One
of the perplexing characteristics of the Christian Church is why so many groups
and denominations all claim to live by the Bible, and yet think it says so many
contradictory things. Whether it is Calvinists and Arminians arguing over
issues of God’s freedom of will, Protestants and Seventh Day Adventists arguing
over which day of the week is the Christian Sabbath, or Baptists and Pentecostals
arguing over spiritual gifts, the Bible simply couldn’t be given by divine
inspiration and still be open to so many variations of interpretation. That, of
course, does not mean there is a problem with the divine inspiration of the
Scriptures!
In this post, I would like to identify some of the reasons
we have so many disagreements. It has to do with how we are “handling the word of truth”. Since Paul and the other apostles were already
dealing with the mishandling of God’s word in the first century, it is no
surprise that we are still facing such things today. Here are a few illustrations of the wrong ways to handle God’s
word, followed by a couple of illustrations of the right way of thinking of God’s
word.
Domino Theology
Domino theology is a way of thinking of those doctrines
that are based on one premise leading to another. If the first thing is true,
then this is true, and if that was true, than this next thing is true, and
eventually there is a grand conclusion that comes out of all these things that
are true because the previous thing is true. However, in domino theology, the
conclusion is wrong because the premise was wrong, or some of the earliest
information in the series was wrong.
Many of the end-times prophecy schemes rely on this domino
method. If they can convince us that a first belief is true, it can then mean a
whole bunch of other things are true, even though none of them are stated in
Scripture. Issues of immorality can be changed to morality approved by God simply
by changing the meaning of Genesis 1. By the time the last domino falls, David and
Jonathan are homosexuals, Ruth and Naomi are lesbians, and God relied on random
evolutionary forces to come up with the amazingly complex world we see today.
Thankfully, we don’t need to believe something that appears
to be in the Bible only if we believe a premise that is not declared by the
Bible. God’s word speaks for itself, and it speaks much clearer than domino
theologians want us to believe.
Mosaic Theology
By this I do not mean the theology of Moses, but a theology
that is illustrated by creating a mosaic picture. Mosaics are made by taking
broken pieces of glass, or tile, organizing them into colors and patterns that
make a picture that was never contained in any of the original glasses or
tiles.
The mosaic theology method of false teaching begins and
ends with Scripture. However, it is not Scripture left in its context, accepting
the message it was giving as originally revealed. It is Scripture taken out of
context, one Scripture from here, another from there, joined together in themes
and ideas that sound or look good together. The result is a “picture” that is
made of Scripture, but Scripture broken into bits and pieces to communicate
something quite different from what the Scriptures say in context
Doctrinal positions like the prosperity gospel, or observing
select portions of Old Testament law, do use Scripture to build their
statements of belief. However, these are like breaking Scripture up into little
bits and pieces that, when put together in a brand new way, a way that
contradicts specific teachings of the new covenant, it still looks like a “scriptural”
way of handling Scripture.
Thankfully, we are not called to follow positions that can
only be seen when Scripture is divided up and reorganized into manmade
pictures. The flow of Scripture from beginning to end answers the false
teachings that come about through treating Scripture as though it is nothing
more than a mosaic-kit handed to the church to organize in whatever patterns
and designs meet our fancy.
Ransom Note Theology
To avoid detection based on handwriting, a kidnapper will
take a pile of newspapers and cut out the words that can be pasted on a piece
of paper to create a ransom note. They can take words out of articles that have
nothing to do with kidnapping, ransoms, or money, and organize those words into
a terrifying message that someone’s loved one has been kidnapped, and will only
be returned alive if the right amount of money is paid in the right kind of
way.
While mosaic theology focuses on how people come up with
the big pictures of things like the prosperity gospel, or cults like the
Jehovah’s Witnesses, Ransom Note theology refers more to those little quips and
statements that people throw out there that just don’t line up with Scripture,
even though the person may have basically sound doctrine in the larger scheme
of things.
When people do this with their beliefs about God, they end
up with things like, “God helps those who help themselves,” or, “God will never
give me more than I can handle.” None of these are true, but all those words
can be cut out of the Bible and pasted into those sentences.
Thankfully, looking up the Scriptures in question, and
reading them in context, will clarify the way these words of God have been
reorganized to give people a distorted understanding of what he said.
Now, on the positive side of things, here are a couple of
illustrations of how we can properly handle the word of God.
Jig-saw Puzzle Theology
This theology follows Paul’s admonition to Titus that we “teach what accords with sound doctrine”. In a sense, we could say that Scripture is the
picture on the front of the box, showing us what our theology must look like. The
puzzle pieces are the life experiences we encounter where we must come to a
right understanding of how to live by every word that comes from the mouth of
God. We cannot organize the pieces into a mosaic so
that we have created a picture that uses all the pieces, but ends up looking
quite different from what is on the front of the box. Neither can we make a
long row of pieces organized after the colors of the spectrum flowing from one
to the next, or organized from lightest to darkest, or how all the pieces would
flow between the primary colors.
Instead, if believers would gather together with a
determination to see the picture that is in God’s word, and put whatever pieces
of the puzzle we are dealing with in their proper places, throwing off any
ideas that do not match the picture, we would find that we are able to come to
far more unity than other methods allow.
Plumbline Theology
This Theology is based on the desire to have every doctrine
of belief measured by the whole counsel of God so that it is pure and undefiled
by man’s reasoning. While this means fewer doctrinal positions than others come
up with, there is the assurance that faith is based on the Scriptures, in their
context, measuring every thought by the whole counsel of God, keeping
everything in its place, and letting our beliefs come out of the way God has
put his word together.
It is this plumbline theology that would enable Paul to
reach the end of his life with the declaration: “Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of
all, for I did not shrink from
declaring to you the whole counsel of God.”
This is important for us to understand because Paul had
once thought that he excelled in his theology, believing that there was no way
that this Jesus of Nazareth qualified as the Messiah, hence he went around
pumping up his own righteousness by persecuting the Church. However, once Jesus
confronted him, converted him, and commissioned him to preach this gospel of
the kingdom, Paul finished his life declaring “the whole counsel of God.” He did not teach about God from the old
covenant alone, but taught about how Jesus Christ fulfilled the law, gave us a righteousness
that was by faith in his name, and commissioned the church to grow and flourish
throughout the world, and throughout the generations of this last hour.
While these are only illustrations to help us see what
divides the church, and what would unite us, my challenge to all believers is
to humble ourselves and let the Holy Spirit examine us, test us, and purify us
in our doctrine. The reason that there are so many differences among professing
Christians includes this problem of too many ways of treating the Scriptures.
I present these insights in line with Paul’s exhortation to
pastors: “Do
your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.” I pray that those who are more concerned about “rightly handling the word of truth” than winning a debate over
man-centered opinions on doctrine, will band together in the unity of the
spirit in the bond of peace,
seeking to be those worshipers who worship in both “spirit and truth”,
and so obey the Scripture (in context) that we are to “speak the truth in love”, and
so build up the body of Christ.
While
I cannot prove that this post is written in love, I present it in the hope that
it will lead us to a purified understanding of the truth, that must be covered
with love in order to be true!
© 2014 Monte Vigh ~
Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
