The Bible Said That???

Having established the importance of personally studying the word, it is critical to state ‘how’ to study the word. First, we get maximum edification from The Bible only when we ask through prayers for The  Spirit of God to breathe on the pages, afetr all, who. This is not a personal theory; it is right here in 2Cor. 3:6 where we are told that the letters kill, but The Spirit gives life. Elsewhere, it states that up till today, when people read Moses (the law), a veil comes upon their faces but when we turn to the Lord (the Holy Spirit), the veil is taken off for where the Spirit of God is, there is liberty.

I see men as trees Mark 8:24

What prompted this line of thought was the realisation that many times, we will take from God’s word what we want to take from it. Until last week, I had never met people who actually found a way of interpreting The Bible to mean that God the Father and even Jesus during His earthly ministry approved of homosexuality. You would think that Leviticus 18:22, and Roman 1:26-27 were clear enough but to this people, that isn’t so. once they transalted it to the Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic and other languages, their evidence verse meant something entirely new.

Although I believe that practising homosexuality is a sin before God, that is not what this post is about. This is rather a call for us to avoid handling the Word of God deceitfully. There is how to study The Bible such that we can understand the author’s thoughts and there are ways of studying it craftily for us to justify what we think is right. There is no profit in this. It would be better to not read than to consciously misinterpret it and spread that misinterpretation to others (who may be less informed). To start with, spreading misinterpretations is probably what created the factions and discord among Christians. If we say we want to know The Truth so that we do not enslave ourselves to flimsy (sometimes baseless) doctrines, how dare we start the process that created those doctrines all over again?

As we take the decision to know The Truth of God’s word, let us approach it with sincerity and humility, seeking what it says-not what we would have it say. I will close with this excerpt I found at Pyromaniacs (I do not agree with many things I read there but I believe that this note from them is true.

“The way you read the Bible dictates the kind of truth you can get from it…
You know: Hemingway never wrote anything but fiction, more or less. Even his autobiographical stuff was fictionalized -- so if you want to take truth away from Papa, you can't take factual truth away from him, because there's no way to read what he wrote and distinguish the "rote historical data" from the "whimsical authorial license." None. If you take truth away from Hemingway, you have to take allegorical truth away from him…

And some people will read the Bible that way -- and they come to the conclusion that things like the resurrection or the virgin birth are themselves analogical truth and not something which happened on calendar days to people with (so to speak) birth certificates and dirty sandals. And their conclusion is honest insofar as their approach is honest.

Which is to say, what exactly do you expect to get from the Bible if your major premise is that it is not a story by witnesses about something that happened on the streets of Jerusalem and in the Roman courts and on a filthy wooden cross?

See: the problem with the idea that there are "quite a few" ways to read the Bible is that it makes the intention of the writers of the Bible a non-determining factor… We can read John like fantasy literature or a poem and extract the truth; we can read Psalms like they are newspaper reports and look at Adam and interpret him as a cool-ective metaphor rather than a person that both Jesus and Paul said was a real guy.

So sure: go ahead and brush up on the many, many ways people have, in the past, read the Bible, and the ways some people today are trying to "read" the Bible. But then ask yourself this straight-up question: isn't the first person we should ask about what this text means the author of the text? If yes, how does he tell us this?”

Enough said.

Blessings,

Ms. August.

          

What Will I Find?

One of my favourite Bible dramas is recorded in Acts26:24 where an alarmed Porcius Festus tries to help Paul regain His faculties and screams “Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad!” I imagine this as a school play and it is pretty hilarious. We see people like this every day. They have read too much and we just shake our heads in pity.

In studying God's word, we will find the light

What brought this picture to my mind? My openly stated decision to read The Bible like never before. I meant to follow through with my decision to find the truth the way it is stated, devoid of doctrinal arguments. When I made that declaration, I expected some challenges especially as regards making out time to study consistently. Other challenges crossed my mind but the one that took me by surprise was fear. Yes, fear. I never expected that I would be afraid to study God’s word but that was what I found.

As I walked that evening, I found myself asking, “What will I find”? It did not help that I read about a young Christian who became an evolutionist after he decided to study evolution so could counter it with Biblical facts. I wasn’t planning on studying Darwin, so what was I afraid of? I realised that I was worried about how the Word will change me. Will I find so many inconsistencies and dump the faith all together? Will I have more answers than questions? Will I simply be unable to believe what I read? Will I get to the stage where people shake their heads at me and say “thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad!”?  Will I have a crisis of faith? I was pretty shaken up-and that took me by surprise. I had never experienced something like that before. Should I just let things be and carry on as usual instead of taking the risk to ruffle my faith?

I decided to take the risk. I will still go ahead and study the Bible. Like I said earlier, “I will read with an open mind, with sincerity and humility, trusting that the Spirit of God will breathe upon the pages.  I will read The Bible earnestly, eagerly, expectantly, and desperately. I will read like a deer pants for the water brooks.”

