How Do You Read It

Introduction

We’re making your way to Luke chapter 10. Luke 10. We’re gonna read and use a section from there kind of as a launching point this morning. My process will be a little bit different this morning. Many of you may know the name Marty Pickup. he’s had someone who had substantial influence over my approach to scripture. he was a professor and a mentor that I respected greatly and talked to from time to time. We didn’t have any kind of special relationship or anything, but we did know each other and he was always very helpful. he was always willing to say things that needed to be said. And a lot of my thoughts this morning, in fact, I’m gonna do something I typically don’t do.

I’m actually gonna steal some of his material and paraphrase some of what he said, and for a good reason. he did a series of sermons at the University Church in Tampa not too long before he suddenly died, unfortunately. Marty just did amazing work. he always was appealing to important concepts from scripture, apostolic authority, and some of this is what I’m gonna talk about and cover this morning. Some of these will be my own thoughts. It’s not all from Marty, but I just thought in fairness, I should at least let you know, if you happen to scour the internet and come across this, that I am taking his material, some of it this morning, because it’s just so good and so needed.

And unfortunately, he’s just not able to share it anymore because he has passed from this life. And so I want to do some work talking about this idea of interpretation. You may not remember, and it’s okay if you don’t, that I actually started talking about some of this quite a while ago, and we’ve had some other things come up along the way, other series I’ve been working through, like the book of Romans. and I’m sort of going back to this concept of authority and the right way to think through scripture. And this morning, I really want to talk about the idea of how to read scripture the way it is intended to be read, which was the main concept that Marty was getting at in the series of sermons that he did at the University Church.

I want to begin in Luke 10, 25 and kind of capture this scene a little bit and kind of work from some of these thoughts toward some ideas, some principles that can help us all with interpretation. And as we’re working into this idea of authority, I want you to understand it’s not just going to be confirming all the things that we’ve always thought. You may be uncomfortable with some of what I say this morning. And that’s okay. Because we have to be willing to challenge and to question what we think. And one of the things that Marty said frequently, that he emphasized to me is that the truth never has anything to be afraid of. It can always be challenged, it can always be questioned, and the truth will always prevail.

And so we should never fear questions, young people, you should never be afraid to ask questions. We should always be able to give you answers. And if we can’t, we should be able to go look those up and find them and work through them. We should not give stock answers or just what we’ve always thought or what we’ve always believed. That is not the path to understanding truth. That’s not the path to understanding what God really wants. Okay, beginning in verse 25 of Luke 10, and behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said to him, What is written in the law? How do you read it? And he answered, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.

And he said to him, You have answered correctly. Do this, and you will live. But desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, And who is my neighbor? And Jesus replied, According to the Hillel Jewish Dictionary, a neighbor is a person who lives close beside others, who thus my implication is part of a so-called in group, that is the group with which an individual identifies both ethnically and culturally. The Greek word plasion is closely associated in the noun form with the Hebrew tombraya, which carries with it the idea of companionship and friendship. So go love your neighbor. Now we laugh at that, but so often that’s how we view things in scripture. We want the definition. We want the law. And we want the straightforward rule. We want it to be black and white.

What’s the answer? This is actually in a testing way, at least. He’s not being sincere in Jesus is kind of eating that out here. He’s saying, How do I get eternal life? What’s the answer, Jesus? And he says, Hey, what’s the law say? And he asks this question, how do you read it? The NASB says something like, How do you understand it? Right? How do you come to understand it? It’s not just reciting the law, which is what this expert does. Right? He knows this idea of love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself, but what does that mean? And this whole exchange, now you hopefully many of you know where this goes. He tells a story. He doesn’t give a definition like I just did.

He doesn’t make up a rule. He doesn’t say, hey, you know, thou shalt not leave people half beaten on the side of the road. That would only isolate things to a very specific type of event. No, he tells a story, and the story has interpretive force. He takes this concept from the Old Testament, and through this story about these three people who walk by someone who is beaten and left half dead on the side of the road, and the way they interact with that, to learn what it means and what it looks like to love your neighbor as yourself. And that story is much deeper in application than just handing out some commandment or a law. No, there’s plenty of commandments and laws, plenty of instructions within scripture, and they have their place.

