Apologetics

God as We Understood Him?

by Jeff Drinnan
01/21/22
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"God is not going to rewrite the Bible for your generation. Stop trying to change scripture when it's written to change you." -Facebook post

Alcoholics Anonymous has its roots in the First Century Christian Fellowship, which later was called The Oxford Group, which based the program to help people who abuse alcohol on God. At one point, AA minimized the role of God in the programs, as to not turn off people who are not of the Christian faith. I once heard someone in a church say that AA is a secular program.

The Reverend Frank Buchman, who founded the Oxford Group in 1921, said the root of all problems are the personal problems of fear and selfishness. The solution, he said, is to "surrender one's life over to God's plan".
AA used basic tenents of The Oxford Group in its 12 Steps, with some modifications.

The 3rd step of Alcoholics Anonymous reads "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him." The 3rd step in The Life Recovery Devotional and Bible reads "We made a decision to turn our wills and our lives over to the care of God.

The 11th step of AA reads "Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. The 11th step of The Life Recovery Devotional and Bible reads "We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out."

The 12th step of AA reads "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs."

The 12th step of The Life Recovery Devotional and Bible reads: "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others and to practice these principles in all our affairs."

God is God. He's who He says He is, and not who we imagine him to be, the way some people imagine homeless people to be, not really knowing who they really are, which is reflected in a homeless group's motto "Don't talk about us, talk with us."

I remember as a kid watching the Fractured Fairy Tales on the Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoon show. Humorously, fairy tales are twisted, rewritten. We shouldn't twist or rewrite the Bible to suit our desires, but should seek to walk in God's ways. "Decline not to the right hand, to the left: turn away thy foot from evil. For the Lord knoweth the ways that are on the right hand: but those are perverse which are on the left hand. But he will bring forward thy ways in peace." -Proverbs 4:27

God controls the horizontal, God controls the vertical. There's a lyric in a song I heard on KLove, the Christian radio music station that goes something like "I put you into a box that I designed." The is followed by a line where the protagonist realizes (sic) "Who am I ...You are large and I am small; you are the one who controls it all." In the book of Judges, we read how Israel again turned away from God. "all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes." -Judges 21:25.

As for the term "alcoholic" which AA uses, people who abuse alcohol is not who they are, but what they do. It is a sinful choice, which is why alcohol abusers, like any other sinner, needs God to overcome sin. We are all in recovery!

I first came across The Life Recovery Devotional and Bible when I connected with a ministry that helps rescue people from the voluntary slavery of addiction, to use a term from Ed Welch, pastor and Christian counselor. I've been using The Life Recovery Devotional and Bible as my devotional.

God is not as we understand him, but what He tells us He is in His word!