Live Outside of Yourself

The bible held up, outside of ourselves.

And yet, among Protestants, only 14 percent read it at least several times a week and this despite the fact that an overwhelming number see it as the divinely inspired Word of God. If it is, if this is the place where God addresses us, why do so many Protestants come here so infrequently? What is perhaps even more telling is that those who do read the Bible with some regularity do so, apparently, from within a therapeutic mindset. They are looking for peace, they say, encouragement, and a sense of hope. These the Bible does, indeed, offer, but they come within its own framework of truth. It never holds out to us the benefits of faith detached from that faith itself. It does not offer itself simply as a technique for relieving life’s stresses. What it does is frame those stresses and crises in the light of eternity. It is, therefore, not a how-to guide, a technique, for making our way through life spiritually. How could we ever have thought that it was? The answer is that we have come to use the Bible in this way because we are a product of our own times.

Wells, David F.. The Courage to Be Protestant (pp. 36-37). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.

Outside of ourselves are two possibilities: the word of truth of the world of subjective thinking with no rules and no absolutes.

Our hearts are deceitful.

What is sin? The definition of sin - against God

What is truth? Two examples