The Last Word on Biblical Authority

Several weeks ago, when I was finally putting my thoughts for this talk down on paper, a friend asked what the title of my lecture would be. I said tentatively, testing the waters a bit, but still eager to get his reaction, “The Last Word on Biblical Authority.” He chuckled and said, “I hope they get the joke.” “What joke?” I thought. I wondered for a moment whether I was so clever that I had ended up talking over my own head. I’m thinking, “There’s no joke; it’s a conference that will address issues of biblical authority, and I’m up last.”

But there is a joke, and you know it, don’t you? We all know people who for some unknown reason just have to have the last word on any and every subject. It’s maddening. You can’t leave unless you hear their voices ringing in your ear. No matter what has happened in the intervening argument, they haven’t heard, they haven’t cared, because they know they’re right, and all they want to do is let you get what you have to say out of your system so they can get in their word, the last word. As far as they are concerned their word is the authoritative word on which we ought to build our lives.