Historically, to be an evangelical included a commitment to the authority, supremacy and truthfulness of scripture—to its inerrancy. Now, what we're seeing is this line, this commitment that used to be not crossed, is getting more and more squishy in some people's minds.

What I have in mind here is just one event among many. Recently, within the last week or so, Jen Hatmaker—who is a very popular and famous Christian writer and speaker—came out in favor of the full inclusion “LGBT Christians.” She believes these relationships that are not heterosexual can still be holy as long as they're monogamous.

She and her husband say they've come to this position through years of a journey they had been on. They've been searching the scriptures and they have been praying a lot. They have been talking with people and hearing their experiences. Really, this is a very common set of explanations for how some people have come to affirm LGBT relationships as God honoring.

This should raise the question. What are our sources of authority? How should we think about them? Is there an order to them?

One of the the doctrines that came out of the Reformation was called Sola Scriptura. In my experience, there's a lot of misunderstanding surrounding what Sola Scriptura is. Now, if you've never heard of this, sola means alone and scriptura just mean scripture. The doctrine of Sola Scriptura means that scripture alone is... something.

Generally, when people define what the something is, the train goes off the tracks. Some people have interpreted scripture alone to mean that all I need as a Christian is me and my Bible on an island and I'm good. That's not what it is and that's never what it's been. Some people think that Scripture alone is the only source of truth, but that's not what it is either. We can learn things from natural revelation. Scripture even holds us accountable for what we can know from natural revelation. Psalm 19:1 says, "The heavens declare the glory of God." Romans 1 says that people are without excuse because what can be evident about God is clear from creation.

Scripture isn't our only source of truth. Now, is it the only authority? Well, no. There are other authorities too, but here is what's Sola Scriptura is, and this definition is very important.

Because the Scriptures are the only example of God-breathed revelation in the possession of the church, they form the only infallible rule of faith for the church.

When we're looking for the highest authority, it should be an authority that is directly breathed out from God. As we see in 2 Timothy 3:16. "All Scripture is God breathed." Your translation might say inspired but the Greek word behind that is theopneustos and it means, "God breathed."

It's the words of God poured out through men as the Holy Spirit came upon them. Jesus says the same thing in Matthew. Basically, he says,” have you not read what God spoke?” Referring to the Old Testament. Once again, this was the revelation of God that was breathed out. Since Scripture alone—there is no other source we have—is the very words of God, then it's our only highest authority. There can be no authority higher than it. There can be no authority parallel to it in.

That last claim is controversial today. Because the Roman Catholic Church effectively teaches that the church sits above Scripture in terms of authority. At the very least, it's parallel to it. Some other denominations have a multiple authority paradigm: where Scripture and tradition and reason are all parallel authorities.

Scripture gives us no reason to believe that our reason is of the same importance and authority and truthfulness as God's revelation to us. When God speaks, he does not err. In the same way, tradition and how things have been und…