But it’s interesting that Jesus often, when he teaches, he takes concrete ideas, real life type stories that people can understand at a time and a place. They know what it’s like to go from Jerusalem to Jericho and back. They understand that. They know the risks and the dangers and they know what it’s like to be stranded, just like we could tell some kind of similar story and understand what it’s like to be stranded in the middle of nowhere and have no help and people are passing by. We get that on experience level. And so Jesus is using that to help them understand the way you apply concepts and principles from Scripture. And so often this is the way Scripture works. It’s not just a bunch of laws and rules, it’s principles and ideas that then we have to then work through, do the work to bring implication to how we live things in our life and the types of decisions that we make.

And so this account has everything to do with interpretation. And the lawyer knows this.

And Jesus actually sort of exposes that, right, by the way he asks his questions. How do you read this? What’s your understanding? That’s an interpretive question. Right? And the answer is not it says what it says and it means what it means. No, that’s the answer is not I see the text, and that’s what the text is. No, the answer is much bigger than that. It goes beyond just the simple law that’s given here. In fact, if you go back to Leviticus, there’s much more there, and that’s part of Jesus’ point. It’s not just a basic law. There’s a lot that surrounds Leviticus 19, for example, about how you treat someone and the way you interact with them. And so love your neighbor as yourself, which is a short phrase packed with full meaning, actually is explained in a very big way, even in Leviticus, which is kind of a book of law.

Jesus is pulling out some ideas that are really threatening to this lawyer. And so the text tells us, desiring to justify himself, he says, Well, who is my neighbor? Right? This is a dismissive and self-justifying response to avoid the interpretive reality. That likely he’s not living this very well. He doesn’t want to actually answer the question based on what true application means for him. Instead of challenging himself by what Jesus is clearly pointing toward, he wants to dismiss it and try to now move past it. Because he’s not sincere, the text tells us he’s trying to test Jesus. He’s trying to catch him, he’s trying to see if Jesus believes what he believes. He’s trying to do various things to see if Jesus sticks with tradition or whatever it might be, the beliefs of the Pharisees and the scribes and the lawyers.

And in the middle of that, as Jesus so often does, he exposes this man’s insincerity. And his inability to actually see scripture the right way.

You cannot go to the Bible and read scripture and not be interpreting somehow. So if that’s the case, which I believe it is, we have to learn how to do it correctly and properly. And so what I mean by that is, for example, if we say, well, understanding the historical context just isn’t that important. You know, knowing the reasons why these documents were written, or why Paul or Peter or John, why they’re writing, that’s not all that important. We can just go to the text, the Bible says what it says, and we can take that. Well, you know what we’re doing when we do that? We’re supplying our own context. We’re taking things from our world and pretending like that was their world. And that leads to any number of bad interpretations and abuses of the text.

And there’s a variety of ways that there are kind of dangerous methods of interpretation that we see today. I’m just gonna bring up a few. One of these is kind of maybe what you could call spirit-led understanding, right? I’m gonna read the scripture, and the Holy Spirit is just gonna reveal truth to me in a miraculous way. You know, last time, long time ago now, we talked about the importance of apostolic authority, and one of the problems with that idea is that’s not what the Bible says is gonna happen. The apostles themselves say, hey, you need to hold to the traditions that we’ve given to you, whether in spoken or written form. Second Thessalonians says that. Right? They’ve been given all authority. Jesus has all authority, and he chose these men as ambassadors, and he says, I want you to go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and I want you to teach them to observe everything I’ve commanded you, and lo, I’m with you always, even to the end of the age.

There is never a time when the apostles’ authority just goes away. And now we find some other method of authority. Apostolic authority in inspired writing is still relevant. It is still the source of authority, it’s still where we turn and where we go to find the answers. And the problem with, for example, with this type of method is I don’t do any work, I just read the text and I believe the Holy Spirit is somehow magically giving me answers, which of course leads to all sorts of problems. This is actually a scriptural abuse. Because often people get this from John 14 through 16, and those texts are actually Jesus’ words to his apostles, saying the Holy Spirit is going to lead them into all truth. The Holy Spirit is not leading me into all truth, and the Holy Spirit’s not leading you into all truth miraculously.

This is a conversation.

