Watch Your Step!

Today I’ve been in conversation with a person who is trying to help someone understand the love of God. While that sounds simple, it’s not always an easy task. Especially since the person has become firmly entrenched in a legalistic understanding of the Bible. I understand Scripture, as Wesley did, through the lenses of tradition, reason, & experience. That is the famed Wesleyan quadrilateral (the Bible, tradition, reason, & experience) that scholars speak of which forms our faith. And like it or not, each of these impact the other. We cannot, try as we might, understand Scripture apart from traditions that we have learned over the years…and quite often multiple traditions inform us. We cannot understand the simplest of Scripture verses without dipping into the reservoir of personal experiences we’ve endured…good or bad; we all have personal and shared experiences. And we cannot understand Scripture without it being reasonable or logical (not that we can understand the mind of God)…still, try as they might; I fail to see the logic behind being a suicide bomber! Likewise our traditions, reason & experiences each lack understanding without Scripture. It’s when these four things are not held in tension (with Scripture being primary of course) that we find people on theologically thin ice, practicing rejection and hatred rather than love and forgiveness.