Reading God’s Word
A Gentle Admonition
by Charles Coty
wonderful gentleman by the
name of Ed
Ferner once gave me some simple but sage
advice that I will pass along.
“The Scripture was written FOR us but it was not
written TO us.” As obvious as that sounds it
has made the Scriptures alive for me in ways that I never would have
dreamed. I found that it is imperative to view Scripture through the
eyes of those that it was written to and it's helpful to read the
Scripture with the full knowledge that we are
reading someone else’s mail. If we are faithful in this
regard, we will, through the power of the Holy Spirit who resides
within, unlock truths in God’s word that have escaped us & so
many countless others for generations. Bold you
say? Yes. Arrogant? I don't think so.
Possible? Absolutely!
I
always assumed that the early church fathers who we revere so much,
had each been given a special key into the mysteries of God.
In my opinion this mediator-type system's vestiges had
their beginnings in a state controlled church where the Word
was not entrusted to the "masses". Now more than ever we have
the tools available to study God’s word that even the elite scholars
of the 3rd century simply didn’t
have.
We
have access to the entire Bible in 40 translations from Arabic to
Russian at the stroke of a mouse click. We can search the Scripture
for every usage of "The
kingdom of God" in less than a second. We can scan through the
exhaustive writings of Josephus in the blink of an
eye. And we can no
longer be confused by the Scofield's of this world if they tweak
their notes by misinterpreting the Greek.
For
example Scofield attempted to use
the Greek word genos as "generation" in Matthew 24:34. An oversight we hope but if
used properly as genea this would have been a huge
nail in the coffin of his dispensational system. Jesus said,
"Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no
means pass away till all these things take
place.
Genos (1085
Strong's Greek)
means offspring, stock, kin or a people. The correct word, Genea (1074
Strong's Greek), means an age, generation or
time. As you can
see the meaning of the verse changes drastically with this small
error and we no longer are held captive to these kinds of mistakes
be they intentional or accidental.
Although
we have the technological advantages over the early church fathers,
we lack something that we must make up for. And that's
proximity to the source. They had an understanding of the
times & culture associated with the writers of the Scripture
that we lack. Our westernized mind is a huge stumbling block
to proper interpretation. Therefore, we must go back to
our spiritual roots for it is only through a study of the historical
setting that we can begin to grasp the Word in context.
If we extract the contents of Paul’s letter to the Galatians
or John’s Revelation to the expectant believers, & put
those words into a 21st century context, we will not
ascertain the full meaning of what these writers were attempting to
share with their readers. Audience relevance is
absolutely critical.
In
Acts chapter 2 verses
16-21, what was Peter’s explanation to those
present at the Day of Pentecost regarding the supernatural abilities
of the unschooled Galileans (who were speaking in the many languages
of those present)?
Peter begins to quote Joel, “in
the last days…” and then proceeds to give a
list of things that would happen in the time of the end.
Most
of us extract those words “last days” & transport them in a
time machine 2,000 years future into the year 2007 and we assume
that we are living in the “last days”. Is this what the passage
says? Only if we forget
the Biblical hermeneutic of audience
relevance.
Therefore,
it is imperative that we put on our 1st century glasses when we
read the words of the apostles. Without a working knowledge
of the times, customs & settings we will never uncover the truth
& we will continue to be frustrated with an inability to make
sense of God’s word.
And this will ultimately result in apathy regarding our zeal
to read His word.
A good
friend, Pastor James Saxon, used to say time & again
that we must interpret the unclear in the light of that which is
clear. When the Scripture uses terms like, at hand, shortly, soon, in a little
while, it is imperative that we don’t assign an
arbitrary vagueness to these words of imminency. That will do
great damage to the context of these passages of God’s holy inspired
word.
When
reading these time sensitive statements we must not allow our minds
to become clouded and misapply a verse such as 2Pet 2:3, “With the Lord a day is like a
thousand years”. We must be intellectually
honest & we must be consistent. For when Jesus says, “I
shall be with you a little while longer, and then I go to Him
who sent Me" is he not referring to a short
time period? Then when
we read in Hebrews, "For yet a little
while, and He who is coming
will come and will not tarry", do we change the meaning
of "a little while" to fit our long held
presuppositions? If we
don't consistently apply word meanings then we can make Scripture
say whatever works in our own eyes. At the least this becomes
mighty treacherous interpretational territory which I think we
clearly should avoid.
Approximately
500 years before fulfillment, Daniel was told to "seal up the vision" for it was yet "many days in the future" at the "time of the end". Yet in John's
Revelation he was told, "do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this
book, for the time is near". How can we be
intellectually honest & ascribe Daniel's sealed vision "many
days in the future" to 500+
years & "the time is near" of the unsealed
Revelation to almost 2,000
years & counting? We would never consider
performing this exercise in mental gymnastics with any other
form of literature, but when it comes to the inspired inerrant Word
of our Creator, we seem to discard reason. Why?
Because of the expectations created by
our paradigm.
Put
yourself in the place of the disciples when Jesus said, “then let those who are in
Judea flee to the mountains” or “Assuredly, I say to you,
there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see
the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” Do you think the hearers of
those words took Jesus seriously? At the very least, do we not
find it rather disingenuous & downright misleading to utter
these types of time indicators if in fact they are actually coded so
that only someone 2,000 years future can decipher them? (In my opinion, treating the
Scriptures in this manner lends credibility & acceptance to
blasphemous books like the Da Vinci
Code.)
Would
we not be put-off by being told to "flee to the mountains", scaring us
half out of our minds, if this admonition is meant for a
generation thousands of years hence? Can we trust Jesus for
our salvation if we cannot rely on Him to do the things he said he
would do in the time He said he would do them? C.S. Lewis apparently didn't
have a problem with this when he wrote,
