Cutting the Word Straight

Observing what we see in the biblical text, we then should correctly handle it (2 Tim. 2:15). The participle “correctly handling” (incorrectly translated in the King James Version “rightly dividing”) translates the Greek word orthotomounta. This combines two words that meant “straight” (ortho) and “cut” (tomeo). One writer explains the meaning of this as follows:

Because Paul was a tentmaker, he may have been using an expression that tied in with his trade. When Paul made tents, he used certain patterns. In those days tents were made from the skins of animals in a patchwork sort of design. Every piece would have to be cut and fit together properly. Paul was simply saying, “If one doesn’t cut the pieces right, the whole won’t fit together properly.” It’s the same thing with Scripture. If one doesn’t interpret correctly the different parts, the whole message won’t come through correctly In Bible study and interpretation the Christian should cut it straight. He should be precise…and accurate.

Roy B. Zuck, Basic Bible Interpretation. (the writer he cites is John MacArthur)

Be Careful About Who Divides the Word

The following is by G. Richard Fisher in his article, The Plight of Ancestral Bondage: Is It Real Deliverance or Just a Radical Delusion, in the July-September issue of Personal Freedom Outreach’s The Quarterly Journal. The article exposes the fraudulent nature of “generational sin” and “deliverance” ministries. While the subject is about the whole fake demon-chasing by the likes of Bob Larson, Neil Anderson, Mark Bubeck, Rebecca Brown, et al, the comments by Fisher are also valid concerning any teachings.

Repeating a falsehood over and over can make it sound like truth. Hitler’s dictum that a lie repeated often enough will begin to sound true applies here. Just who divides the Word and how he divides it really becomes the all-important issue.

The discerning Christian will care who divides the Word for them. He will employ caution and concern when it comes to reading and listening, and will look to those who generally follow good hermeneutics, as well as historical orthodoxy. He will want to put himself under teachers whom he can trust and who hold to the fundamentals of the faith. He will avoid those who ride hobby horses, get off onto tangents, and are sensational for sensationalism’s sake. He will certainly avoid those who boast that they can verbally slap Satan and demons around because Jude 8-11 strongly condemns such conduct. Jude says that such teachers are dreamers who speak evil and speak of what they do not know. He says they are corrupt and totally running under their sinful nature and are like Balaam and Cain.

Christians should avoid these so-called “deliverance ministers” because they are clearly unbiblical, boastful, and spawning uncertainty as well as an unhealthy focus. We are to set our focus on things above - looking unto Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), not looking unto demons. …

It all goes back to who divides the Word and if they do so properly. When someone offers to lead us across a bridge of interpretation, we must be sure we are on the right bridge. Our protection is listening to dependable, historically orthodox teachers who recognize context and the balance of comparing Scripture with Scripture. We should also be praying for God to give us discernment. The commentaries we consult should be safe and sound. They should not smuggle in pagan worldviews and inject things into the text that are not there. Syncretism ends up being the real curse.

It is our responsibility to know where we dine and what we are “eating” and who is doing the serving. Sometimes apologetic ministries are maligned for trying to act as some kind of “Board of Health” for the religious “kitchens” out there. Somebody has to do it. Cutting the Word properly is a biblical mandate and essential to our spiritual health (1 Thessalonians 5:21).

Unity Should Be Based On Truth

Many, eager to maintain harmony among God’s people, cannot reconcile contending for the faith with unity. … It becomes obvious that the church has very little purpose if truth is not at the center of all it does. Unity that is not centered in the truth is not unity of the faith, but mere uniformity. Where I live, we have one of the largest military cemeteries in the country. If you were to visit Camp Butler you would not find unity but the essence of uniformity - gravestones in perfect order, grass beautifully mowed, etc. But everyone there is dead. Uniformity is a good description of much of the church today - sociable, active, tolerant, compromising, and spiritually dead. Biblical unity, on the other hand, is a description of a vital faith wrapped around truth.

Gary E. Gilley, This Little Church Had None, pg.155

Protect the Flock!

