A Portrait of Inerrancy

Imagine if your life were spent in a church with no windows save one.

People naturally want to see out - What's the weather? When the service is over, will it be sunny and warm or cold and rainy? Is there a nice meadow outside or a concrete jungle? What lies just beyond these walls? How should I best prepare for life on the outside? Periodically people leave, but they never come back to report. There is only one window, and it can only show so much.

But conditions on the inside have made the window almost inaccessible. Interior renovations lowered the floor, and now the window is high on the wall. The panes seem small and dirty, covered partly by a curtain and clouded by dust and carelessly spattered paint.

The pastor has options. He knows that at some point everyone will be called to leave the room and venture outside. What clothes do they need? Do they even need clothes? How can he help them prepare for their inevitable journey to the outside?

One option is to pass out brushes and paint and assign wall space. Each person can be encouraged to paint a picture - a window picture of what they think, or hope, lies beyond the wall. This is a seemingly wonderful idea, as each person affirms and shares their own ideas and beliefs. Some paint a window onto a warm, tropical beach. Others overlook a mountain meadow or a Parisian sidewalk cafe. The pastor can encourage and celebrate the diversity of preparations that accompany each painter's vision of the world beyond.

Or the pastor can climb to the window, peer out upon the outside world and describe it as it really is. Rather than allowing each person to paint his or her own window, he can work to clear the one that exists, cleaning the panes and encouraging the congregation to climb the ladder and look out for themselves. Those who can't, or won't look out must be provided with an accurate description of what is seen. There may still be diversity as people make individual preparations to move out into what they see, but they will be preparing based on the view through a window to reality.

When the Bible is devalued, marginalized or abandoned, we are left only the option of passing out paints and encouraging the congregation to paint their own windows on the world and the world to come. Which window would you rather learn from - a glass window that lets in light from beyond or an opaque, painted wall that can only reflect the views of a wishful painter?