A New Life Conclusion
Introduction
I seek to live by drawing meaningful and essential conclusions about life. They are principles that I live by and fought to gain throughout my life. One or two are foundational. Many others are practical applications of what I ought to do. I seek reasons why I hold to the Life Conclusions that I do, and I work to view everything through them.
In a way, it is easy to figure me out. I am tenacious in my adherence to these Life Conclusions, will defend them with passion, and would die for them, if put to the ultimate test. I also use these Life Conclusions to challenge other people's Life Conclusions. One of my Life Conclusions is that everyone has their own Life Conclusions, whether they realize it or not and whether they acknowledge them or not. As Dr. Cornelius Van Til so aptly stated:
To be "without bias" is only to have a particular kind of bias. The idea of "neutrality" is simply a colorless suit that covers a negative attitude toward God. At least it ought to be plain that he who is not for the God of Christianity is against Him.
Or as the Second Person of the self-existing Trinity, Jesus Christ, said in Matthew 12:30:
Whoever is not with me is against me…
What are My Life Conclusions?
For the sake of brevity and efficiency, I will list only a few and the most important ones. The first is that the self-existing Trinitarian God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, has revealed Himself in His self-authenticating Bible. The Bible must be self-authenticating and self-attesting. This stands to reason because if someone or something else authenticates the Scriptures, that means the authenticator would be the higher authority.
Most people place themselves as an authority over the Bible. They judge whether the Bible is indeed the Word of God or not. They think that it is begging the question for me to say that I know the Bible is the Word of God because it says so. Yet, they are completely unaware of their own question-begging. They hold to the fallacious belief that they know they are the final authority determining the truth of Scripture. How do they know this? Because they say so? They self-authenticate as the final authority and judge over the Bible. If that’s not question-begging, I don’t know what is.
They may even appeal to other self-authenticating human beings and their "research" to prove why the Scriptures are not worthy of being the ultimate standard. Fallible human beings believe they have infallible self-authenticating authority to judge whether the Bible is as it claims to be which is the inerrant and infallible self-authenticating revelation of the one and only Trinitarian God.
Not me! I realize the limitations of human reason and the fallibility of humanity in general.
The most crucial Life Conclusion I have come to comes from a source outside of me. That source is the claim within the pages of Scripture that the self-existing Trinitarian God has revealed all we need to know for faith, life, and practice in the pages of His self-authenticating Bible.
Jesus Is Lord!
The next Life Conclusion I have come to is that Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity, is fully God and fully man. He died on the cross to forgive me of my sin. In the pages of the Bible, Jesus Christ self-attests that He is the Messiah and the Son of God. The Father attests to this truth, as does the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 3:17, for example)
God Will Not Be Mocked
Another Life Conclusion I have come to I learned the hard way. In the pages of the Scripture, God clearly says that those who break His law will be judged. (Romans 6:23, Hebrews 13:4, for example) I thought I could get away with private sin and not be judged. I knew what I was doing was wrong; I just didn't believe that God would judge me for my disobedience. Yet, I learned how much God loves me and that I am one of His children because, instead of ultimate judgment, He chastised me as a father chastises a son. (Hebrews 13:4-13) That chastisement cost me my first marriage, and it is a lesson I will not forget for the rest of my life.
My Latest Life Conclusion
The final Life Conclusion is one that I have come to just the other day. This Conclusion drills down into the bedrock of my faith and will become a keystone. This conclusion is Scripture memorization.
I have been studying the Bible for well over 45 years. I was raised in church from my infancy. I heard the Word preached, as well as preached it, much of my life. I believed in the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible ever since I read Dr. Walter Kaiser's excellent book, Toward an Exegetical Theology in Seminary back in 1986.
For the past year, I have immersed myself in the teaching of Dr. Cornelius Van Til and Dr. Greg Bahnsen. They are the ones who deepened my understanding that apart from the revelation given in the Bible, you cannot prove anything. They showed that the Scripture is the foundation of “proof itself.” Apart from the Bible, one cannot account for or prove reality (metaphysics), knowledge (epistemology), and ethics (morality). Remove the Bible from the equation, and you can't prove anything. The existence of God is not just a probability; "it is ontologically and "‘rationally’ necessary,” to quote Van Til.
I have several volumes sitting on the shelf in my library by Van Til and Bahnsen, waiting for me to read. However, it makes no sense to focus my attention on what men say to the neglect of memorizing what God says. Because of this, I decided to embark on a New Life Conclusion of Scripture memorization. I want the Word of God to permeate my being so that I can call Scriptural truths to my conscious mind at a moment's notice.
I also believe having the Bible memorized affects the unconscious mind as well. Why not let my mind chew on the Word even when I am not thinking about it? It makes sense to me.
I am using the Bible Memory App for the iPhone as my primary tool for memorization. I decided to start with John MacArther's 52 Scriptures. Besides the ones I already know, like John 3:16, so far, I have the following verses memorized:
Psalm 103:1-4
Proverbs 3:7
Jeremiah 9:23-24
Romans 8:28
Hebrews 4:12
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Isaiah 53:4-6
Philippians 1:6
1 Timothy 3:16
2 Timothy 3:16-17
Psalm 19 7-9
And for kicks, I decided to memorize the Westminster Shorter Catechism. First, I will learn the questions and then memorize the Scriptural proofs for each question later. I have questions 1-11 memorized, with 96 more to go.
Conclusion
I feel that this is one of my essential practical Life Conclusions. I realize that it will take a lot of time, energy, and effort. Instead of scrolling on the phone for several hours a day, I will use that urge to memorize. The technology of smartphones is based upon getting us addicted. It works on me, that's for sure. My commitment to using my phone for studying uses a tool meant for control for deepening my faith in Jesus Christ.