 

There are three reasons for this decision:

1.       Even in the midst of the doubt, there is this unshakeable assurance that Jesus will never let go of me. No matter how chaotic any crises of faith I go through gets, I have an assurance that if the God of the Bible as I have come to know Him exists, He will not leave my soul in hell (Psalm 16:10). Though the mountains be shaken and the hills disappear, His loving kindness will not depart from me. (Isaiah 54:11)

2.       I would rather go through a shaking and come out with my mind clear, my eyes enlightened and my faith established and clearly defined.

3.      I am pretty sure that I will find that Apostle Peter was right when he said “For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty…19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts…21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” (2 Peter1:16-21).

Dear friend, the invitation is still open and I believe it is one that Jesus extends to you and me today for if He did not expect us to personally know the scriptures, why did He repeatedly ask the people, “Have you not read?” (Luke 6:3).

Let us search the word and break off the doctrines of men that do more to divide The Body than unite Her like our Saviour wants.

Blessings,

Miss august.

Quite a number of people shared the last post. Thank you guys. Feel free to share this post. Let everyone catch The Word bug. 

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Are We Evangelising Half-Truths?

Long before I wrote my first evangelism pamphlet, I observed the pattern that many (oral and written) evangelisers used: accept that you are sinner, believe in the saving power of Jesus, confess and repent of your sins, ask Jesus into your life, and listen to BBC join a Bible Believing Church (BBC). End of story.

We might as well say it as it is

However, I have observed some terms and conditions we often forget to mention when we dish out the ‘Come to Jesus’ advert.  We forget to tell our converts that to be ‘genuinely saved’, at one point in their journey of faith, they have to be able to figure out what the ‘original sin’ is; they have to KNOW if God actually created the universe in six ‘literal’ days, if the Bible is truly inerrant and infallible, if infant baptism is right, if women are damned when they worship with their heads uncovered, if Adam and Eve were real people, if it is ok to take the communion (and what does the communion mean any way?), if the Garden of Eden was a literal place, if the second coming has already happened, if the Book of Revelations will play out as stated, if the Holy Spirit still moves today, and if ‘speaking in tongues’ is nothing more than rowdy babbling. 

Like sleazy salesmen, we present messages that do not let listeners and intending converts know that for them to be part of ‘rapturable Christians’, they have to study Calvin, Wesley, St. Augustine, Spurgeon, A.W Tozer, C.S Lewis, Luther, ad infinitum and figure out which of these men was heretic and which wasn’t.

We also forget to mention that getting saved isn’t enough- you must choose the right denomination. Dear new convert, you have to choose the right denomination, our own denomination. If you don’t, you will be fellowshipping among false believers under a false pastor, worshipping a false version of Jesus, the Christ. Mind you, it is not the simple Catholic or protestant question. You have a long of options including Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Pentecostal, Evangelical, Charismatic, Word of Faith, Anglican, and lots of Reformed this or that.

Why do we send out an abridged version of the salvation message? Because it sounds better? Because we want to convert people faster? Or like a lifeguard saving a drowning man, we first want to yank hell-bound sinners off broadway to the narrow path before we tell them how rocky and steep it is and how vicious other pilgrims get when shadows fall off ‘designated’ points? Or could it be that getting saved and following Jesus is really (gasp) that simple? 

I happen to believe that the last option is the more reasonable option but with the way people violently argue issues of doctrine, it seems to me that less than 20% of professing Christians are truly saved because if we one party is so right and other parties are so wrong, heaven will be grossly under populated- speaking of which, are we going to the first, second, or third heaven or will Jesus just set up camp with us here on this earth?

You would think that I would find answers among Christian authors but I can’t hear a thing above the rowdy argument going on? Sincerely, I panic when I realise we don’t seem to agree on a thing except the name of Jesus. We may have reduced some of our brothers into a deer caught in a racing car’s tail light.Meanwhile, the real fight isn't the one amongst us. the real fight is against our adversary, the devil who knows that if he can keep us squabbling over doctrine, we will have little time to take him square on. No wonder Jesus kept praying over and over again that "they may be one".

I have resolved to read The Book I should have been reading more all the while. I have decided to focus on the Bible. I have heard that it has limitations, errors and grey areas but I will read on anyway. For if Jesus is true, He promised that The Holy Spirit will explain what I do not understand to me. 

I do not see salvation elsewhere so instead of arguing over doctrines of men, I will read with an open mind, with sincerity and humility, trusting that the Spirit of God will breathe upon the pages.  I will read The Bible earnestly, eagerly, expectantly, and desperately. I will read like a deer pants for the water brooks. That is my only safety, the only means of keeping my sanity in the faith and of drawing close to God.

Dear friend, I invite you to join me in this journey. Pick up the Bible and read it for yourself. See what it says. Read hard and pray harder. Ask for the help of the Holy Spirit. Will He disappoint and refuse to teach us? I think not. Instead I think that as we draw near to God, He will draw near to us. Amen.

I leave you in God's care.

Miss August