We have to have some sort of understanding of what’s being said in scripture, come to some sort of grasp of what the original intent is of these authors before we can then make sense of it for how we’re going to apply it today. So another one is experience-led understanding. These are just kind of my ways of describing these.

Both of these are very popular in our day. This one probably more so maybe among our people, if we want to talk that way, which has its own problems. But the idea of experience led is more devotion. Like I read it and it sort of speaks to me, and now it has this meaning or it bears this kind of truth. And certainly there’s some legitimacy to saying going to the Psalms and reading something and saying, Man, that sounds a lot like what I’m going through. Or reading scripture and saying, wow, that’s really interesting. That has a lot of similarities to my life. And so I’m not discounting that at all, but what I’m talking about, it’s a little similar to the spirit-led, where I read this and say, well, this is what it means.

Right? I’ve had these experiences in life, and as I read this text, this is the truth that comes out of that. So it’s all wrapped up in feelings, right? This is how I feel. This text made me feel a certain way, and so now that’s the truth of what this text means. It’s very much part of the spirit of our age, right? Where everything is based and founded on emotions. A third one, and then we’ll move on from these is confirmation reading, right? We already know what we think, we already know what we believe, and so we just go to scripture to kind of back up what y’all what we already believe, and what we already practice and what we already do. So, what is it we do?

Okay, where’s the scripture for that? Let me go find the scripture that proves that I’m right about what I think. Right? So, confirmation reading. Here’s a point that I think needs extreme emphasis. We have no business making applications when we do not understand the historical context and meaning of a text first. It’s gonna lead us to all kinds of errors and mistakes when we go this route. Now, what you’re gonna see as we go through some examples here in a little bit, is not that I’m gonna say, you know, all the things we’re doing are wrong and we need to change everything. That’s really not the point at all. It’s more about why is it that we do what we do? And are we giving good arguments for why we do what we do, or are we misusing text, kind of like that John 14 through 16, to defend things that are error?

Now here’s the thing: someone might say, Well, that’s not a good argument, but it’s true. Okay, maybe it’s true, but if you got there the wrong way, it sort of reminds me of working with our kids on math. You know, like I got the answer. Anybody ever had this experience? Like, but it’s just a blank page. Like, how did you get there? What do we always tell them? What do they have to do? Show, I heard it, show your work, right? It’s like we were taught this all when we were little kids. But how many times, and I’m not even the math person in our house, but how many times we say, Show your work. You know, how do you get there? Are you using the right method to get to that answer?

Because anyone who’s done any type of high level math at all, and by high level, I just mean like algebra, right? We don’t even have to get that high. All right. You realize that you can go through things a certain way and get the right answer, but then if you do that same method with a different problem, you’ll get the wrong answer. Methods matter. And the way we use scripture matters. And so we might use bad methods and still get to the right answer sometimes. That can happen. But that still doesn’t mean it’s a good method. It’s not a good argument. And particularly here’s the risk. We’re always worried about what our young people are going to get from things. If we really want to turn our young people away, it’s not going through this process sincerely, giving them stock answers, saying, This is the way it’s always been, this is the way it should be.

Asking questions is dangerous, labeling people who question or challenge things, those people are dangerous. Because here’s what happens they grow up and they start reading the Bible and they start saying, That text you use for this, that’s not what that text is about. But you told me it was about this and this, and that has nothing to do with what that text is about. And unfortunately, what happens sometimes in that process is they throw the baby out with the bathwater and say, I can’t believe any of this.

We need to be committed to the right methods to sincerely seeking truth, to ridding ourselves of bad arguments, or understanding the place of an argument. So often people think that some one argument’s like a silver bullet, and that just answers everything. Almost always that’s incorrect. It’s kind of the comprehensive fullness of scripture that lead us, leads us to truths, understanding the apostles’ writing and what they intend to say, and then taking those principles and applying them in the modern day. And so it always involves observation, interpretation, understanding the original meaning, and then getting to application. And so you have to show me your work, right? That’s what we ask everybody else to do. You know, we disagree with somebody down the street about doctrinal beliefs. Well, show me how you got there, right?

Show me in scripture. And then when they prove text, we say that’s not what that scripture is about. Do we turn around and do the same thing with the things we believe? And pretend like that’s good Bible study. I think we have to ask ourselves that question. And so the encouragement overall this morning is to realize we have to read well and read scripture as it is intended. So, only two points this morning.

