1:22-23).

This fits with everything we have seen about election so far. In Romans 8:28-30, Paul is saying nothing about God’s predestination of some to eternal life.

Instead, Paul is saying that God decided in eternity past to make sure that everyone and anyone who joins His family by faith will finally and ultimately be brought into conformity to Jesus Christ at their glorification.

Foreknowledge is not God’s plan from all eternity about whom to give eternal life. It is simply God’s plan about what to do with those who believed.

Since election is to service, God’s foreknowledge does not include the election of individuals to eternal life. God’s predestination is His commitment to carry out His plan. “And what is God’s plan? To bring all who have responded to God’s initiative with love to salvation, to eternal bliss” (Pilch, Cultural World of the Apostles, 91).

The Context of Romans 8:28-30

This understanding of Romans 8:28-30 fits perfectly within the broader context of Romans 8 as well.

In this section of Romans, Paul is writing to Christians who are facing severe testing and trials as a result of their faith in Jesus (cf. Romans 8:17-18).

But Paul wants to encourage his readers by telling them that the suffering they face will result in glory, and that absolutely nothing can separate them from God’s love or God’s purpose in their lives (Romans 8:31-39).

In light of this, the foreknowledge of God takes on a special intimacy and mercy for all who are part of the people of God. Paul’s point in Romans 8 is that God determined from eternity past to bring us to glorification despite our many weaknesses and failures.

God elected and predetermined a destiny for his people in full knowledge of what they were, what they would be without his intervention, and, most significantly, what they would become as a result of his grace on their behalf (Klein, The New Chosen People, 164).

In this way, there is great encouragement in Paul’s words.

Many of the people to whom he is writing (just like many people today), were struggling with feelings of inadequacy, guilt, failure, fear, and doubt. Paul wanted them to know that God knew all about these things from eternity past, and it didn’t stop Him from initiating His plan to rescue and redeem the world, and since God predestined such a plan, He will take care of everything necessary to bring it to completion, which will result in our glorification (cf. Romans 8:31-39).

Ultimately, the whole discussion about the ordo salutis in Romans 8 leads the student of Scripture in the wrong direction about Paul’s point. Paul is not so concerned with laying down a guideline about what happens in which order. He is not intent on describing each individual step in God’s plan of salvation.

Instead, Paul’s only point in writing Romans 8:28-30 is to encourage Christians that no matter what happens to them, God is with them, will not abandon them, and just as He has had them in mind since before the foundation of the world, He will not abandon them to the trials and testing they are facing.

If God is the only one who could bring a charge against them, but He will not do so, and instead, delivered His own Son up for us all (Romans 8:31-34), then we can be sure that absolutely nothing will separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:35-39). If God is for us, who can condemn us? Jesus could. But rather than condemn us, Jesus intercedes for us!

This is an astounding message from Paul which all believers need to hear.

[Paul] is speaking to Christians, about Christians, and to reassure them of God’s love for them and God’s desire for them to cooperate with his Spirit in working for good and in overcoming all tribulation (Marston and Forster, God’s Strategy in Human History, 245).

In Romans 8, Paul is not laying out some sort of mysterious outworking of God’s divine decree, but is describing in great detail the height, breadth, width, and depth of God’s love for His people.

He loves us, has always loved us, and will always love us. He set the plan of redemption in place, and He will bring it to completion. This is Paul’s point in Romans 8.

If you want to read more about Calvinism, check out other posts in this blog series: Words of Calvinism and the Word of God.

What I learned from almost following my GPS to my death

By Jeremy Myers

31 Comments

A friend told us that her favorite place to camp in Oregon was Olallie Lake.

So one Monday morning, my family and I hopped into our Toyota Sienna with all of our camping gear, I plugged Olallie Lake into my GPS, and we were off.

The GPS said it would take about 3 hours to arrive.

The first two hours of the trip went great. We drove up past Detroit Lake, and took a winding mountain road through luscious forests and cascading waterfalls. Since well all love camping, we were excited with anticipation.

With about twelve miles to go, the GPS told me to take a right hand turn off of the paved mountain road onto a dirt road. Though it was only twelve miles, the GPS said we would arrive in 1 hour. This was no surprise, since one has to drive slower on dirt roads in the mountains.

Five hours later we pulled in to Olallie Lake. Nevertheless, we were relieved to have even arrived. The road which the GPS took us down was nearly impassible. The road was nearly overgrown on both sides, with sometimes little more than two feet of visible road showing through all the brush, branches, and brambles.

