Examining "A More Christlike Word"
by Brad Jersak
“For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.” (Paul’s concern from 2 Corinthians 11:4)
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The False Filter |
The Biblical Filter |
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The word OR the Word |
The Word THROUGH the word |
I’m
also adding how the Blackabys’ sharing so often fits with mine like pieces of
the same puzzle that belong side-by-side. The first quote was, “Knowing that
God is preparing judgment brings a sobering reality to Christians, helping us
recognize what is eternally significant and what is not” (Facebook sharing,
24-06-06). Of course, BJ is being used to convince people God doesn’t judge
evil, so we have a problem.
The
second quote was this Scripture, “Justice is turned back & righteousness
stands far off. For truth has stumbled in the public square & honesty
cannot enter. Is. 59:1” (Facebook sharing, 24-06-06). This is exactly what BJ’s
book is doing to people.
To this, God added some of the daily sharing from our home church family. At the end of what someone shared from the word, Ezekiel 34:16 quotes Yahweh, “I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice.”
That is what it looks like for God to be
good. He binds up the injured and weak, and he destroys the fat and the strong.
This is thoroughly Christlike since it is Yahweh describing what he will do,
and it is Jesus who comes to do it (bringing salvation is his first coming, and
final judgment in his second), so, like Father, like Son! And, as I have begun
to really love saying, not even the BJs can take that away from the poor in
spirit!
And,
again, God spoke through someone in our home church with what God is teaching
them from Ezekiel 35. After rebuking “the shepherds of Israel” (much like Jesus
had to do when he was here), Yahweh continues against “Mount Seir” with a
scathing condemnation.
First, he says, “Because you said, ‘These two nations and these two countries shall be
mine, and we will take possession of them’—although the LORD (Yahweh, Jesus’
Father) was there—“. It is sadly fascinating that this is what I am reading in
Matthew 12 right now, that the religious elite were telling Jesus how to live
by the law when he, the offspring of Abraham, was right there and they could
have asked him how to understand why he was letting his disciples pick and eat
grain on the Sabbath!
Second, Jesus’ Father gives a HUGE “therefore”!
“therefore, as I live, declares the Lord GOD (Lord Yahweh), I will deal with you according to the anger and envy that you showed because of your hatred against them. And I will make myself known among them, when I judge you.”
The
sin of this “Mount Seir” is contemptible enough that God would judge them (as
Jesus said) with the same measure they used on others. They showed anger, envy,
and hatred, so Jesus’ Father would “make myself known among them (the people
they traumatized) when I judge YOU!” That is always the case. For God to show
himself to his people as their Deliverer, he must carry out justice against
their enemies who have done them wrong.
The
result of this would be, “And you shall know that I am the LORD.” Literally
(yes, and I smile as I say so), “And you shall know that I am YAHWEH!” How
would people know that Jesus’ Father was “Yahweh”? By the way he responded to
the injustice against “these two nations and these two countries” by carrying
out justice against evil people.
Every
day I go through this journal journey of BJ’s book, I am showing how
wonderfully God speaks through his word to expose the deception. For BJ to be
right he has to show that Ezekiel was a false prophet (since God’s word had
already established that a true prophet could not say anything false!). And he
has to show that the God known as “Yahweh” was “immoral”. Not only has BJ
utterly failed to do this, or to discredit the biblical writers as if they made
mistakes in what they wrote down from God, but he himself is an immoral liar to
deceive so many people into thinking we have every right to “tamper” with the
word of God in order to “peddle” God’s word for profit.
With
those props added to the stage, let’s follow the spotlight to where BJ is
trying to use four claims to add to his dissing of God’s word, the Bible.
So,
we’re picking up with BJ’s focus on how the Bible is its own technological
advancement (sounds boxed in), and now we’re considering the “Biblification” of
the Scriptures (a prejudicial expression). So, let’s look at each of the four
questions he has presented and see what we learn.
“1. How does the Bible medium enhance Scripture reading?” (p. 93).
In his
comments, there is so much uncertainty about what exactly the Scriptures are
and how having them collected into the Bible enhances Scripture reading. It
seems like the summary is that the Bible gathers these “many booklets” into “a
coherent, grand saga”, but there is that residue of rejecting the authority of
Scripture as the breathed-out words of God that leaves it up to various
churches and traditions to decide what they would like to consider their “Bible”.
That
section leaves me feeling that the question was not answered. When I think of
how having the Scriptures in the Bible enhances Scripture reading, I look back
to the time of Christ, and then of the early church, where the Scriptures were
heard by most people, not read. The Hebrew Scriptures of Jesus’ day were read
in the synagogues, and most Jews would only have heard the reading of the
Scriptures. When the Scriptures of the New Testament were first presented to
the church, they would have arrived at the first church that was the
destination, and the whole thing would have been read to the congregation.