The pendulum has swung from a time when people didn’t feel as though they had gone to church unless they had their toes stepped on to a time when to step on people’s toes might mean that they will switch churches. The most popular preacher of our day is a man [Joel Osteen] who knows little theology, is not trained in the Scriptures, does not preach the gospel and ignores large portions of biblical truth. Instead he smiles constantly, tickles his listeners’ ears by telling them God wants them to have a wonderful and prosperous life and shuns any comment on sin or judgment. Yet every weekend over 40,000 people flock to his services and millions tune in via television. This pastor is merely reflective of our times - and he is successful. Preach a biblical message if you like, but if you want a successful ministry (in other words, crowds) you had better give the people what they want.

But what about God’s warning of false teachers and his mandate to contend for the faith? The trendy pastor rides the waves of current fads and philosophy, but the faithful pastor anchors his ministry in the timeless truth of God’s revelation. If our Lord has taken the trouble to warn us that wolves in the form of heretical teachers will attempt to ravish the sheep, we need to take him seriously and keep a constant watch for predators. If God has instructed us to contend earnestly for the faith, we had better strap on our armour and prepare for battle. If we love the people with whom the Lord has entrusted us, we will want to protect them from the danger of wandering from the truth.

Gary E. Gilley, This Little Church Had None, pg.154-155

Jeremiah 29:11: Another Abused Scripture

A friend asked me to look over some work he was doing for a Bible study, and one of the passages used to ostensibly demonstrate God’s care for us was Jeremiah 29:11. If you don’t know the passage, here it is in NKJV:

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you,” says the Lord, “thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

Does this passage apply to the individual person? Absolutely not. The context is God’s discussion about Israel - the passage is about the nation of Israel, not about individual persons.

A question that must be asked is, COULD this passage in a different context apply to the individual? I have to answer, “NO.” I don’t think the Scripture says that God has a specific plan for each individual, other than allowing them to do what they want. And certainly we can’t say that God’s plan is for everyone to avoid evil when we have so many Christians martyred around the world. The only “future” and “hope” all Christians can look forward to is our eventual eternal life with the Lord. But while on earth, I’d say too many people have no hope of any future beyond the day’s survival.

Too often people (usually Calvinists) want to make God out to be nothing more than a puppet-master, with everyone’s lives preplanned from eternity past. Rick Warren, in his Purpose Driven Life, says God chooses when you are going to be born, who you will be born to, what color your hair and eyes will be, and even what you are doing this very moment. Can you imagine someone with congenital defects being told that God wanted him to be that way? What sort of a God is that?!?!?

Scripture does tell us God’s desires for us, but we are given freedom to choose how to live. The Holy Spirit will guide Christians, but they can still ignore him and do wrong anyway. God may lead us, but we don’t have to follow; that’s why we still sin. God does not force himself on anyone.

Now, can we take this passage in conjunction with many other passages from Scripture to demonstrate a principle about God’s attributes? Yes. But we can’t isolate this passage from its context and claim it for ourselves. It has nothing to do with the individual.

Avoiding Spiritual Danger

I’ve done some more reading in William MacDonald’s Believer’s Bible Commentary and came across another very thought-provoking section on Ephesians 4:14. As MacDonald points out, it is very important that we have solid teaching and leadership in the Church or it will suffer the consequences:

When the gifts [given to the Church] operate in their God-appointed manner, and the saints are active in service for the Lord, three dangers are avoided—immaturity, instability, and gullibility.

Immaturity. Believers who never become involved in aggressive service for Christ never emerge from being spiritual children. They are undeveloped through lack of exercise. It was to such that the writer to the Hebrews said, “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again
--.” (Heb. 5:12).

Instability. Another danger is spiritual fickleness. Immature Christians are susceptible to the grotesque novelties and fads of professional quacks. They become religious gypsies, moving to and fro from one appealing fantasy to another.

Gullibility. Most serious of all is the danger of deception. Those who are babes are unskillful in the word of righteousness, their senses are not exercised to discern between good and evil (Heb. 5:13, 14). They inevitably meet some false cultist who impresses them by his zeal and apparent sincerity. Because he uses religious words, they think he must be a true Christian. If they had studied the Bible for themselves, they would be able to see through his deceitful juggling of words. But now they are carried about by his wind of doctrine and led by unprincipled cunning into a form of systematized error.

Defend the Faith!

