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 |
Now that I have reached the
halfway point of the book, and it is clear that BJ is misrepresenting every
Scripture he uses to make bogus points, and we have seen that his favorite
church father, Origen, “on occasion ‘tortured Scripture in every possible
manner, turning it away from the true sense’ (Calvin);”[1] I will be treating Brad Jersak and his spiritual kin as false teachers
through whom the evil one is leading people astray. In a sense, I have done my
time in this book already. It is an attack on the Scriptures that were already
breathed out by God in their writing. We are told to have nothing to do with
people like this.
Satan’s
work from his very first mention is to undermine the words of God. From his “Did
God actually say…?” to Eve, through to the boasts of the beasts and
antichrists, Satan does not want you and me trusting God’s word. BJ has used every
twist and distortion of God’s breathed-out Scriptures to convince people that
the Bible has no authority. This is only so he can introduce his “another Jesus”,
his “different spirit”, and his “different gospel”, to keep people from believing
the truth and being saved.
With
that in mind, I am treating the warnings of Jesus and the apostles as they
still stand, and I am only continuing down BJ’s garden path of deception to “Take
no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them”
(Ephesians 5:11). I hope that the people we lost because of him will one day be
restored to us in the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace (the cross) as we "speak the truth in love" to one another to the glory of God and the good of his people.
A
couple of things by way of intro to today’s Journal Journey. One of our home
church folks is going through Amos. This verse stood out as I tried to hear it
allegorically. You know, like creation didn’t really happen even though the
word and the Word say it did:
For behold, he who forms the mountains and creates the wind,
and declares to man what is his thought,
who makes the morning darkness,
and treads on the heights of the earth—
the LORD, the God of hosts, is his name! (Amos 4:13)
What
I’m trying to figure out is, if God didn’t really form the mountains but the
prophet said that Yahweh said he did, why is Amos a prophet since he is clearly
speaking something that isn’t true as if it is true? And if God didn’t really
create the wind, but Amos said that Yahweh said he did, and Jesus affirmed that
all the prophets were speaking the truth about him, then how could something be
treated as if it is truly prophetic when it is claiming things the BJs tell us
didn’t happen?
Or,
take it another way, if the whole list of what Yahweh did and does is
fictitious, why in the world would it matter that “Yahweh, the God of hosts, is
his name!”? How does a God bolster his authority over his people by listing a
bunch of things he didn’t do?! That would make him no better than a popular
author who tantalizes people’s minds with fairy tale thoughts but has nothing
to offer for any kind of improvement in life. They might have a good name, as
long as they are popular, but the name has no authority over anything anyone
does.
Of
course, taken the way it was breathed out by God, it is telling us what God did
in creation, and what he does through the course of history, reminding us of
his mighty deeds in every way, and then, once it is established that this God
is above every other god, then let’s be clear on his name, Yahweh! The God of
hosts! Now, that makes much more… uh… SENSE! If we’re using the right sense,
that is.
In the
next chapter of Amos, the passage that was shared included a description of BJ:
They
hate him who reproves in the gate,
and they abhor him who speaks the truth.
(Amos 5:12)
and they abhor him who speaks the truth. (Amos 5:12)
While
BJ has been telling us what extremes his strawman Literalists were going
through to convince him to not give up the plain reading of God’s word, what
was BJ doing? He was hating and abhorring their efforts to reprove him and
speak the truth in love. And look at the damage he is doing to lead people away
from their sincere and pure devotion to Jesus Christ to follow false teachers
instead. Sigh.
One
more thing, since I just added my Bible-listening time to my morning exercise
routine. This morning, I listened to Genesis 31-42. There was lots about Jacob leading into the history
of Joseph. Again, there are no characteristics of allegory in these records.
They are far too detailed in describing the events themselves, but also names
and places that could be corroborated. They are true history
through-and-through with whatever allegorical illustrations are given in other
parts of Scripture.
So,
into chapter 9, “Unto the End”: Christotelic Reading, “Hesitations” (p. 138).
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“Now, it’s one thing to discover a holistic reading that is literal,
moral, and mystical. It’s quite another to take the leap of trying it on for
size” (p. 138). |
No, you did not discover anything holistic, literal, or moral.
Mystical? I think that might apply with the source of the mysticism clearly
understood as the same as the Garden of Eden. |
After
identifying his desire for his Emmaus Way of reading the Bible falsely,
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“…especially since those who don’t do so are rapidly setting their
Bibles aside or doubling down on an ugly and un-Christlike vision of God” (p.
138). |
So much bogusness. Once again, there are three options, not two. We can reject both the
BJs and their strawmen because the plumbline of living by every word that
comes from the mouth of God is better by far, and Jesus said “few” would find
that way to eternal life. And, if we are concerned that people are not attaching to the “living
and active” word of God, we teach them how to hear God speak through his
word, how to recognize what God is doing in their lives, and how to join God
in his work with absolute “deny yourself, take up your cross daily, follow
me,” faith, hope, and love. |
I
actually made it from page 138 to page 142 without needing to comment because
it’s mostly BJ telling his story of learning to use his method of
fictionalizing Scripture. However, I again came into territory with too many
things assumed that just ain’t so.
