For a few months I’ve been writing on the importance and the process of determining the author’s main point in Bible study. And one reason we should care about the main point is because of how dramatically it affects the way we apply the Bible.
To explain this further, I recently wrote for the Logos blog a piece called “Legalism, License, and the Tightrope of Bible Application.” Here is a taste:
So you want to apply the Bible to your life, do you?
That’s wonderful news, since the Lord Jesus (Matt 7:21–27) and his apostles (Jas 1:22–25) want you and me not only to hear the word but also to do it. But what should that “doing” look like?
Sometimes people warn of the danger of creating behavioral rules to either attain or maintain God’s favor. And at other times, people warn of cheap grace, where the gospel’s freedom is misunderstood to mean repentance is unnecessary. The tug-of-war between these perspectives may cause Bible application to feel like crossing a lava pit on a tightrope.
Both sets of warnings are on to something; the dangers on either side are real. And both sets of dangers may have the same solution: holding fast to the main points of biblical texts.
In the piece, I show how holding fast to the author’s main points provide a safeguard against drifting into either legalism or license in our application of Scripture. I’d love to know if you find my case persuasive.
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