Last night I began reading a new book I picked up in April at the St. Louis Conference on Biblical Discernment. The book is a new one by Ron Rhodes, titled 5-Minute Apologetics for Today: 365 Quick Answers to Key Questions. It is designed as a daily reader, one page per day, but I never do those things - I just read right on through.  If you aren’t familiar with Dr. Rhodes or his Reasoning From the Scriptures Ministries, you are missing out on some excellent apologetics teachings.

Anyway, I read the first 15 days last night and came across a couple items I really wanted to share with my readers. The following is Dr. Rhodes’ entry for Day 11, Non-Rock-a-Boatus:

Many Christians today seem to be secret-agent Christians who are afraid of blowing their cover before an unregenerate world. Such Christians apparently have a hideous disease called non-rock-a-boatus. This disease has so effectively neutralized Christians that the cancer of false religion has spread at an incredible, unprecedented pace in this country.

Many Christians are so fearful of rocking the boat that they clam up and keep their Christianity to themselves. They think that if they speak out for Christ and for Christian values in this predominantly anti-Christian culture, they may offend someone or perhaps be ridiculed and embarrassed.

If this disease continues unchecked, we can count on the continued spiritual deterioration of our country. If Christians do not act, the followers of false religions will. The war is on - and we Christians will be soldiers in the midst of the conflict or casualties left behind.

The task cannot be left in the hands of the professional clergy. The challenge is too massive for church leaders alone. The involvement of every Christian is necessary if the growth of false ideas in this country is to be turned back (1 Peter 3:15; Jude 3). The task begins with a single person - you. If you really want to see things get better in our country, why not take the first step - you, without waiting for others to act - and commit to being an agent of change (see Mathew 28:19; Acts 1:8)?

Please note that the context is slowing the decline of the spiritual condition; Rhodes does not believe we can make the country a better place, rather he believes, as do I, that it is possible to reach more people with the truth if we get active about it. We need to put false teachers out of business as much as we can, rather than sit by and watch our churches collapse spiritually. Of course we know we will never be 100% successful because Scripture tells us of the spiritual decline in the last days. But we can certainly slow it down! Dr.. Rhodes tell us how to do this in the last paragraph of his entry for Day 10, Contend for the Faith, discussing Jude 3.

How can you and I contend for Christian truth? The word translated contend (Greek: agonia) was often used in New Testament times to refer to competition in athletic contests. The English word agony comes from the noun form. The idea behind the word is of an intense and vigorous struggle to defeat the opposition. Believers are to engage in an intense and vigorous struggle in defending Christianity.

Let’s all get out there and CONTEND!

Don't Be A Spectator

I’ve been studying Ephesians 4 and reading William MacDonald’s Believer’s Bible Commentary along with the Bible. In MacDonald’s notes for vs. 12 he cites the following from Vance Havner:

Every Christian is commissioned, for every Christian is a missionary. It has been said that the Gospel is not merely something to come to church to hear but something to go from church to tell - and we are all appointed to tell it. It has also been said, ‘Christianity began as a company of lay witnesses; it has become a professional pulpitism, financed by lay spectators!’ Nowadays we hire a church staff to do ‘full-time Christian work,’ and we sit in church on Sunday to watch them do it. Every Christian is meant to be in full-time Christian service… There is indeed a special ministry of pastors, teachers and evangelists - but for what? … For the perfecting of the saints for their ministry.

I thought this was a really good statement about how so many today go to church to get their weekly dose of Christianity and then go about the rest of their week as if they learned little or nothing about their faith (of course, in churches like Joel Osteen‘s they don‘t learn about the faith). I have learned from experience, sad to say, that most Christians are not interested in evangelism, rather they tell friends and acquaintances to go to church; after all, isn’t it the job of the church to evangelize? NO! that is the job of the individual Christian.

What about you; are you a “lay witness”? If you really believe that Jesus is the only way, and that all unbelievers are destined for Hell, should you not be doing what you can to bring as many as possible into the Kingdom?

Revelation 22:18-19

I got such great response on my last post about an abused Bible passage that I thought I’d discuss another one. Let’s read the subject passage:

For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of this book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. (NKJV)

Contrary to the common out-of-context use of this passage, it does not apply to the Bible. This passage is only in reference to the book of Revelation and nothing else. You have to remember that this was written long before the New Testament was collected as a book, and the subject of the text is “the prophecy of this book.” I hate to say this, but many good teachers have misused this passage to apply it to the whole of Scripture; I have seen it over and over again in commentaries.

