An Opinion on In His Steps

Summery of The Text

One fine day a pastor and his congregation sat in comfort. Secure in their expressions of faith and their place in society the pastor and significant members of the church went about the accepted patterns expected by their lives and culture. No body ever did anything unexpected and noone ever had any adventures. Even so, all at once during a routine service an unexpected adventure found them. The resulting conviction facilitated the beginning of a journey. A journey swept off their feet and down the road that would go on and on in the steps of Christ.

Inner Reflection or Scripture Reflection?

The truth is that the story related in "In His Steps" and even somewhat supplemented in "The Christian's Secret to a Happy Life" have always been troubling to me. The Characters in the book are reflective of many Christians who stagnate in comfort and I grant that we could all do better with the focus of following in the steps of Christ as best we are able. The problem I see with this book is not the premise but the method of application. 

The minister in his sermonic stances, our newspaper man in his advertising decisions, the would be professional singer and her renunciations of secular performance, they all show the greatest and most admirable motivation to walk as Jesus walked. The willingness and attempt to emulate our Sovereign Master is something we should always aspire to. We must however ask where we are drawing our source of action to that end.

Sheldon has his characters drawing from inward reflection in order to decide what the most likely action of Jesus Christ would be. As the scriptures are the unerring Word of God that were made manifest in the Person of Christ is it not presumptuous to assume we could reflect internally as we pray and somehow by that means discern the will of God apart from scripture? When we use ourselves as the window through which to guess at the actions of our savior we place personal reflection and emotion above scripture as the basis of our faith. The best case scenario we can hope for in this would be a Christianized Socialism that has a works based salvation message. 

Answer to the Argument

The main argument against this thought I hear is "Jesus and the Bible never addresses [insert issue here] so we must look to other sources for answers." But that does not negate the fact that Paul tells us to be like the Bereans and "Test all things by the scripture." If we are going to break away from using the scriptures as a mirror to judge ourselves, our motivations, and our actions then we might as well join the many who have been led astray into apostasy by the Contemplative Prayer Movement and the likes of Sarah Young who are mixing occultic practices like automatic writing and mantra chanting into Christian Prayer.