Bible Idolatry?

Some interesting thoughts on our view of the bible from a recent Ooze article.
http://www.theooze.com/articles/article.cfm?id=1961
Has the American Christian system unreservedly exchanged God for the Bible? Is the Bible the “Golden Ephod of our time (Judges 8)?

For me, many of these ideas in this article are nothing new; many are true and some are skewed perhaps for dramatic effect. The bottom line, this all comes down to the excuse factor. I do not want true Truth in my life. And most of us will do as we will to not have real truth. This can be taking the Bible and making it an ephod and thus ignoring its precepts, call and the Words of our Lord. Or we can devalue it or ignore it and the result is all the same, His Message is muted and His principles and call go ignored and unheard.

To exemplify this: The ramblings of a selfish, cynical, hurting, self imposed expert of truth auguring to Francis Schaeffer and seeking to counter his philosophy if “true-Truth” this is from his work in “True Spirituality.” (“true-Truth” is real effectual factual Truth revealed in God’s Word verses what we as humans feel may be truth as it relates to us in just a personal manner. True-Truth is mathematical and has a definitive answer, in comparison, my truth is relative to feelings, personal thoughts, ideas predicated on my hurts and outlook. Thus, with my truth we go to the world and God in what is in it for me, and respond to how I feel at that time with a carless attitude to what is real truth. In true-Truth we go to God as surrendered beings seeking to know and glorify Him because He is Truth and His Word is true too):

“I want to do as I see fit and believe in what I want too. I do not want authority in or of truth; I will make that determining factor myself. The Bible must be refused and belittled because it claims to be Truth. Any thinking person does not actually want to think, right; thus, we have to remove what gets in our personal thinking way. God’s Word the Bible is the problem, it gets in the way of my Christianity, and it is in my way. His Way is in my way, how I want my church life to be and how I want to lead my church. I want to believe what I want to, some things I like, 1 Cor 13 I like, all of Paul is of the devil, he hates women and sought to impose his will as God’s. Thus, I will reinvent my church in my image and I will make it my ephod and cling to it as my “so truth” and discourage and retaliate to all who think otherwise that there is a one truth or a true Truth. Pious frauds, prim and proper hypocrites as Christians all are who hold to the Bible, all those who think there is Truth and desire to be in a church that teaches what they think is truth are just stupid…Truth is what I want it to be period or what I as a minister want to point my people too period!” …date 1977

A liberal Episcopalian at that time, a year later, 1978 he became a professing Christian, when his “so truth” all fell apart logically and relationally. Now he sees the Bible as the container of God’s Word, the Item we use to know and lead others to Jesus Christ (Phil. 3:1-14). Not what we worship but what we learn and know about the One who we do worship! Those who seek to do as that article points out at their baseline do not want real “true Truth.” Thus, they will counter and give false and illogical arguments to defend their view. It is perhaps at best laziness an “I do not have the desire to learn” or at worst, “I do not want to be convicted” of what I believe and thus will fight it as I once did.

Yes, many Christians have skewed the Bible, some ignore it while others see it as they desire and chose a faction or an idea and claim it as superior. Such as the King James is the only True Bible or all we do need it to read the Bible and to hell with worship, relationships while others ignore the Holy Spirit…

Keep in mind without the Bible we do not know much about our Lord God. Just as refusing to learn about your date or spouse or friend will not allow you to get close to them. Perhaps, you think all I have to do is hang out with them, but in so doing will you ever really get to know them? Never ask those questions or hear of their life, wants, needs, desires, dreams… Do this for many years, how well will you know that person? How well do you know God? We are called to know the Bible in so doing we get to know God, neither one can be separated from the other for our growth factor, but it is God Whom we worship and the Bible it the mere instrument to do that, not the object of worship, rather the main mechanism to the One whom we do worship.