Mormons hear this so much that they have learned to respond by pointing out the context, which really says nothing about their Book of Mormon or their other standard works. Of course what they don’t understand is that this does indeed apply to the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible, because he did add to and subtract from the book of Revelation!

Jehovah’s Witnesses change Revelation in their New World Translation, so we can say this applies to them also.

Now that I have your attention, does this mean we can add to or subtract from the Bible with no consequences from God? Of course not! Let’s look at some other passages from the Bible (all NKJV):

Deuteronomy 4:2: You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.

What is the context? This is Moses talking to Israel in reference to all the Law given to him for Israel. Can we say this applies to the Bible as a whole? No. In context it only refers to the Law - the commandments of God given by Moses to Israel.

Deuteronomy 12:32: Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it.

As with the other passage from Deuteronomy, this is Moses talking to Israel about the Law.

Jeremiah 23:31: “Behold, I am against the prophets,” says the LORD, “who use their tongues and say, ‘He says.’”

The context is God telling what He hates about false prophets. This passage says God is against those who claim God said something that He didn’t say.

I think these passages tell us a principle - that God does not want His Word messed with by either adding to it or taking away from it. Now let’s look at one last passage:

Proverbs 30:5-6: Every word of God is pure; He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him. Do not add to His words, lest He rebuke you, and you be found a liar.

This is a general statement about God’s Word. It says don’t add to it! By extension I think we could also say this would certainly apply to taking away from His Word, because when you take away from the Word you add a new meaning.

So then, the lesson for today is this: use the Bible in context because that is where the truth lies. Tradition often leads us into error, and when we take passages out of context because we’ve heard them traditionally used this way, then we become no better exegetes than members of cults.

Deception by Investment

This morning I was catching up on my mail from yesterday, and I read the monthly MRM Update newsletter from Mormonism Research Ministry. The lead article was about a survey of Mormons as to what they would do if they learned Brigham Young really was behind the Mountain Meadows Massacre. The results were not surprising, yet they were sad nevertheless. Most of those surveyed wouldn’t change their view of the Mormon Church because they “have a testimony.”

The most interesting part of the article was an excerpt from an e-mail by a Mormon who said, “If Thomas S. Monson [current LDS president and prophet] were to announce in an address in front of the world that it was all a joke, a fraud, a conspiracy, etc. it would not change my testimony in the slightest because he did not give me my testimony or have anything to do with it.” The author of the article correctly pointed out that, “This is what happens when your worldview is shaped by subjectivism and not biblical truth.”

People in cults and followers of other false teachers all have the same problem: they are deceived by their investment in the false teachers or cults. If they admit that the teacher or cult is in error, then they have to admit they were deceived and their self-pride couldn’t take that. I’ve seen it right here on my blog with the followers of Beth Moore - they can’t admit her teachings are rife with error because that would make them realize all they invested in her teachings was more to their detriment than to their betterment.

In a way I have a difficult time understanding this thinking; I’ve never had that problem. Whenever I discover my beliefs are in error, I want to leave the error behind. That’s why I left the Mormon Church when I learned what a fraudulent origin it had, and that it’s teachings didn’t line up with Scripture. I once thought abortion was okay because it wasn’t a baby until the last couple months - something I learned as an unbeliever. When I began maturing in my faith and learned about life really beginning at conception, I immediately discarded my old beliefs and told people I was wrong. There have been teachers I heartily subscribed to as a new believer because I trusted Christians around me, but as I matured in the word I was able to recognize where some of these teachers were in error and admitted I was wrong to follow them.

Truth is what I am always looking for, not subjective feelings, ideas, beliefs, etc. I want to see objective truth. Why is that so difficult for others? I have so often encountered people who do not want to know the truth because it doesn’t go along with their beliefs. It doesn’t matter if the issue is theology or politics, people will go with what feels good whenever it conflicts with truth.

The person cited in the MRM letter demonstrates exactly why the Emergent movement and mysticism are invading the Church - people invest their time and effort into them because the teachings feel good, and they don’t want to admit they are wrong when they are given the biblical truth.

“Deception by investment” holds people prisoner to false belief systems. We need to work hard at breaking that hold by boldly proclaiming the truth.