Likely a copy would have been made before the letter was passed on to the next
church. Paul speaks of this very thing: “And when this letter has been read
among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans; and see that you
also read the letter from Laodicea” (Colossians 4:16). The preponderance of
copies would have begun as each of those first-to-receive-a-letter churches made
the first copy before sending the original on its way.
What
we have now that the Scriptures are gathered into the Bible is that any church
anywhere and at any time has all the Scriptures (I mean, apart from the places
that are still in the process of receiving the Bible translated into their own
languages). No one has to just listen. They can read. They can read the whole
collection of Scripture. They can marvel at the weaving together of themes from
one end to the other. They can see promises, prophecies, and fulfillments.
What it means to me to have all Scripture gathered into one collection, to have this accessible in digital formats for prayer journaling on a computer, with online search sites like www.biblegateway.com to look up words, and online commentaries and dictionaries to look up meanings, is all such an incredible gift that it is a tragedy that false teachers like BJ would try to hide the wonder of this gift from God’s children.
It is equally as tragic that so many
church folk who have such ready access to the “whole counsel of God” in the
Bible, find it so difficult to even take the time to read for themselves what
God has given us in his word.
So, I
think there is a far greater gift in the Bible for the way it makes Bible
reading possible for so many Christians, and I praise God for the way the Bible
enhances every opportunity for me to search the Scriptures daily to know what
is true.
“2. What does the Bible medium retrieve that had been obsolesced earlier?” (p. 93).
I’m
not sure the term “obsolesced” helps, because the Scriptures have never been
made obsolete even though “In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first
one obsolete” (Hebrews 8:13). However, I do see the sense in which having
Bibles in our own languages does retrieve the Scriptures from those times when
the false church tried desperately to keep them out of the hands of the people.
“3. What does the Bible medium make obsolete in Scripture reading?” (p. 93).
The
question is expanded with, “What previous medium might become obsolete that
compromises the message?” (p. 94).
Before
I look at his answer, the previous “medium” that is made obsolete with the
printing of Bibles, or the publishing of Bibles in digital formats, would be
the old mediums of parchments, scrolls, papyri, and stone tablets. Those
mediums are obsolete now that we have such convenient mediums available to so
many people.
However, when I see where BJ is going with this, I totally disagree.
I would suggest that the liturgical reading of the Scriptures in the context of community worship and the lectionary cycles, with its connections of linked texts, provided an essential medium for understanding the message that preceded the Bible – an understanding that is not as obvious in the printed version (p. 94).
I
would simply say that, because this is only a tradition of men, and not
something taught in the Scriptures themselves, collecting the Scriptures into
the Bible is not making obsolete something God teaches us is required. So, to
refer to some “divine liturgy” of the church as if there is such a thing is a
misrepresentation of the issue. Liturgies are manmade inventions outside the
Scriptures. They are not required. So having Bibles that don’t teach them
because the Scriptures do not teach them is not making a necessary thing
obsolete.
Okay,
over the page and he claims, “Fr. John Behr suggests that reading the Bible
apart from its gospel framework, preserved in the liturgical tradition…” (p.
94). Well, before we look at where that goes, this is a false equivalence.
Liturgies are not the way we know our “gospel framework”. It is the Scriptures
of Jesus’ day, the four gospels, and the apostolic letters that give us our
gospel framework, and when the gospels and those letters are compiled in the
Bible with the rest of the Scriptures, no gospel framework is lost.
At the
same time, when poison is added to the ingredients of the pudding, even though
it appears that no ingredients are lost… well… something IS lost! Claiming that
we need liturgical practices by churches that have discarded the authority of
Scripture is not adding something good back to the church, but taking away the
pure gospel of righteousness by grace through faith.
So, to continue the unfinished thought, this John Behr claims that the “gospel framework” is “persevered in the liturgical tradition” and if we lose that we “may not even be reading it as Scripture” (p. 94). No, if we lose Scripture when we compile our Bibles we may lose some of our gospel framework, but the gospel was not preserved in anyone’s liturgical framework! It was preserved in the Scriptures.
It suddenly hits me as strange, now that I think about it, that
BJ has taken such great pains to try to prove that churches that see the Bible
as the final authority in all matters of faith and practice among church
members are putting that authority above Christ (which is bogus), but here he
is putting the “liturgical tradition” as a necessary prelude to understanding the
Scriptures. I think not!
