What I believe - part 2

I've been meaning to write more on this as of late, but due to the busyness of the season, I haven't had the time. I am hoping that in the midst of Christmas and New Years, that I will be able to flesh out a few more posts on my thoughts. Like I said in my previous post on this subject, this is to help me gets some thoughts down on "paper" for the confirmation class that I will teach at church.

So I was listening to the "most emailed stories podcast" by NPR on my way into work and I found that I reflect on the stories that I hear with respect to the Bible. As I thought about it, I view the Old Testament through the New Testament. I had a roommate in college once tell me that he had a hard time with the Bible, because of the old Testament where everyone was kicking butt. During my early years in biblical understanding, I knew that view was not the one God had in mind. I didn't understand what the purpose of the OT was until much later, and then I realized that you have to view the OT through the lens of the NT. When I have heard people say that there are all of these contradictions in the Bible, I have looked at the verses and usually find that they are taking them out of the context of what was happening then or in the way that God had intended us to do things.

So what does all this mean? That scripture is the inspired word of God; one of the legs of the quadrilateral that we as Methodists base our faith on ((1) the biblical perspective and how it is illuminated by (2) tradition found in Christian history, (3) reason, and (4) practical experience).