Let's Avoid Scripture Twisting Part 3

 
Part 3: Key Principles Orderly Laid out
By Brother R. Michel Lankford

 

The Review:

I had originally planned to do something else, but I feel compelled to review because the principles are so critical to rightly dividing God's Word, I don't want anyone to miss this.

1. God's Word Has the Power to Create: We must always remember the power of God's Word. By His Word, Yahweh Almighty God created everything seen and unseen (Genesis 1:1-31; Ephesians 3:9). Furthermore, we know that everything which is created by God's Word was created with the explicit purpose of bringing glory and honor to God (Colossians 1:16; Revelation 4:11). The important lesson here is that since human beings are created beings, if we do not learn to bring glory and honor and praise to Almighty God our Creator, then we are wasting our lives (1 Corinthians 6:19-20; 1 Corinthians 10:31).
2. God's Word Re-Creates: God’s Word not only creates, but it also re-creates us. It makes us holy and sanctifies us, it sets us apart as belonging to God when we hear, believe, and practice His Word (John 17:17; Deuteronomy 8:3; Romans 10:17; Habakkuk 2:4; Psalm 19:7-14; Psalm 119:9-11; Isaiah 55:10-11; Hebrews 4:12-16).
3. The Enemy Tries to Twist God's Word to Deceive Us: Since God's Word is so useful, beneficial and powerful, then it is no great surprise that the enemy working through the wicked people that the devil controls, will attempt to twist God's word. He has tried that since the garden of Eden (Genesis 3:1-6; 2 Corinthians 4:4). That's because if the enemy can successfully twist God's Word in our minds, then it will cause us to believe God incorrectly and essentially render us powerless to the enemy's schemes.
4. God Says That Not Being Deceived Is OUR Own Responsibility: Many times in my blogs you will see the words "DO NOT BE DECEIVED" Or, “Do not permit yourself to be deceived." Or "Do not deceive yourself." The concept of personal responsibility is sorely neglected in our modern age. In modern culture it’s extremely common when something goes wrong in our lives to blame someone else, to get mad at somebody else, and to figure out if you can sue somebody else to pay for whatever went wrong. On rare occasions, some of our difficulties are caused by other people's misdeeds, but in the vast majority of cases, the messes in my life are my own fault. Part of growing to spiritual and physical maturity, is learning to take the blame that yours, admitting it, repenting from your sins and mistakes and making better choices. We have to learn which responsibility is ours in God's sight if we're going to grow properly. According to Scripture, making sure that we are not deceived is ultimately each believer’s own personal responsibility, not anyone else's. Teachers will answer to God for what they teach (James 3:1), but each of us is individually responsible before God for our own beliefs, and what we each spread to others (Matthew 24:4; Mark 13:5; Luke 21:8; Ephesians 5:6; Colossians 2:4; Colossians 2:18; 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22; 2 Thessalonians 2:3; 1 John 2:26; 1 John 3:7; 1 John 4:1). I will say it again, God will help us, (Isaiah 30:21; John 16:13; John 14:26), believers are to encourage each other in the truth (Hebrews 3:13), but ultimately each individual believer is personally responsible for making certain that he or she is not deceived. Please do not neglect this often understated truth (Philippians 2:12).
5. Typical Reasons and Ways That We Get Scripture Twisted in Our Minds: Throughout the study series we have covered the typical reasons how and why Scripture gets twisted in our minds. There are various reasons. We have touched on many of them but not listed them in a single place until now.