1. Every Letter Is Written for a Specific Reason

Or you’re like, well, that’s pretty obvious. It is. I mean, it’s pretty common sense. I mean, no one reads 1 Corinthians 5 and says, okay, who is it? Who’s the guy who’s living in sexual immorality in our group? I mean, we get it on that level. But here’s the thing. When we keep reading and we start, we then start applying like really specific situations and occasions as if they’re ours. And that’s just not how scripture works. The letters and the gospels, they’re written in very specific ways. Every letter is written to somebody for a specific reason, dealing with specific problems that may not be the problems we’re dealing with. Now here’s the thing, we can still learn from them. The apostles knew this, they expect this, right?

And so in Colossians, Paul says, hey, take this letter that I wrote to you, and when you’re done reading it, you send it to the church in Laodicea, and you have them read it. Now, when they read through Colossians, the people in Laodicea, again, are they saying, oh man, who is it in this church that has this problem and that problem? Who is it that’s teaching these empty philosophies and the elemental principles of the world? I mean, I think they would understand Paul’s writing to Colossae and he’s dealing with some of the specific problems there, but we can take that and we can still learn from it. Right? We can take the ideas and the principles and we can read those and say, hey, our situation is not exactly like that, but the principles and the truths still are there.

Right? We need to understand what God is writing through Paul to the Church of Colossae, and even at Laodicea, which is fairly close by, we can take some of those same ideas, but it’s not the same situation. When other churches, Peter tells us that Paul’s writings had already spread all over the place, even when he’s writing 2 Peter. People know about the writings of Paul. They have been sent out, and people other places had read them. And so again, whether it’s in Rome or whether it’s in Galatia, Macedonia, Achaia, various places that Paul went. I mean, everyone understands when they read these letters, this letter that’s sent to Corinth or a letter that’s sent to Ephesus, that it was sent to those people for those situations.

And so Paul’s not speaking directly to them. They have their own questions, particularly in 1 Corinthians. They’re asking questions, and he’s answering them. And here’s the reality our questions and the issues that we deal with may be very different than what was actually happening in the first century. Now, I know this is very foundational, and that’s meant to be so, because it’s important we understand this concept. We understand when we come to Scripture with our questions, that those texts may not be directly answering the questions that we have. That being said, we can read through the fullness of scripture and often come to answers about the questions that we have. We can imply things from what the apostles wrote, inspired writers wrote, that give us great insights into what God wants from us, how he wants us to live, and yet still at the same time, we have to recognize that it was not written directly to me.

Now, I can’t even go into all the depths of why that’s important, but I can’t tell you how many times this has been a factor in confusion and discussions I’ve had with people. Where the way they’re interpreting a text or looking at a text makes it as if Paul somehow knew their situation 2,000 years later, or Peter is directly talking to a specific situation they’re dealing with, and they’re ripping a phrase or a text from its context to make it say something it’s not saying. We can’t do that. That’s not good interpretation. We’re going to end up with bad applications when we do that. Context matters. And sometimes as we read, we all do this, I do this myself. I find myself catching myself doing this.

I’m reading, and I’m just, I’m interpreting in my modern context. I’ll give you an example. Probably have used it here before, but you know, the laborers and the vineyard, right? It’s like even at the last moment, you know, you can come, you can this is true. So, right, here’s an example of something that’s true. At the last moment, you can be almost to your deathbed, and you can decide you’re gonna serve Christ and come to him and you’re gonna be rewarded. That’s not what that story is about. It’s about people who’ve been trying to be hired all day long, and no one’s taking them. But they’re there ready and they want to work. And so finally the master comes and he brings them in and then he rewards them just like everyone else.

It’s something very familiar to their culture and their setting. But if we try to understand it on our terms in our culture, we’re gonna muddle up the idea and the application. So we have to do some work, and it is hard work, and shortcuts are easy, but they’re also lazy and they’re destructive. And so we have to do the hard work of understanding context as best that we can and understand that there are occasions behind these books, and sometimes the best we can do is reconstruct parts to the best of our ability, and we just don’t always know all the details of everything that was happening. John writes letters to some of the congregations that he helps found, it seems. I don’t know everything about the opponents that he’s writing about.

