For Your Benefit...
- Today and next Sunday are the last days to take pictures for the new photo directory. Please see Chuck Barnett after the church services if you have not had your picture taken yet.
Calendar
- April 15-20 — Valley Station; Eastview (Salem, IN).
- April 20 — Taylorsville Rd — Friday night singing.
Key of Understanding
Reggie Robarts
Reggie Robarts
“Do you understand what you are reading?” Acts 8:30. This was the query of Philip to the Ethiopian eunuch when he found him reading his bible on his way home from Jerusalem. The Ethiopian’s reply was, “How can I except some man should guide me?” (Acts 8:31) For much of my adult life I have encountered many people who read their bible, some sporadically and some regularly. I am not talking about Christians per se, but people in the world who are of a religious bent. But I have also discovered that a large percentage of these people have little understanding, beyond some general perceptions of morality and ethics, of what the bible really teaches. Recently a friend, who has attended church most of their life and who reads their bible with some frequency, said to me, “I really don’t know much about the bible.” That is not an unusual situation because most have had “no one to guide them.” They are unaware of some basic principles that are needed to properly understand what God has given to us in His word.
What is the reason that most people don’t know what the bible really teaches? Most only know what they learned early in life in Sunday School or Worship Services from teachers or preachers who were, themselves, imperfect in their own because knowledge of Scripture. The teacher’s own understanding was molded by what they learned in their own religious heritage. The teachers had accepted this teaching without question and in turn passed it on to their students and who rarely investigated what they were told, so the fundamentals necessary to a proper understanding are lacking. This is also true of many in the body of Christ. We have accepted what we have been taught as absolute truth and have made little investigation on our own to prove the veracity of what we believe. In Luke 11:52, Jesus said, “Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter in your selves, and those who were entering in you hindered.” The lawyers were the interpreters of the Law of Moses. They told the people what the law meant and how it was to be applied to their lives. In their case, they had elevated their interpretations of the law above the law itself so the people believed some completely false things. They were buried under a load of tradition that was man made. Jesus condemned this in Matthew 15:9 by saying, “But in vain do they worship me, teaching as their doctrines, the precepts of men.” The lawyers taught that salvation depended on law keeping, that is, their interpretation of the law. While it was absolutely necessary to keep God’s commandments, it was impossible to keep them perfectly, and impossible to keep the hundreds of traditions which the lawyers invented. Salvation has always depended on faith and obedience, just as it does today (Ephesians 2:8-9), not perfect law keeping, for none of us are capable of living sinless lives. Salvation has always depended on God’s grace. Whether false concepts are come by from honest mistakes of those who teach us, or from intent to deceive on the part of the teachers, or from our own inadequate knowledge and false conclusions, it is nonetheless fatal to our relationship to God.
People need some understanding about the basic principles of biblical interpretation and need some general knowledge about the makeup of the bible as they approach bible reading in order to make valid conclusions about what it teaches. If you had never had anyone help you in your understanding what would you believe? If you simply picked up the bible and started reading you would probably have many of the false ideas that so many hold. If you did not know that the Old Testament, as far as its law goes, was given only to the Jews, would you not conclude that the Ten Commandments were the principles we are to live by today? You would probably believe that the Jews were still God’s chosen people, given the preferential treatment they got in this part of Scripture. If you did not understand that on any given subject, it is necessary to take all the bible says on that subject to come to a right conclusion, you would agree with the majority of people who believe that all that is necessary to have everlasting life is to believe in Jesus Christ? If you did not know anything about textural considerations (context) having to be taken into consideration you would probably think that God still performs miracles and certain people have miraculous gifts. Maybe these aren’t the best examples of invalid interpretations, but they are things that are widely believed among those who are interested enough in Scripture to read it but do not know these principles.
I am not suggesting that people need a “clergy class” to define or interpret what God has said to us “ordinary people.” But I am saying that, like the Eunuch, we often need some help in our study.
Lest we, who believe we know these principle of understanding, become smug and feel superior, we need to remember that someone in our past taught us many of the basic principles and taught us how to study in a way that would help us come to correct conclusions about God’s will. Paul told Timothy, “The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.” We have been blessed to be recipients of that knowledge from some of those faithful men. We ought to feel a deep sense of obligation to others who are struggling to be pleasing to God but just don’t know the proper way to gain the knowledge that is necessary. We ought to be of the disposition that Paul told the Thessalonians, “to prove all things and hold fast that which is good.” Everyone needs to search the Scriptures so that they can be assured that “the things they have been told are so.”
