The Final Authority

Interfaith Celebration Gathering

The Final Authority

The Bible and many other holy books are written in metaphors, parables, and examples. The beauty of the imagery in the metaphors and parables helps us understand the concepts being taught. Depending on our religious belief system we either accept the precious nuggets of wisdom buried in the prose as guidance for our lives or as something to be followed to the letter despite the fact that the parable was written thousands of years ago about a culture much different from ours.

With these different ways of looking at the Bible, the Koran, the Talmud and other holy books, how can we know what the final authority is on how to act, how to pursue our lives, and how to live as God would have us live?

There are several concepts that can help us understand how to interpret God’s word as it applies to each of us. First, we need to look at Divine Inspiration. Divine Inspiration is a state of connectedness with God wherein people allow God to use them as the vehicle for the message God wants delivered. Divine inspiration is quite dependent upon the author of the message removing all blocks to the message flowing from God through him or her.

Were the holy books with which we are most familiar divinely inspired? Only the authors of each individual piece can tell us for sure if they were feeling divinely inspired when they wrote the literature that has been compiled into a holy book, and they are not around to help us figure this out. Many parts of the holy books are historical chronicles of the everyday lives of the people who came to know God by a particular pathway.

These chronicles were kept in a variety of ways; those without a written language told the story of their encounters with God often so that it became a part of their oral history. As we know, things sometimes change with the telling. An interesting game to play at parties is to begin a rumor, whispering it from one person to another until all present have heard it and then compare the first person’s version with the last person’s version. The two are rarely similar.

Others wrote of their experiences with God or with someone whom they felt was a messenger if God. These writings have been translated, shortened, rewritten, and in some cases completely obliterated. The result has been passed on to us, and is revered by us as what we believe is God’s word.

Yet a drop of water on one of the skins or pieces of papyrus used to record divinely inspired messages could smear the ink could causing words to be lost that might change the whole meaning of whatever story was being told. Translations were not always a faithful reproduction of what may have begun as God’s word either. Some languages into which the holy writings were translated have no word or words for ideas that are richly described in the original texts.

What might have gotten lost in these translations? What might have been changed in these translations? These are questions whose answers we can never know. The scribes responsible for translating these holy texts into their various language transitions could even have taken liberties with the translations.

Have you ever been asked to proof something, and decided you preferred one way of stating a fact over other ways? "Just a little change," you think, "surely no one will notice." But, you may even have changed the meaning the author intended without realizing it.

Then there was the Roman church - history tells us that the early Roman church withheld some books of the Bible from the people, and changed others to suit their needs. With all these variables, how does one discern what is Divinely Inspired and what is not?

The answer to this question lies within each person. For, it is only by connecting directly with God that we can each know God's wisdom, guidance and direction for us. Regardless of the holy treatise we choose, each probably contains wisdom, guidance and truths we can use to guide our lives. If we ask for God's help, we will be led to those truths. (Of course, asking for the help is only one half of the equation; we also have to be open to the answers.) The guiding principles laid down for God's people in most religions are global ones: love your neighbor; don't kill others; don't lie, cheat or steal; treat others as you wish to be treated.

Because a large portion of many holy books is simply a record of the history of how God’s people came to know God, these books also reflect the culture and the morés of the time the record was written. Rather than guidelines for us to follow in how to live our lives as God would have us live them, they are merely historical information on our ancestors. Separating out what is simply a historical reference from what is actually God’s will for our lives in most holy treatises requires God's guidance.

For instance, just because the people of ancient Jerusalem spoke in the Bible of beating their children and their slaves does not mean that it is God’s will that we beat children or enslave people or beat them. The people of ancient cultures also believed women to be inferior and unclean. The marvelous system for regeneration of our species which God installed in women was little understood in ancient times. What people did not understand, they feared. What they feared, they denigrated. (Unfortunately, many cultures have carried this fear-based belief system into modern times insofar as women are concerned.)

There are some people in today's world who choose to follow these ancient beliefs about women, children, and slaves. They quote the Bible as the final authority on their choices. They incorporate these practices into their religion, and insist that they are Divinely inspired. Women, children and slaves are thought to be chattels, property that could be sold, beaten, and abused. As a result, there are instances like the man interviewed on television in 2000 who was arrested for beating his son. The man earnestly believed that God (through the Bible) had told him to beat his son as a form of discipline. He also felt that he was teaching his son about God by beating him into submission when he erred. Later in the show on which this man appeared, his 11-year-old son was interviewed. The boy appeared cowed and humble, saying that his father had every right to beat him.

Whether the child honestly believed that God gave his father the right to beat him or whether he feared a retaliatory beating if he did not affirm his father's right to abuse him was unclear. The technical name for what the boy was probably experiencing is the Stockholm Syndrome, in which victims identify with their abusers and adopt the abusers' belief systems. Non-technically, however, this poor boy was being taught a fear-based belief in God adopted straight from the Bible’s historical records of how people treated children thousands of years ago.

Only God can direct us to the truths that God would have us know. While many writings can share illumination of those truths, no one writing is the final authority on what God would have us know. The final authority is God, and we need to learn to hear God speak to us.

Religious practices, which are the outward expression of our inner beliefs can be a way for us to come closer to understanding what God would have us do. (Of course, religious practices can also be used as a way for us to look like we are coming close to God without our actually connecting with God.) Since religion is the outward expression of our spirituality, if we are not spiritually connected with God, then we indulge in religiosity but not spirituality.

If religion and holy books are not our final authorities on living, then what is the final authority and how do we access it? The answers come to us via the still, small voice of God speaking to us when we ask for answers, that voice that many of are too busy to hear or ignore completely. Ask, and you shall receive. Seek, and you shall find. Knock, and the door shall be opened. The answers to the truths we seek are as close as a prayerful request to God.

We will always find the final authority on our life and how best to live it by looking to God, not by following some guru, reading a book that has been designated as holy, or worshipping in some form or fashion dictated by a particular religion. All of these sources may contain profound wisdom that can guide us, but they are not the final authority. God is. Ask God for the answers.

May God add a blessing to these humble words.

AMEN