When I was in Bible College, I had a teacher who made this statement: “God is never illogical, but sometimes is supra-logical.” His statement declared his faith that God never acts in a way that is contradictory to truth (illogical), but there are times when the actions of God rise above the “logic” of men.  An example would be the angelic announcement to Mary concerning the conception of the body of Jesus Christ.  Mary’s response to the announcement was that she had not known a man intimately and was not willing to sacrifice her purity to accomplish the supposed will of God.  For Mary, this was completely logical.  The will of God requires sexual purity and it would be necessary to violate that will in order to accomplish “another” will.  What Mary did not immediately realize was that God had a plan higher (supra) than man’s logic in which both wills could be accomplished perfectly.

I wish there were more Marys today. We are living in a day and age where logical thinking is being discarded for the authority and legitimacy of what feels good and right.  Back in the 1970’s, Debbie Boone sang, “… it can’t be wrong when it feels so right.”  YES, IT CAN!  Thinking has been replaced with feeling.  Modern humanistic psychology is fond of asking the counselee, “How does this make you feel?”  The consequent counsel is based on positive or negative feelings.  But there is a reason why this is prevalent.  In order to determine actions by thinking, there must be an absolute truth. If you discard an absolute truth, feelings are all that is left.  But there is an absolute truth, the Word of God.

I read John 5:39 this morning where Jesus instructs the Jews, “Search the Scriptures; for in them you think that you have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.” The Jewish leaders never logically considered who they were before God. For example, Isaiah 64:6 says that all of man’s righteous works are as filthy rags, incapable of making man acceptable before an infinitely holy God.  Yet the Jews thought by their finite good works they were good enough and, consequently, they felt good about their standing before God. 

Unfortunately, if there is any reasoning from the Scriptures today, it is often done with only a verse or two as the basis of thought. And even then, it is usually isolated from the context in which the verses stood.  There is a hermeneutical principle that states, “A text out of context, is a pretext for error.”  Here’s a popular example:  Matthew 18:19 says, “Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.”  Therefore it is logically deduced that if I want something from God and I can get someone to agree with me that it would be good for me, God is obligated to provide it for me.  After all, Jesus did say “any thing” didn’t He?  But the context of this verse is dealing with an act of sin separating two believers and the ultimate refusal of the sinning believer to submit to the authority of the church and the discipline enacted.  To apply this verse to anything else is simply a perversion of what Jesus said.

Here’s a challenge. In the next week or so, take notice of how many times you defend a position you take by using the words, “I feel…” rather than the words, “I think…”  The results of your observation may indicate whether you are a logical and biblical thinker or not.