2.2 Control and Partiality

2.2 Control and Partiality
© 2017 Christ Revealed Bible Institute

Control and Partiality. If Satan uses a Bible verse to tempt you not to trust in God, in the same way that he tempted Jesus with Bible verses, is that Bible verse in that context the Word of God to you? Why is it that, according to Jesus, studying the Bible will not result in eternal life for anyone? We conclude, then, that the Bible in and of itself is not and cannot be the Word of God, but the Bible can become the Word of God as it enters into us through God’s Spirit.

It is evident that a Bible verse spoken at us by the evil one cannot be the Word of God to us; what then, about Bible verses that come into our minds only by our own intellectual grasp?

Does God Know? I am placing these thoughts before you, but I will not attempt here to answer them directly.  Sometimes it’s a very good thing to place a question such as this in the back of our minds without imposing an answer. Sometimes, when we do that, at a later date, an answer arises spontaneously out of the Spirit of God in our own hearts, an answer we would never have found ourselves.

In the last lesson, we looked at the complexity and even the contradiction found throughout the Bible, and even within the words of individual Bible writers. Yet we also believe that God is speaking to us through the Bible. Does God know how difficult His Bible is?

With the Twisted You Will Twist. God does not play deceitful games with us, though humans are always playing deceit with God. Jesus said that we always find exactly what we seek. He said that we set our own judgment of ourselves by how it is that we judge.

With the pure You will show Yourself pure; and with the devious You will show Yourself shrewd (Psalms 18:26). The Hebrew in that last line actually reads “with the twisted you will twist,” a play on words. I can show you many more verses that demonstrate that God does not trust humans. Yet it is to humans that He gives the Bible, humans who would use God for their own advantage.

What Do You Want? The problem with the Bible, or even having the Bible, is not the complexity and apparent contradiction found all through it, but rather with the purposes of the human. What do you want? What are you really after? Why are you studying the Bible? What will you actually DO with what you learn?

Many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did. But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man (John 2:23b-25). God has given you His Bible, but He does not trust you. What are you going to do to His Word?

Control over Eve. There were many reasons, all working together inside of Adam, for his decision to take the fruit of knowing good and evil from the hand of his wife and bite into it. But one of those reasons was at the center and forefront of his mind as he finalized his cold and devastating decision. Adam did not do what he did “for Eve.” In fact, Adam’s heart hardened against Eve, even as he reached out to act on his decision. It was not Eve that Adam chose, but rather, Adam’s own control over Eve, that is, over other people.

From the passing of John on, the primary factor underlying Bible argument has been the lust to control God’s people.

Keeping the Sheep “Correct.” Even for those who were sincere of heart, still, keeping all the sheep in the “correct” pen, was at the bottom of their thinking.

Now, I chose R.C. Sproul’s Knowing Scripture as the contrast to this text because, based on the evidence of his writing in that book, Sproul is a gentle and kind Christian man who does not use the Bible to place other Christians under his control. Thus I am able to disagree with Sproul and place before you a different way of reading the Bible only on the basis that we are NOT pitting one thing God says against another for control over Christians. Yet it is evident that Sproul imposes the conclusions of the Nicene Council of AD 325 upon the entire Bible, a council that was all about CONTROL.

Subjugating Christians. Constantine, a brutal dictator who used “Christianity” as his tool of power, but who never gave his heart to Jesus, ordered the gathering of the Nicene Council. Whatever the purposes of the Bishops who hurried to his call, Constantine had one purpose for the results of that council, a unified Christian “doctrine” that he could then use as a weapon of war to subjugate all Christians to his rule. As soon as the council was over, Constantine took the conclusions of that council as his mandate to slaughter thousands of Christians who read the Bible differently.

I have observed this in the dynamics of Christianity: verses and interpretations chosen by a preacher are more often for the control of the flock and less often to connect people to Jesus.

Jesus Alone. If at any point you find that whatever it is I might be teaching is not connecting you to Jesus and Jesus to you, regardless, please, pay no attention to what I say. More than that, if you find that Jesus and you are not coming together in such a way that you have no need of me, if you are not finding Jesus speaking to you personally at all through what I write, then please, go where Jesus is speaking to you. I would rather suffer all humiliation and loss than to ever impose myself between you and the Lord Jesus who is IN you.

Jesus alone is Savior and Salvation. He knows exactly what He is doing in your life and in mine, and He does all things well. Jesus IS Lord, and He is very good at His job.

Partial towards Others. It really is no use to speak of “Bible interpretation” without addressing the desire to control God’s people found in the hearts of pushy people, the very ones who so often become “leaders” and “theologians” in the church. At the same time, in spite of the fact that most Christians will insist that “the Bible is the word of God,” no one takes everything in the book into their understanding at the same level. And everyone leaves large chunks of the Bible, Old Testament and New, out of their thinking. Everyone is partial according to their present intentions AND according to the people around them. In Adam it was, “What will Eve think of me?” In the church, it is “What will other Christians think of me?”

What Other Christians Say. Christians will always be more concerned about what other Christians around them say that “God says,” than they ever will about what God actually does say. Everyone is partial to and influenced by their immediate group, regardless.

I sat in a church service once listening to a powerful presentation of a doctrine that I was aware of, but had never embraced. But – I am willing to listen to any teaching on “what the Bible says.” The speaker presented evidence that made sense from verses of the New Testament sufficient to cause me to take note, though not sufficient to cause me to ignore all the verses that said something different.

A Darkened Heart. The problem, however, was not the speaker’s verses or his interpretation of those verses; the problem was the speaker’s heart. Part of this preacher’s emphasis was that only those in his small group who believed and practiced this minor point based on a partial interpretation of unimportant verses were “going to heaven.” And with ferocity and antagonism, the speaker delighted in the fact that all the thousands of other “Christians” in that large city, who did not believe and practice the same, were on their way to hell, no matter how much they thought they loved Jesus nor how closely they walked with Him.

As soon as I was able to move unnoticed, I fled that building. Any “evidence” of interpretation the man may have presented to me was destroyed by the perversity of his heart.

God Speaking WITH You. “Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool. Where is the house that you will build Me? And where is the place of My rest? For all those things My hand has made, and all those things exist,” says the Lord. “But on this one will I look: on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word” (Isaiah 66:1-2).

I have no interest in teaching you how to study the Bible. In fear and in much trembling, I would take you face to Face with the Holy and Mighty Being who would speak WITH you.