* This is also a video episode over at Path To Zion Podcast here.
Reading, studying and quoting the Bible can be an amazing thing. It is a life-giving Word that is surely living and active. Because of this, we must do our best to handle it rightly. I have elevated the value of proper Bible study over the last several years and it has changed my life.
In light of this, today we’ll be using a handful of verses in Isaiah to demonstrate what I have learned is a problem within how mainstream Christianity approaches the study and use of the Bible. We have been taught to simply read biblical texts and quote verses that seem applicable to a life circumstance, but many times, when studied in their proper context, they are not what we have made them.
I realize now how dangerous this is and I’d like to humbly warn others to consider if they too have been guilty of this. Let’s allow some verses in Isaiah to be our example as we set verses that are considered “easy to understand” beside ones that most Christians are unwilling to look into and discuss. Why do so many Believers embrace “chapter 3, verse 6”, yet say that “chapter 4, verse 2” is not “for them”? Let’s find out. (The brief commentary within the reading of these verses are only found in the video version of this.)
12:2&3 Behold, Elohim is my salvation! I will trust and will not be afraid.
For the Yahweh is my strength
and my song.
He also has become my
salvation. With
joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
2:2&3 It will come to pass in the last days that the
mountain of Yahweh’s House
will stand firm as head of the mountains
and will be exalted above the
hills. So
all nations will flow to it. Then many peoples will go and say:
“Come, let us go up to the
mountain of Yahweh, to the House of the Elohim of Jacob!
Then He will teach us His ways,
and we will walk in His paths.”
For Torah will go
forth from Zion and the word of Yahweh from Jerusalem.”
30:18 Therefore Yahweh is longing to be gracious to
you. Thus
He will be exalted, so He may have mercy on you. For Yahweh is an Elohim of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for
Him.
58:13&14 If you turn back your foot from Shabbat, from doing
your pleasure on My holy day, and call Shabbat a delight,
the holy day of Yahweh honorable,
If you honor it, not going your
own ways, not seeking your own pleasure, nor speaking your usual speech,
then You will delight yourself
in Yahweh, and
I will let you ride over the heights of the earth, I will feed you with the heritage of
your father Jacob.” For the mouth of Yahweh has spoken.
43:1-3 But now, thus says Yahweh—the One who created you, O
Jacob, the One who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you,
I have called you by name, you
are Mine. When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you,
or through the rivers, they will not overflow you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned, nor will the flame burn you.
For I am Yahweh your Elohim,
the Holy One of Israel, your
Savior.
59:1&2 Behold, Yahweh’s hand is not too
short to save, nor His ear too dull to hear.
Rather, your iniquities have made a separation
between you and your Elohim.
Your sins have hidden His face
from you, so
that He does not hear.
43:18&19 Do not remember former things,
nor consider things of the past. Here
I am, doing a new thing; Now it is springing up - do you not know about it?
I will surely make a way in the
desert, rivers
in the wasteland.
56:1&2 Preserve justice, do
righteousness. For My salvation is about to come,
and My righteousness to be revealed. Blessed is the one who does this,
the son of man who takes hold of it, who keeps from profaning Shabbat,
and keeps his hand from doing
any evil.
57:15 For thus says the High and Exalted One who
inhabits eternity, whose Name is Holy: “I dwell in a high and holy place,
yet also with a contrite and
humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and revive the heart of the contrite.
66:22&23 “For just as the new heavens and the new earth,
which I will make, will endure before Me” - it is a declaration of Yahweh - “so your descendants and your name will endure. And it will
come to pass, that from one New Moon to
another, and
from one Shabbat to another, all flesh will
come to bow down before Me,” says Yahweh.
These few verses
represent only a small snapshot of the issue at hand. We have inherited a way
of reading and studying Father’s incredible Word through a skewed lens of
religious bias. We endorse what we have been taught is “for us” and ignore what
we have been told is not. This is a poor study method that we must investigate,
if we will be found finding and possessing Truth.
Some proposed remedies
that I have personally seen change my entire view of how I handle the Bible.
#1
We must practice reading and studying the Word via context and covenantal conditions!
#2
We must know the identity of those that prophecies were written about or unto. Read
the ENTIRE written account and then ask questions.
#3
We must filter what we read through the ENTIRETY of Scripture. This requires much
personal time and study. Do not simply assume you already know or that
whoever you may be listening to knows either.
#4
We must admit that we have been handed an improper way of handling the Bible
correctly. Humility is a master requirement. If you think you already understand
the Bible perfectly, you’re the best candidate for repentance.
We must face the fact that the Christianity
that we have inherited has cherry-picked Bible verses that we want to apply to us
and abandoned what ones we feel do not.
Remember, Peter warned us of unlearned
and unstable men twisting and mishandling the Scriptures. Friends, we have
inherited a Christian doctrine that has done just that. Even many who seems so
educated towards biblical truth have unknowingly run with the “grab-n-go”
approach of incorrectly handling Bible verses. Time after time we see Bible texts used completely out of context, in order to promote mainstream Christian doctrine.
I would suggest that little is worse than errantly using the Bible to create a belief system. Why? It seems right. (After all, it is the Bible.) But we must be careful as all of us are capable of mishandling the Word and thereby risking missing the full Truth that is hidden - for us to dig out. We must be responsible to rightly ask questions - of the entirety of the Word - as we read, study and meditate upon the Word.
What is the context? What are the covenental requirements and what are the conditions?
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