Sunday, February 9, 2014

Redefining Scripture


Some men consider the redefining of scripture as a harmless intellectual exercise and nothing more. They surmise that the mental gymnastics one must perform in order to make the Bible say something it clearly doesn’t, simply exercises the mind…sort of like doing crossword puzzles, or the word jumble in your Sunday paper.

There are stages to reinterpreting the word of God, and trying to make it say something it doesn’t, and the first of these is the ‘what if’ stage. The ‘what if’ stage is also known as the ‘hath God said’ stage, made popular by a serpent in a garden some millennia ago.

The devil is good at sniffing out inconsistency, he is good at sniffing out the flesh’s propensity to find the nonexistent middle of the road wherein it can do what it wants outside, and still enter in when the time comes.

If for an instant the enemy succeeds at pulling us away from the light, or convinces us to look back on the world and its baubles, the first thought that springs to mind is ‘hath God said?’

After the initial seed is planted, the mind begins to play the ‘what if’ game in earnest.

‘What if it was just contextually relevant to the traditions of the Jewish culture and the times they were living in? What if in interpreting the Book from the Hebrew and the Greek, they used a different word for sin? What if Jesus didn’t really mean that?’

Eventually, inevitably, given enough fuel and time to ponder, the mind will come to the question the flesh was attempting to have asked in the first place, ‘what if there really is no such thing as sin, and we’ve been too hard on ourselves all along?’

And this is where it gets tricky. The flesh being the flesh, begins to look not for a contrary viewpoint to its newly seized upon epiphany, but for validation of it. The flesh will never seek out someone who will tell it why it is wrong. It will always seek out those who will tell it why it is right.

We conclude certain things because we reject the notion of obedience and submission, then go about seeking ‘shepherds’ to validate the conclusions we came to due to our rebellion.

Some men just won’t accept the notion that Jesus meant what He said, so they take it upon themselves to soften the blow, dilute the content, and water down the message.

If anyone attempted to do this in real life, they would likely be charged criminally, prosecuted, and even sentenced. Just for a second imagine someone painting over a ‘Danger High Voltage’ sign, and writing, ‘may experience slight tingle if touched’. Or, if someone took the warning label from a bottle of drain cleaner, which clearly spells out that if ingested it may be fatal, and replacing it with, ‘may experience slight tummy ache if ingested’.

I realize this sounds silly, but it is exactly what men have been doing of late when it comes to the Bible’s warnings about sin and rebellion. The warnings are clear, but men have taken it upon themselves to either paint over the warnings, or attempt to minimize them somehow to the point of them being deemed as nothing more than mere suggestions not to partake, or participate, rather than the danger signs they really are.

Men can redefine Scripture to their heart’s content, but try as they might to convince Him, try as they might to convince themselves, God will not bend to the will of men, nor will He accept the newly minted definitions of His eternal Word.

All will stand before Him on that Day of Days, and many will be cast into the outer darkness, because rather than simply obeying and following after Him, they took it upon themselves to tell God what He ought to say, or what He should have meant.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.

4 comments:

Barbara said...

If you don't want to obey the laws, why call yourself a Christian at all? You could be like the atheists and say that Christianity is for the weak minded. You could just do what you want and make yourself feel better by saying that you know better than what is in the Bible.

Why are there so many Christian hypocrites? That is why God prefers that if you are not for Him you just be against Him. Saying that you are for Him and then treating His laws with contempt makes Him want to spew the person out of His mouth.

I think the compromisers know that God is real but still don't want to toe the line and obey the law. The excuses they make are for their own pet sins. They are not ready to devote themselves to God or truth or righteousness. They still want to live in sin but just have the stamp of approval of godliness on it.

I think that makes them haters of God worse than anyone.

Anonymous said...

Brother Michael, your keen perceptions penetrate like a laser beam! I wonder if there isn't a one of us who hasn't tried to bend God's word to suit our self-centered desires, at one time or another. Thanks for a much-needed message.

Melanie

colby said...

"Did God really say?" is our favorite response when challenged about our pet sin. For example, Jesus was extremely clear when he said in Luke 16:18, "ANYONE who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and ANYONE who marries a divorced woman commits adultery", and yet there are countless excuses offered as to why these words do not mean what they say.

Peter told us "[Paul's] letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction." 2 Peter 3:16

Twisting scripture will cost you your soul!

-Colby

Jarodious Badger said...

There are always two sides to each coin. Using the "what if" approach to religious theory can certainly be used to wrest the scriptures into whatever we want them to say; on the other hand, truth seekers can also use the "what if" question to ask "what if" the traditional interpretation of a scripture is not what the Lord actually meant. Within the parlance of contemporary Christianity we find a multiplicity of doctrines which are not true doctrines at all, but are the traditions of men. These need to be washed out.

Part of the solution lies in the understanding that true religious is not meant to be an exercise in voyeurism. I can be encouraged in the spiritual experiences of others, but the Lord wants me to receive these same experiences for myself. He wants to speak with me directly. Scripture is not meant to be privately interpreted anyway. We are to ask God for ourselves and He will speak to us by the power of the Holy Ghost. All this guess-work and theory is pointless. Go to God and ask in faith; He will and does give liberally. (James 1:5)

Jared