I will
also say that the example of “potentially” missing a page’s “role in its gospel
context” simply by flipping the page has got nothing to do with collecting the
Scriptures into one place like the Bible. There are lots of personal reasons
that someone might miss connections when they turn a page in the Bible. But it
is not inherent to putting the Scriptures into the form of the Bible that hides
anything from anyone.
And
repeating his earlier ploy that “one could study the Bible their whole lives
and yet miss the essential reality of who all the Scriptures point to”, may
very well be what happened with “Jesus’ opponents” (p. 94), but not because
they didn’t have the Scriptures. In fact, it was Jesus who kept pointing them
back to the Scriptures to understand the heart and mind of God. If anyone is
missing what Scripture says, it is usually because there is not enough interest
to know what they are missing!
My
conclusion to this question and answer are that it is deceptive. There is no
way we have ever needed liturgical practices to understand the gospel. So
nothing has been lost to have Bibles compiled without including those manmade
liturgical practices.
“4. What does the Bible medium reverse or flip into when pushed to extremes?” (p. 94).
This
sounds so loaded that I’m putting on my bulletproof vest before I walk any
further!
Okay,
first step would have been a leg lost if I hadn’t expected such a landmine! BJ
says, “This, then (I think referring to what he previously said that wasn’t
true about the Scriptures in the Bible), suggests the potential for a terrible
reversal if a Bible medium combines with the extremes of bibliolatry” (p. 94).
I
totally disagree that we need liturgy to give and maintain our “gospel
framework”. So, I also deny BJ’s claim that us everyday Christians are in
danger of bibliolatry just because we treat God’s word as God’s word. We don’t
have the original documents that would tempt to bibliolatry (idolizing the
documents of the Bible). And honoring the Bible as the means by which we
interact with God is no more bibliolatry than me being so happy to get a letter
from my girlfriend was putting those letters above her. I continue to stand
against such deceptive claims.
So,
the author continues, “We see this subversion when the Bible is elevated to the
right hand of the Father and honored with the title “Word of God” – the name
that belongs to Jesus Christ alone” (P. 94).
Now,
didn’t I recently say somewhere that it seems like we are repeating ourselves
here in things that have already been proven false? However, as I have already
mentioned that it is shocking how many people see this document as helpful
instead of poison-in-the-pudding means that I must clarify these things each
time they come up.
First,
I have never in my whole Christian life (58 years and counting) known anyone in
any evangelical church who exalted the Bible or any of the Scriptures in the
Bible to the right hand of the Father. I also confront the false claim that
anyone in evangelical churches honors the Bible with the same designation “Word
of God” as we give to Jesus. Where such words are printed, we use “Word of God”
when referring to Jesus as the Word, and “word of God” when referring to the
Scriptures as the words of God. So, no, this is not what evangelical Christians
are doing when we treat the Bible as the final authority on all matters of
faith and practice among Christians in local churches. Bogus.
Now,
understanding that BJ is making a false equivalence by suggesting that I don’t
know the difference between Jesus as “the Word” of God and Scripture as “the
word” of God, what do the SCRIPTURES say about calling Scripture “the word of
God”? Yes, very good question! And very easy answer! Just go to your Bible
search site (like www.biblegateway.com), type in “word of God”, “word of the Lord”, “the Scriptures”, “word of
Christ”, and the like, any variations you want to try, and simply ask how we
are taught in God’s word to treat God’s words (whether spoken or written). You
will find no examples of God’s people exalting Scripture above Christ.
To
clarify, the “word of God” is not just what is written. It is what was spoken
first and then written and collected. So the “word of God” is the message from
God, whether proclaimed, written, or read. And the question is, do we take what
God has breathed out as his word that is now collected in the Bible to be equal
with Jesus as “the Word of God”? No. The Bible is the “word” of God and Jesus is
the “Word” of God.
However, if we know that God has spoken, then what God has spoken is
equal with God. Just as we would not distinguish between the Father and Son as
to who has authority (they do everything together), so we would not distinguish
between God and his word in importance. We simply don’t separate God’s word
from God. When we honor God’s word it is because we honor him. If he just told
us to do something, we go and do what his words said because of who it is who
said them! Honoring God’s word is honoring God, and when it is Jesus’ words we
are honoring by putting them into practice, we are literally honoring “the Word”
by keeping his “word”.
I know
I already addressed this when I showed how “the word of the Lord” was the
message of the gospel of the kingdom. This included proving from the Scriptures
that Jesus was the Christ. However, because BJ brings up this false claim
again, I will just say that the message of the gospel that was proclaimed by
the early church was known as “the word of the Lord”, and yet the “word” part
of it was never separated into its own entity separate from “the Lord”. And I
deny BJ’s claim that this is what evangelical churches are doing when they
treat the Scriptures as authoritative because they are the breathed-out words
of God. He is lying to claim we put “the word” above “the Word”.
