Articles
God's Word Isn't Blurred
A few minutes ago, I saw a news headline that said, Congresswoman &%#$%^ says "Justice Gorsuch interprets the Constitution too literally". I've absolutely no idea why, but that reminded me of some thoughts I had earlier today, that many people don't believe God says what He means or means what He says. They prefer a much looser grip on things that allows for multiple opinions, even though those different views may well contradict each other.
We need to understand that God indeed says what He means, and He says it clearly enough for us to understand. We don't need a 3rd party expert to tells us what God says in scripture, we just need to read it for ourselves. For instance, when scripture says "Abstain from every form of evil" (1 Thess 5:22) do we take that literally? The "appearance of evil" (KJV), "every kind of evil" (NIV and NLT), or "every form of evil" (NRSV, NKJV, and ESV) are all good translations.
Appearances are basically perceptions, are they not? Some people think Christians are inherently evil. There will almost always be someone who thinks you are doing wrong because they don't agree with what you are doing, or maybe it looks wrong to them, or maybe what you are doing is OK, but your motives are evil. So, somehow, we have to arrive at what God is intending us to understand, and not rely on any agenda of man if we are going to live by the above or any other scripture.
For many, this scripture basically means not only do we avoid doing what is evil, but we likewise avoid doing what appears to be evil. Using an example loosely to make the point, if we are seen frequenting the local drinking establishment, but preach that abuse of alcohol and drunkenness are sinful, the perception is that we don't practice what we preach, even if we don't drink or get drunk. Using that logic, we chose not to go to the bar at all to avoid the appearances.
One good thing about the Bible is that there are only a few things that stand alone. Almost every principal, every teaching, every command are recorded more than one time and worded a little differently to different people. It is always important to look at the context where we find the verse. To help us with 1 Thess 5:22, Paul is closing out a letter to the Church in Thessalonica, and the verses leading up to this say, "Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus." Do not quench the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good..." Paul is obviously listing things to strengthen the church.
Then, outside of the context, maybe we can call on a few helper verses. "..."in a manner worthy of God" ( 1 Thess 2:12). “...make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires” (Romans 13:14). "take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them" (Ephesians 5:11). Still, other scriptures warn us not to allow our Christian freedom to become a "stumbling block" to others (1 Corinthians 8:9). Jesus says to be "salt and light in the world" (Matthew 5:13-16). We are told we have been both "called out" and "set apart" (2 Corinthians 6:17) we are to be different.
So when people argue individually, verse by verse whether or not we take a verse literally, maybe the answer is simply looking at the Bible as a whole, and let it speak to us the wisdom, love and desires of our God. Then when we see a verse that says, "Abstain from every form of evil" it goes hand in hand with "walking in the light, as He is in the light" (1 John 1:7), and "denying the flesh" (Rom 13:14) and being "the light of the world" (Matt 5:14) and we don't have any argument over what God really means.