• We are blinded by disobedience: Sometimes God allows us to remain ignorant of some aspects of Scripture, because we have not yet been obedient to what He has already taught us to do. Remember Yahweh only reveals Himself and makes Himself manifest to those who obey His Commandments. The disobedient remain in self-deception (John 14:21; James 1:19-26). So if you want and need fresh revelation and understanding from God, make sure that you have been obedient to what He's already taught you and He will give you more. If not, your level of knowledge will eventually stagnate where it is.
• Very often we are most tempted to twist Scripture whenever God's Word forbids something that we desire to do, then we can be tempted to twist and bend Scripture to presume permission to do what God forbids. Conversely, we are often tempted to twist Scripture when God's Word requires something of us that we are unwilling to do. We can then be tempted to bend Scripture in order to give us an escape clause that God doesn't really give us, so to speak. Whenever my desire and God's Word appear to chafe against each other, that's when I need to be extra careful not to twist the Scripture at that point.
• Sometimes, if wickedness goes on long enough God turns people over to the results of their own choices, and allows their own wickedness to seem right in their own eyes (Proverbs 16:25; 14:12), (because they have either not sought God, nor are they obedient to His counsel), and so He allows people to receive the consequences of their own rebellion. We see that dynamic clearly described in Romans 1:18-32. That's why a reverential fearful respect for the Lord and doing what he teaches is essential (Proverbs 1:7; Proverbs 3:7).
• We are blinded by the enemy: Sometimes the enemy blinds our eyes so that we cannot see clearly (2 Corinthians 4:4).
• We sometimes twist Scripture because of immaturity: Occasionally we get Scripture twisted because we are shortsighted by our own immaturity, but as we remain teachable, and willing to change with God’s coaching, He straightens this out as we go (1 Corinthians 13:9-12). Sometimes we get things twisted even though it is an honest mistake because we see through a glass darkly. Despite our best efforts to get it right, we get twisted because we have accidentally misunderstood what Scripture says, but we were sincere. So as we grow and remain obedient to what we know, then God straightens out our course.
• We want the blessings of God's Word, but we are not always diligent students. Occasio men nally, we twist Scripture because we eagerly desire the promises that we see in Scripture, but we fail to notice or properly submit to conditions god attached to the promises. Through Jesus Christ the Messiah. All of the promises of God are yes and amen through Him (2 Corinthians 1:20), but don't forget that the majority of God's promises contained conditions which must also be met, because meeting the conditions that God sets forth is actually the proof that we believe God and His Promises.
• We twist Scripture because we learned it wrong, and we got stuck into that way of thinking. We get Scripture twisted because we are blinded by traditions of men and by what we have learned, instead of what Scripture actually says (Matthew 4:4; Matthew 5:17-20; Matthew 15:9; Mark 7:1-13; Colossians 2:8). Occasionally we will sincerely believe that Scripture says and means something because that is how we learned to interpret it. People have believed and retold that interpretation for centuries, therefore it is PRESUMED that such an interpretation must be true. Just because a lie or misinterpretation of Scripture has been believed and practiced for a long time, that doesn't cause it to become scripturally valid. Sometimes we read into Scripture what we believe to be true, and we can give Scripture meaning that it does not possess as a result of bad teaching (1 John 4:1; 2 Thessalonians 5:20-22). Sometimes we filter Scripture based on what we already believe instead of letting the Scripture direct or redirect our thinking (Romans 12:1-2; James 1:27).
• One of the ways that the enemy accomplishes this is to cause us to place human tradition over the word of God. You see, God promises to back up His Word with His power (Isaiah 55:10-11), but God makes no such guarantees to back up and support the traditions of men in the same manner that God backs up His own Word. So part of the enemy's tactics is to get us to replace God's word by getting us to treat our own traditions as though they are doctrines of God, so that we begin to become so accustomed to our own traditions that we begin to treat them as though they are the Word of God, so that over time people forget what the word of God truly says. After a while we can become so accustomed to our tradition that we will not recognize the difference between human tradition and the Word of God any longer. That is called worshiping God in vain (Matthew 15:9; Mark 7:1-13), which essentially renders us powerless, again because God supports and backs up His Word, but he makes no such promise to back up and support the traditions of men in the same manner. So if the enemy can get us to confuse the two, then essentially he renders us powerless which is the devil's scheme. One of the signs of restoration is when people turn away from the traditions they learned from men and toward obeying the Scriptures (Jeremiah 16:19-21).