Every few feet there were huge potholes or giant rocks which had to be carefully avoided. On the one hand, if our Sienna drove into one of those potholes, I knew it would not get back out, and on the other hand, if we drove over one of the giant boulders in the road, I knew it would rip the underside off our van. There were frequent times where my wife and I had to get out of the van to roll boulders out of the middle of the road.

As we were drove along at 2 miles per hour, we encountered many 4WD vehicles coming back down. Usually, one or the other of us would have to back up to find a place where one of us could pass the other. And without fail, as they passed, the driver of the other vehicle rolled down his window, looked at us in our Sienna van, and told us to turn back. Even they, with their 4WD, could not travel the road ahead.

But we pressed on. In our Sienna. Loaded to the gills. “Our Sienna is from Montana,” we told our girls. “It thinks it is a rugged 4WD pickup.”

At numerous times in those 5 hours, my wife and children had to get out of the Sienna while I crept along the treacherous road, slowly maneuvering around the potholes and rocks ahead of me, while carefully keeping my eye on the precipitous drop-off to the right.

As I look back now, it truly is a miracle that we made it to Olallie Lake.

Yet when we arrived, I was absolutely shocked to discover that there were dozens of cars and campers already there. And most of the cars were the little two-door and four-door sedans you see driving around a major city; none of them could have traversed the road we had just traveled.

I went and spoke to the camp host about how all these other people had made it up such a treacherous road, and he informed me that nobody, absolutely nobody, comes up the road I had taken. When I told him this was the way I had come, he stared at me, and then stared at my Sienna and said, “In that? I am surprised you made it. Why’d you go that way?”

“I followed my GPS,” I told him.

“Yeah,” he said. “A GPS is great for city driving, but once you get out into the hills, it doesn’t know the difference between a good dirt road, and an impassible mountain road which not even a 4WD truck can handle. Don’t follow your GPS when you go home.” He then pulled out a map and showed me the proper way to get home.

We had a great week of camping—probably the best week of my entire life. We saw eagles. We went on hikes. We had deer, ducks, and chipmunks in our campsite. We picked huckleberries. We played games. Talked around the fire. Read books. Went rafting. It was a wonderful week of camping.

And then traveled home. And just as the camp host had said, the road was a beautifully smooth dirt road for a mile or two, and then pavement all the rest of the way home. We made it in less than three hours.

I learned that day that my GPS, my infallible roadmap which I blindly follow around most of the time, was not infallible in all situations and circumstances. By following it, it had actually endangered not only my vehicle, but the life of my family as well.

And it got me thinking.

What else do I blindly follow in life, thinking it is an infallible guide for what I should think and how I should live? Even if this approach is safe 99% of the time, what happens when I follow it that 1% of the time when I shouldn’t, and it leads me down a road from which there is (almost) no return?

Yes, I am talking about the Bible.

Reading, studying, memorizing, and learning the Bible has been my life passion for as long as I can remember. I remember the thrill of getting my own personal Bible in Kindergarten when I learned to read. I remember in high school at the lunch break, going out and sitting in a car to read my Bible for 30 minutes while all my friends went to shoot hoops or take a break. I remember as a pastor, sitting down eagerly every Monday morning to begin the study process of preparing a sermon for the next week.

But a few years back, the Bible I thought I knew led me down a path that almost destroyed my life and my family.

This caused me to step back and reconsider and rethink everything I thought I knew about the Bible, how to read it, and what it means. I have been doing that for six or seven years now.

Some days I think I am getting closer to wherever it is I’m headed; but other days, it feels like I have only just begun. But I believe that if I keep driving down this rock and pothole filled road, I will eventually arrive at Olallie Lake, where I will enjoy the best week of camping of my life.

And I really think I’m getting close.

This post is part of the January 2015 Synchroblog. Here are links to the other contributors.

Done With Religion – Looking Back, But Moving Forward
Mark Votava – Learning to Love: Crossing a Decade of Rootedness
Tara at Praying on the Prairie – A Year of New Beginnings
Carol Kuniholm – Looking Back, Praying Forward
Mary at lifeinthedport – roaring chickens: how i found my voice
Moments with Michelle – The Year that Was: Looking Back at 2014
Glenn Hager – Things I Don’t Ever Want to Forget
Michelle Torigian – Looking Back at All the Stuff
Fedex at His Urban Presence – A Year of Changes
Charity at His Urban Presence – God is There
Lisa Brown at Me Too Moments for Moms – Lessons from 2014
Bram Cools – 2015: Looking Forward, Looking Back

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