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the right starting point

God's Word is our guide.

For some, orthodoxy consists in seeking out passages in the Word to support their own opinions.  At the same time they probably hold to other ideas which are contrary to the Word, and they ignore that with which they do not agree.
That is a perverted approach to the Word of God.

For the Word of God and human ideas are in opposition to each other.  God's Word gives us a view of the world and of man and man's soul that is quite different from the purely human opinion.
  
Nevertheless there are many, ministers as well as laymen, who view man and his problems from the viewpoint of the world.  They know no other anthropology or psychology than that of the world's scientific thinkers, and they build a system of religious thought upon ground which differs from the Word.  Their foundation is not Scripture, but human insight.

For the Christian, God's Word is source-book.  He bases his thoughts and opinions upon that Word.

Even so we may err.  But at least our starting point is valid.  While if we seek to support our own pre-conceived ideas from Scripture we reverse the divine order.

God's majesty and sovereignty require that we believe God's Word not because of what it says, but because it is His Word.  Not because we think it beautiful and true, but because He has spoken it.

~ Abraham Kuyper, The Practice of Godliness (Eerdmans, 1948)



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