They certainly would have, though. But we can still learn how to interact with adversaries. We can still learn how to interact with those who have turned from Christ by reading some of these documents in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John. So we need to understand the place of scripture and how it works. So let me give you some examples of how this ends up sometimes going very badly. So 2 Timothy, or excuse me, 1 Timothy 2 is a text that talks about modesty. That’s the key word. Right? And so we read the word modesty, and so we kind of do these word hunt kind of studies. The word modesty is there. So this is a good text to talk about people wearing bikinis to the beach and at the pool and all this kind of thing.

And so we harp on this text, and then one day someone goes and reads this text for themselves and its context. And they realize that has nothing to do with what Paul’s talking about. Now, can we make indirect application? Sure, we can. But I understand the damage that this does, and I’ve been in these conversations, so I’ve heard it. Someone goes in and say, he’s talking about people wearing gaudy clothing and dressing up for worship in ways that are distracting and trying to look like the world and have status and show their power. And you know what? That is 100% true. That’s what he’s talking about. And so if I pretend like that verse is saying something else, and then later on someone comes back and says, I was told this is always about sexual modesty and sensuality, but that doesn’t seem to be what Paul’s talking about at all.

You’re just making stuff up. Now, can we make that point? 100% yes, we can. And we can go to other texts in scripture and we can do this very thing. I’ve preached on this before. So it’s not that we shouldn’t make those points or they aren’t important, but when we handle text incorrectly, it leads people to wrong ideas, and then when we go there, because we’ve done some word study on the word modesty, which is not even a great word to talk about sexual dress and that sort of thing, sensuality is much better, really, because modesty is just about how you’re arranged. You can get there eventually indirectly, but again, it’s not what Paul’s talking about. And so people then say, well, I just I can’t trust what you’re telling me.

Now, here’s the thing: if we do it well, we can use a text like that and say, here’s the general principle, we should present ourselves in good ways in proper ways that are aligned with godliness. And here he’s talking about how we do this even in worship. That’s really the major idea here in 1 Timothy. And so coming in and being ostentatious and drawing attention to ourselves, when we’re really supposed to be honoring God and worshiping him, that’s a really bad thing. And certainly sensual dress would not be a part of that. That’s not appropriate, right? I mean, we can get there eventually. But we need to honor texts for what they are and not just proof text because they have a specific word in them that sort of fits what we already think or believe.

That’s just lazy. It’s not good study. Well, here’s one. Don’t get upset with me. We’re gonna work our way through it, okay? Ephesians 5 19, Colossians 3, 17. Well, it says sing, and that’s all we need. You ever heard that? That’s a weak argument. You know, in James, he says, Is anyone cheerful? Let them sing praise. Is that the only option we have? You know, anytime you’re cheerful, the only thing you can do is sing praise. I mean, that’s this method of interpretation. So what I’m saying here is, you know, you’ve heard command example necessary inference, you’ve probably heard that kind of logical thinking and all that, and it’s kind of like this decoder ring, like we have this idea and we apply it to text and then we generate laws and rules, right?

That’s not how you use that. Command example and necessary inference is really just a few phrases that are talking about logic, right? How you logically work through ideas and text. Perfectly legitimate. It’s used in all sorts of things in life, but it has to be used well, correctly. And so if we just take a text and demand that’s a necessary inference, or it’s really not, that’s damaging.

That’s also damaging. Paul did not write either one of these texts, Ephesians 5 or Colossians 3, about the instrumental music question. That’s not the question he was dealing with in those texts. Now, later on, secondarily, indirectly, is that part of the apostolic witness that we can then use as part of the evidence that then we put together an argument that then shows how we should worship? Yes, of course. I have no problem with that. But to act like this is a silver bullet answer to a very complex question is incorrect. In Ephesians 5, he’s really dealing with the concept of thinking differently than the pagan world and worshiping differently than the pagan world. And the whole concept there is they get into a drunken frenzy and they sing a bunch of gibberish, as drunk people do.

And the contrast to that is you’re to be filled with the spirit, he says, and you’re to be speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. This is the context of this passage. Don’t live in vanity like the Gentile world. Don’t think that’s what it looks like to serve God. No, we want to speak rational words with thought to one another to lift up and to build up each other. Colossians 3 is about transforming our lives to be like Christ and being filled, he doesn’t say here with the Spirit, but here he says to be filled with the words of Christ, teaching and singing with those words with gratitude. That’s the context there. Paul didn’t write this as an argument against instrumental music.