BJ
then makes the claim that people do a “flat reading of the Bible” that then
uses Scripture to argue against the “very teachings of Jesus Christ”. I am sure
that can happen; however, he gave no examples to help us know what he means. All
I will say with that is that no misuse of the Bible is proof against the Bible.
Just as ignorance of traffic laws is not an indictment against having traffic
laws, so ignorance of how to correctly handle the word of God in the Bible is
not proof that there is something wrong with having those Scriptures of God
collected into the Bible. It is not a problem with the Bible itself.
And
then, in the claim that “When the Bible becomes our final authority, Jesus is
demoted to a mere episode in the Good Book” (p. 95), this is not the case in
real life where “our final authority” means in the realm of men, not in
relation to Christ.
In
fact, the churches that treat the Bible as the final authority in all matters
of faith and practice are honoring Christ’s WORD in how to operate as his
CHURCH.
And BJ’s
conclusion is bogus, “Ironically, the message of the Scriptures becomes lost to
the medium we call the Bible when its Emmaus-Way framework is subverted by new
technology” (p. 95).
Hold
on a minute! How is it that this “Emmaus-Way framework” is of greater authority
than the Bible as the collection of Scriptures that have been breathed out by
God? And this without showing from the Bible what this Emmaus-Way is, or who
authorized it. So far, I’m just hearing manmade ideas about manmade things, and
yet BJ treats it like the Emmaus-Way IS somehow authoritative over the Bible
when no such case has been made, and any attempt to show evangelical Christians
are idolizing the Bible above Christ is a deceptive fabrication of his own
ideas.
In
other words, let’s go ahead and totally SUBVERT this Emmaus-Way framework that
is not from the Bible, not from the Scriptures, not from God, and is trying to
steal, kill, and destroy people’s attachment to God’s words in the Scriptures.
Sigh,
sorry this is so long, but it just doesn’t stop!
I will
end this day’s journal journey with the last paragraph before the “What Then?”
heading (p. 95). BJ admits that liturgical calendars and services may be
unfamiliar to many church folk. However, he adds more poison-to-the-pudding
when he says, “but consider our Jewish forbearers observed an annual cycle of
feasts and fasts…” (p. 95). Yes, exactly the point the apostle Paul makes in
explaining why we do NOT follow any of those cycles! That is a major theme of
Galatians, and it can be read by anyone (being right there in the Bible). To
use something Paul taught as having no place in the gospel of the kingdom only
shows that BJ is the same kind of peddler of God’s word as Paul was dealing
with back in the day.
And
then, “that the Gospel of John is organized according to these events” (p. 95),
sounds bogus to me. Where does it say that? We know John’s gospel revolves
around “seven signs”, but there is nowhere that John states anything remotely
like he is following a liturgical organization following the feasts of the old
covenant. This is a ploy to make people think that we are losing the liturgical
framework of something that was even in John’s gospel when not only has no case
been made for this, but it flies in the face of the apostles' teaching that we
are no longer under the law. There simply is ZERO call to follow any cycle of
feasts or celebrations.
One
more, “and that Jesus consciously framed those festivals as prefigurements of
his story” (p. 95). I would never deny the wisdom and knowledge of God in
revealing what Jesus would do through so many aspects of the old covenant.
However, that actually reinforces why we cut ties with that old way of doing
things: BECAUSE CHRIST THE MESSIAH IS HERE!!!
Well,
it is definitely time to pitch the tent for tonight and let these thoughts
settle in the quiet around the evening campfire. I can take the bulletproof
vest off and lay it aside until morning. And then I will awake to take up the
Bible as the word of God, to be someone who meditates on God’s word day and
night, to let this word of Christ dwell in me richly so I have much to share
to admonish others in Christ, and to share what I learn with others to the
glory of the Word through the glory of his word!
© 2024
Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text
Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.)
A More Christlike Word © 2021 by Bradley Jersak Whitaker House 1030 Hunt
Valley Circle • New Kensington, PA 15068 www.whitakerhouse.com
Jersak, Bradley. A More Christlike Word: Reading Scripture the
Emmaus Way. Whitaker House. Kindle Edition.
Definitions from the Bible Sense Lexicon (BSL) in Logos Bible
Systems
[1] "Have You Not Read?" the Word of God Said
God had me smiling when he showed me this one. Such a treasure of wonder as we see Jesus using the word of God to reply to the religious elite just as he did when he replied to Satan himself. And it is still true that we cannot live on physical sustenance alone, but "on every word that comes from the mouth of God," which we now have in his word, the Bible.
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