6. Messiah's Work to Restore the Word: Part of Messiah's work of redemption on the Earth was to restore and reestablish the proper use of God's written Word (Matthew 5:17-20). In part one of our study we focused on how human religious tradition causes us to drift away from God's Written Word, and how Jesus overcame the work of the enemy by sticking exclusively to the proper use of God's written word (Matthew 4; Luke 4). Remember Yeshua the Messiah overcame the temptations of the devil by exclusively using and speaking the rightly divided written word of God. Remember Yeshua said, “IT IS WRITTEN” He did not overcome the enemy by saying, it is spoken, or it is commonly taught, or it is generally believed, but every time the enemy tempted Messiah resorted exclusively to the proper use of God's written Word. It is by practicing God's word that we learn to distinguish good from evil (Hebrews 5:12-14).
7. Messiah Was a Practiced Doer of the Word, That's Why When He Said It, It Worked: We also discussed that before the Messiah ever took on the enemy, Messiah had been practicing doing the Word of God for decades, so that when He did speak the Word of God, Messiah could do so with authority because He had already been a longtime experienced practitioner of what He was speaking. It's practicing God's Word that builds us into mature believers, who are much less susceptible to deception (Hebrews 5:11-14; James 1:19-25). If God's word is powerful enough to defeat the enemy, that is powerful enough for us to live by!
8. What We Discussed in Part Two of This Series: In part two we give an overview of seven key principles concerning Scripture twisting. We gave more detailed examples of how Messiah overcame Scripture twisting during his temptation by properly using God's written Word. We discussed a bit more how some bad examples can distort our thinking, but how ultimately this is no excuse. If we discover that the examples that were modeled for us in life were bad ones, then it becomes our responsibility to look for better models. I discussed that if we discover our models were bad growing up, then we can always look to Jesus for a better model of how we should live (Hebrews 12:1-2; 1 John 2:4-6). So, having received bad modeling growing up, might make learning God's ways somewhat more difficult, but having received bad modeling does not give us a pass to live corruptly, because as adults we can choose better models, and we can choose to follow better ones.
9. What's Coming up in Part Four: Now that we have laid the core principles down as our foundation, we are now free to look at some common ways that Scripture gets twisted in modern usage. Don't forget principle 5, in lesson 2 of this series: It's ONLY Scripture when it's RIGHTLY DIVIDED. Otherwise it becomes merely personal commentary. Scripture is Scripture because God said it, and not because we collected God's sayings together in a book called the Bible (2 Timothy 3:1-17). The whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation is God's written Word. It's Scripture, but only so long as you remain true and accurate to what the text actually says. If you extract a portion of the Bible and you twist it to give it meaning, implication or application that is contrary to the text as a whole, then it is no longer Scripture at that point, because it does not remain true to what God actually said. At that point it's personal commentary on the Scripture, but it is no longer Scripture, because God didn't say it. So, if I do not remain true to the actual text, the implications, and to the application supported by the text, then my conclusion is not Scripture even if my thought happens to be loosely taken from the Bible. So in order to be truly Scripture, not only must my ideas come from the Bible, but they must remain in all aspects, true to the text.
10. One Practical Step: Read through an Entire Book of Scripture, Do Not Smorgasbord or Buffet Read. Do not make a constant diet of picking and choosing. One of the great difficulties that we face in modern Christendom is that people are driven by their own personal preferences. We are not often taught to aim for a principle that is higher than our own personal desires. There is such a culture wide push to make everything so completely user-friendly that very rarely does anything chafe or challenge us to push for higher understanding. Modern church culture often prepares people to expect that the music, the prayers, the style of worship, the sermon presentation and almost everything else will be tailor-made to suit was popular and what will make people, "Happy." As part of that happy meal smorgasbord spirituality, we will often pick and choose topical sermons cafeteria style. We will pick the ones that we like. We will stick exclusively to the passages that do not challenge or rub us the wrong way, and we will ignore the rest. As we progress in practicing this over time, it almost creates in us the expectation that Almighty God should also adapt to make us happy. One of the best ways to avoid Scripture twisting is to read whichever book of Scripture that you are reading from beginning to end. In other words, in your Bible reading time developed the habit of starting in chapter 1 and progressing day by day till you reach the end of that particular biblical book. That way you get the complete thought that the Holy Spirit was using the writer to convey, and you are less likely to miss read, or misinterpret what God is saying. It's a simple tool, but it really does work.

Next Time: some specific examples of how Scripture gets twisted in modern times. It's all in how we read it and apply it.
May Yahweh Almighty God bless you as you diligently study God's Word to demonstrate yourself a faithful worker who rightly divides and applies the Word of Truth (2 Timothy 2:15), so that you will unashamedly live a life that brings glory, honor, and praise to The One who provided His Own Son, Who shed His Own Blood to forgive and buy us back out of slavery to sin and lawlessness, so that we may live in the freedom of His love by obeying His decrees. May Yahweh Almighty God give you grace to hear His Word, to correctly see and perceive His Word, to rightly understand, interpret and believe His Word, to become a faithful, loving, and obedient doer and practitioner of His Word, so that you may not be deceived, but rather successfully walk in the Truth. May Yahweh Almighty God give you grace to persevere in all these great attributes until you are completely victorious over the corruption of sin and disobedience that is in the world, so that you receive a rich welcome into His Kingdom, because your loving obedience proved that you are truly His. May Almighty God grant us this will blessing through His unfailing love, and through His Son Yeshua the Messiah, Amen!
Brother R. Michel Lankford