Handling God’s Word
As Christians we often feel wise and secure because we are familiar with God’s word. We acquire a sense of empowerment and feel justified in our actions because we have confidently applied this verse or that to the decisions we have made. However, God warns us that we must use the utmost care in how we handle the Scriptures. We cannot selectively quote one text and ignore another. We must always consider the context and the original intent of every verse we consult.
We must not allow preachers, counselors and Bible study leaders to sanction our behavior with carelessly handled texts. God poignantly asks, “How can you say ‘We are wise, for we have the law of the Lord,’ when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely?” (Jer.8:8) So it should be your ever-present concern to “do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth” (2 Tim.2:15).
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
This is why it is so important to be in the Word every day so that we may know all that gives us instructions on the specific issue we are addressing. Judging others is a good point in fact. While we are told not to Judge others in many passages, we are also told it is proper to Judge Christians in others. This requires the time spent in both reading the entire Word and also discussing this with our church leaders to help clarify areas that may be unclear to us.
Thanks, Mike, for this commentary. This is a very timely subject for us, because we have a pastor with a Doctorate from Golden Gate Seminary, and I think another one, but he is almost continuously mishandling the Word of Truth. “Get another church”, you say? All of the other churches in this area (from Livermore to Fairfield) are dreadful, and even worse in many ways than the one we are in. That’s probably hard to believe from Orange County, but that’s how we honestly see it. Well, enough for the boo-hooing. May God continue to bless you, your family, and your ministry.
Our daughter lives in Mission Viejo, so we definitely visit Compass when we’re there.
Skip and Clara Welles