Editorial – Living By Every Word, Part I

According to Matthew 4:4, when Jesus was tempted by the devil, He quoted from Deuteronomy saying, “‘It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’”  This clear statement makes it evident that every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God is important and should be the standard by which we live.   The problem is, how can you live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God if you do not know what words proceeded from the mouth of God?

This was the situation in the Dark Ages.   There was an attempt to keep people in the dark, even after the printing press was invented.  If you are saved in the kingdom of heaven, you will meet printers (men and women) who were burned at the stake,  because they printed the Bible for people to read.  Eventually, however, it became impossible for either kings or priests to stop the printing press.   Bibles began to be printed in ever larger quantities.

Before this time, the common people only had access to those portions of the Bible that were read in church.   In many churches a portion of the Bible was read every week from a lectionary.   This has been a custom from ancient times and seems to go all the way back to the Jewish church before the time of Christ.  (See, for example, Luke 4:14-20.)  We still use lectionaries.   In the back of the hymnal, published by the Review and Herald in 1985, there is a rather informal lectionary containing over 200 scripture readings which can be read in church.  (Some lectionaries contain a year of readings, which are read in sequence through the year.)

When the common people gained access to the Bible, as a result of the invention of printing, they found some very interesting things.   One of the most interesting things they found was that the sacred book contained no instruction or teaching about the worship of saints, or Mary the mother of Jesus, or prayers for the dead, or indulgences, or Peter and his successors being the head of the church, or many other things that were part of their worship.  This resulted in the development of Protestantism.  One of the primary foundation points on which Protestantism was built, was the idea that “the precepts of Scripture, conveyed through the understanding, are to rule the conscience; in other words, that God speaking in the Bible, and not the church speaking through the priesthood, is the one Infallible Guide.’—Wylie, b. 3, ch.  2.”   The Great Controversy, 102.

“As Protestants, the Bible, and the Bible alone, is the foundation of our faith; but by many ‘the Fathers’ are quoted as authority.  They do not come as humble learners in the school of Christ, saying, ‘Lord, what I know not, teach me.   “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.”’”  Signs of the Times, August 5, 1886.

From this extremely brief, historical review, it is possible to draw  broad, but accurate, conclusions.   First of all, since “the Bible and the Bible alone is the foundation of our faith” as Protestants, any device, philosophy, or teaching that will weaken a person’s faith in the Bible will have the effect to eventually destroy Protestantism.   Many devices and philosophies and teachings have been introduced to the world in the last 400 years, which have had this result.  Examples would include the theory of evolution, the theories of higher criticism, the theories of atheistic socialism (related of course to the theory of evolution), the various skeptical theories about the existence of God, the teachings of the spirit world, and the errors of popular theology which contradict the Bible.  “There is nothing that he [the devil] desires more than to destroy confidence in God and in His Word.” The Great Controversy, 526.

It is not our purpose here to present the evidences for the divine character of the Word of God.   There is sufficient internal evidence for this within the Bible itself, even if you had no access to a history book; but, “While God has given ample evidence for faith, He will never remove all excuse for unbelief.  All who look for hooks to hang their doubts upon, will find them.  And those who refuse to accept and obey God’s Word until every objection has been removed, and there is no longer an opportunity for doubt, will never come to the light.”  Ibid., 527.

A second conclusion is that destruction of faith in the Bible not only will not destroy Catholicism but can actually foster its growth and success, since Catholicism is not built on the foundation of the Bible alone.