 |
 |
|
 |
Welcome |
|
FeaturesChrist’s death, God’s wrath: the vital connection
Jul 30, 2009 Are you missing the point of Scripture passages? Jul 21, 2009 Modeling misjudgments: Clothing, contradictions and Miss California May 14, 2009 Exploring The Last Battle’s Emeth element May 11, 2009 MacArthur on sex and the sacredness of the Song Apr 14, 2009 Heaven and Earth, part 1 — Fixing our eyes away from the lies Apr 13, 2009 Fighting on broader battlefields of Biblical spiritual warfare Apr 11, 2009 Keeping the Cross in focus this Good Friday Apr 10, 2009 An open letter to Jennie Chancey from the Devil Mar 12, 2009 Capitalism, socialism and critics’ Rush to judgment Mar 10, 2009 |
 |
Search |
|
Updates |
|
Recently read:
|
|
Recently read:
|
Are you missing the point of Scripture passages?
|
||
 |
by
Dr Ransom
at
05:41 PM ET
,
Tuesday, Jul 21, 2009
|
|
| Tags: Columns, Deep Doctrine Magic: Biblical Theology, Churchianity, Life Applications | ||
(Edited from the originally written version, available here.) Here is something I’ve had on my mind for a while, based on a little series of broadcasts called “Discover the Word,” by RBC Ministries. In early May, I mini-blogged this to my website: Just now I’m finishing my catchup with the most recent “Discover the Word” broadcast, by RBC Ministries. They’re doing a fantastic series about misreading of Scripture, including Matthew 18: 19-20 ... offering the true context of this passage that I hadn’t seen before ... They continued the Biblical Context series for about a month, dealing with misunderstood, misinterpreted or misapplied passages of Scripture that people take out of context all the time and may not even know it. More and more I’ve learned that many passages I’ve had up in my head that I subconsciously thought said one thing actually say nothing of the sort. And in some cases, the out-of-context idea may be Biblical — just not what the verse is talking about there. Reading random letters For instance, take Matthew 18, actually verses 15-20. The whole passage is about what steps to follow if you’re offended by a fellow Christ-follower, right? But somehow or other, folks tend to see this passage (along with other Biblical texts) as sort of a child’s summer-camp letter, as Dr. Haddon Robinson so aptly phrased it: jumping from thought to thought to thought like a kid who says, “Hi Mom. It’s hot here at camp. I captured a frog. Yesterday I went swimming. Please send money for snacks. ‘Bye.” So instead of finding that all of what Jesus said in this passage is about reconciliation between believers, and in the Church, Christians think Jesus suddenly changes his mind and starts talking instead about prayer meetings, or “binding Satan,” or the power of faith to get stuff. “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” Pretty cool so far, right? Most readers would track right along with this if they began reading the chapter — or the book of Matthew altogether — from the beginning. Jesus started talking about personal reconciliation, which may or may not require church leaders to be intermediaries, and He hasn’t left that topic. So when why — I ask myself this too, with a silly grin on my face! — do we sometimes while reading verses like this suddenly assume Jesus had some kind of ADD and then got distracted by spiritual warfare and how God is always there at prayer meetings? That’s the way many Christians have traditionally understood the following verses, at least when they’re quoted by themselves like “sound bytes,” without context. So here’s exhibit A. The “Discover the Word” folks spent a whole week probing through the true meanings of these verses, apart from their misreading. And the time they took in 12-minute daily radio broadcast sessions wasn’t because it’s hard to understand the meanings, but because sometimes it’s hard to get past those ingrained misinterpretations! Binding meanings “Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” For many of us, what’s the instinctual understanding? We think of spiritual warfare and the idea that we can “bind” Satan or his henchdemons, forbidding them to interfere with God’s work. That may or may not be true, but my point — and Dr. Haddon Robinson’s and the others’ point too — is this: it’s not what Jesus is talking about here. Instead, He’s still talking about reconciliation. It’s even the same paragraph. What He means here is that the church leaders have authority to “bind” and “loose” people from the church similar to how Jewish rabbis used to “bind” and “loose” the meanings of the Law. And actually, being “bound” then would be a good thing, because “loosing” means you’ve been sent away from the Church because of unrepentance. Exhibit B: “Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.” The “Word-Faith” folks abuse the daylights out of this one, and when read all by itself it looks similar to the idea of “ask what you want with another believer and God will grant your request because of your Great Faith.” But nope — still the same subject. Jesus is talking about believers who are dealing with a reconciliation situation. And finally, exhibit C, the verse whose true meaning simply wasn’t on my radar screen: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” Again, what might be your instinctive thought about what this means? Mine once was the same as yours likely is now: well, this must be about Christians getting together for prayer, church or fellowship and knowing God is among them even if they can’t see Him, and so on. Now, we know from other Scripture that of course that is very true. But again, it’s not what Jesus is talking about in this passage. He’s still on the reconciliation subject. So He’s still talking about church leaders getting together to decide God’s will in how to deal with an unrepentant person. Before, Jesus said they had the authority to “bind” and “loose” the church standards, and now He keeps going in the next sentence, saying they have the authority to agree on standards according to God’s will. More misquotes It would be great to discuss more verses that Christians take out of context — Christians including us, who hear the wrong view just spread around out there and we haven’t yet looked into the matter to see if that’s what Scripture actually says! I maintain the absolute Kingpin of all misquoted verses is Matthew 7:1: [Jesus speaking] “Judge not, that you be not judged.” This one is so comically — yet dangerously — abused, often by non-Christians and sometimes even by Christians who want to shut each other up. They even go so far, or so low, as to quote just the first two words of the phrase: “Judge not.” Very few people would treat any other writer’s book or even sentence like that, so why treat the Bible like it? (Reading just the next few verses of Matthew 7 refutes the “never ever judge anyone ever” idea instantly.) But one other verse that’s often misquoted is Revelation 3:20. It would be interesting to read it here, and hear if anyone else had the same reactions I did when the radio folks brought it to my attention yesterday morning and with a continuation this morning. They talked about how people often read it, then briefly outlined its true context and meaning: [Jesus speaking] “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” So I’ll ask the same questions they did: Question 1: What is your instinctive (likely lifelong ingrained) understanding of that verse? Question 2: After reading the chapter, or even just the past several sentences, what is the real meaning? 
|
||
Comments |
||||
|
||||
Add commentThis item is closed, it's not possible to add new comments to it or to vote on it
|
