The Six Pillars of Biblical Power
John Rankin
“There are two choices in life: Give and it will be given or take before you are taken.” Imagine yourself at Smith College, and an evangelical minister speaks these words to the president of the National Organization for Women. In a forum where the nature of feminism, marriage and the Bible were in focus, the mostly skeptical audience responded well. Real theology for the grass roots can be summed up in the six pillars of biblical power. This language flows out of an application of the shema that Jesus taught – to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength; and to love our neighbors as ourselves. This is the power to overcome any and all obstacles we face in a broken world: 1. The power to give 2. The power to live in the light 3. The power of informed choice 4. The power to love hard questions 5. The power to love enemies 6. The power to forgive The whole Bible, or Theology 101 if you will, can be summed up in seven words: “God gave, we blew it, he forgave.” The powers to give and forgive are the bookends of the Bible, and on the one hand are very simple to understand, but on the other, very difficult to live out. For disciples of Jesus as Lord and Messiah, these six pillars produce honest lives in the presence of all people – believers and unbelievers alike. Even a burned-out skeptic, of the Bible and the church, will find these pillars attractive to the human soul.
