Learning To Read All Of The Bible (Sermon: Acts 4:23-31)

The sovereignty of God is a phrase that scares many people, and yet it is so clearly taught in Acts 4:24. In the light of recent trends toward Calvinism in the Southern Baptist Convention and among evangelicals as a whole, many Christians have had a knee jerk reaction to extreme views of predestination (I specify “extreme” because predestination is also clearly taught in the scripture, Ephesians 1:11) that deny the free will of man and in turn they have rejected any notion of the sovereignty of God. In doing so, they have thrown out the baby with the bath water.

Many false teachings and distortions of scripture arise from someone trying to interpret a single teaching or passage of the Bible in isolation from the rest of the Bible. As a result, many false teachings are passed on by well meaning people who had no intention of distorting the Word of God. The old adage, “you can be sincere and be sincerely wrong,” still applies to scripture. So we too must guard our understanding and teaching of scripture, lest we unknowing accept or teach false doctrine. How can we do that? One of the best things we can do is to read the whole Bible. We must interpret every passage in light of the overall teaching of God’s Word.

Do I believe in the sovereignty of God? Yes. Do I believe in the free will of man? Absolutely. How can the two seemingly contradictory ideas be reconciled? That is a question for God, not for me. I only know what God reveals to me through scripture, the rest I must accept by faith. I only know that the Bible teaches both and so I must accept both. To believe without having all of the understanding or evidence is called faith. And if we read the entire Bible and seek to follow all of it, it will indeed require faith.