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“This Christotelic or Emmaus Way of reading does not
discount authorial intent, historical context, or any of the other concerns
of the patristic literal sense” (p. 142). |
This is one big lie. First, BJ’s view of “the patristic literal sense” is not what the
church fathers as a whole meant by literal. And Origen has already been shown
to be a twister of Scripture like the BJs. Second, if what BJ has been doing in this book is the
Christotelic/Emmaus Way of reading, then it absolutely DOES discount the
intent of the authors (writers) of Scripture, it absolutely DOES discount the
historical context by claiming it wasn’t historical at all, and it absolutely
DOES discount the “other concerns” involved by denying what the writers were
carried along by the Holy Spirit to write! |
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“For those who are unimpressed by how the early church fathers read
Scripture (‘I don’t care about the patristics; just give me the Bible’), okay”
(p. 142). |
This is utter dishonest hypocrisy. It is the BJs who are “unimpressed” with what the early church fathers
believed about the Scriptures because BJ hasn’t even mentioned any except for
the one known to distort Scripture! And, if we are impressed with the history of the church spreading throughout the world as described through people that include the church fathers (they are real, right, not allegorical?), then we will want to know what they all have to say on these matters while knowing that none of them were carried along by the Holy Spirit to write down the words God was breathing out into the Scriptures. For the moment, we have only seen that BJ has been impressed with Origen, the one who had the worst reputation for rightly handling the word of God! |
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BJ’s Claim |
Monte’s Response |
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“Let’s now turn to John’s Gospel, which is not only read as ‘historical
allegory’ but, as we shall see, was actually written as historical allegory”
(p. 142). |
Yup, fightin’ words! Before looking at what BJ does with the gospel of John, let me put it
in print what I think of this. If I need to eat crow in the end, so be it.
But so far I haven’t wanted to eat what the BJs are dishing out. The gospel of John is John’s witness to the life, death, and
resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is history. The words are breathed out by
God and authoritative as his word and his will. John was carried along by the
Holy Spirit to write down those words in that way. It is beautifully
expressive of the nature and work of Christ, and the beauty of Jesus’
relationship to his Father and his people. So (I will say this now before even looking further), no, the gospel
of John was not written as historical allegory, but as the historical witness
to Jesus Christ. That it contains allegorical illustrations (like Jesus as
the vine giving life to his disciples as branches) is no problem. But I’m
starting from the view that BJ is being dishonest about this already, and I
will be watching to see if he presents actual evidence for both of his claims. |
Now,
since BJ ends this very short chapter with a segue thought that we should expect
conclusive proof that John was written allegorically, I will contribute to the
segue with this short article by our Got Questions ministry title, “What is
wrong with the allegorical interpretation method?”[2]
The
summary of the problem of imposing allegory on every part of the Bible, or at
least everywhere one wishes, is stated like this:
The problem with the allegorical method of interpretation is that it seeks to find an allegorical interpretation for every passage of Scripture, regardless of whether or not it is intended to be understood in that way. Interpreters who allegorize can be very creative, with no control based in the text itself. It becomes easy to read one’s own beliefs into the allegory and then think that they have scriptural support.
At this just-past-halfway point of BJ's book, his creativity in finding allegory where there is none (is that me hearing BJ's finding of allegory as allegory?), and reading his own beliefs into texts as if the texts support him, is beyond question. He wants us to take him as the authority over the word of God instead of us all uniting to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly so we actually know how to admonish one another in the way of the Spirit and truth.
The above summary from Got Questions leads to a conclusion I can fully agree with:
There will always be some disagreement about whether certain texts are to be taken literally or figuratively and to what degree, as evidenced by disagreements over the book of Revelation, even among those who have high regard for Scripture. For a text to be interpreted allegorically or figuratively, there needs to be justification in the text itself or something in the cultural background of the original readers that would have led them to understand the text symbolically. The goal of every interpreter who has a high view of Scripture is to discover the intended meaning of the text. If the intended meaning is simply the literal communication of a historical fact or the straightforward explanation of a theological truth, then that is the inspired meaning. If the intended meaning is allegorical/typological/symbolic/figurative, then the interpreter should find some justification for it in the text and in the culture of the original hearers/readers.
And
with that, we will take a break so we can prepare for another Fightin’-Words
section of BJ’s garden path. Today, in real time, it is our home church prayer
meeting, so we will continue praying for everyone who reads this book, and
especially those we have lost as casualties of this false teaching.
© 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]
Hendriksen, W., &
Kistemaker, S. J. (1953–2001). Exposition of Galatians (Vol. 8, p. 182). Baker
Book House.
[2]
What is wrong with the allegorical interpretation method? https://www.gotquestions.org/allegorical-interpretation.html
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