Here’s one reason I know this. Early Christians didn’t use instruments in worship, right? Like this is not a problem for them. And every legit scholar knows this. They can go back and see this is not how they worship, this is not what they did. This is not a concern Paul has. Now he’s saying what they do, so certainly that’s valuable and helpful. But he’s not trying to address this big problem. In fact, they went to such extremes that they just most of them said you shouldn’t even listen to secular music. That’s not the wording they use, but that’s how we would talk. Because the pagan world kind of gets people in a frenzy and all this because of music, and so we’re just going to stay away from all of it.

2. The Way These Texts Should Be Used Does Not Change

Now, there’s debates and arguments about all that, even in the ancient world. But what’s very clear is that until the sixth century or seventh century, they’re not even using instruments in worship. So that’s not what Paul’s dealing with here. So we need to be honest with the text, with the historical context, and realize what these texts are actually for. Which then goes to the second point, right? So these are going to blend together and they sort of work together. It’s hard to separate all of these ideas, really. And that is that the way these texts should be used does not change over time. The nature and the purpose of these New Testament books does not suddenly change because it was a long time ago. Or because they were all taken and they were bound into a single volume that you can now hold in one hand.

It doesn’t change the way these texts should be used. And you’re thinking again, obviously, I mean, seems pretty common sense, but yet the reality is these sorts of things happen all the time. I use all as hyperbole there. They happen frequently. The Bible, because it’s old, or because it’s now put into one book that we call the Bible, doesn’t become mystical or full of symbolic messages all throughout it, you know, like the Da Vinci Code, like we’re gonna look at these sets of words, and we’re gonna have some mystery that we’re unraveling. And there’s people who do this sort of thing. This is how they interpret the Bible. It’s like we’re looking for codes to find mysterious answers. You know, the end of the world or whatever it might be.

You’ve probably seen that sort of thing the most. Allegory, right? Allegorizing everything. You know, every single word in the Bible has some spiritual meaning or symbol to it. Not true. It’s a piece of literature written for people to understand the mind of God that has been revealed to us. And so these sorts of things are fanciful. They are kind of that go back to that mystical sort of thing, like experience, the experience interpretation or the spirit-filled interpretation that I’m just gonna be somehow miraculously led to answers because the Bible is this mystical sort of thing that we have to unlock all the mysteries to. Let me give you an example. This is one that Marty used. I’ll try to do it like he did, to the best of my ability, because it was really good.

Just a classic example. You know, we see these things in scripture like, why is this here? You know, what is the deep spiritual meaning of this being included inspired writing? Alright? So 2 Timothy 4 13, listen to this. When you come, he’s speaking to Timothy, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus, a truth.

Why? Why are we having why did we have this 2,000 years? From when Paul wrote it. There must be some kind of deep spiritual meaning here. In fact, there are commentators that go this direction. James and Fawcett Brown says the mention of his cloak, so far from being unworthy of inspiration, is one of those graphic touches which sheds a flood of light on the last scene of Paul’s life on the confines of two worlds, and this wanting a cloak to cover him from the winter cold, and that covered with the righteousness of saints, clothed upon with his house from heaven. So the inner vesture and the outer garment of Jesus, Paul’s master, are suggestive of most instructive thought. Amen. Why does Paul ask Timothy to bring his cloak?

He’s cold. A letter is a letter. It doesn’t suddenly change into some mystical symbolic thing. He’s writing Timothy, and he says, Hey, I left this cloak here. I’m cold. Could you bring it with you? Do we get it? I mean, do we see what I’m saying here? How people will allegorize everything and everything has this special meaning, and this phrase and that phrase, and there’s some deep mystical thought here. No, sometimes it’s just that Paul or Timothy or John, they’re writing to somebody. Just like we write to people. Some of these things are personal. Some of their interactions are very personal. Like Philemon. I mean, Philemon is a very personal book because Paul knows Philemon and he’s asking him some things for Onisimus. I mean, so there’s very personal things going on here in these letters.

We’re just reading other people’s mail. We get this information. It has a lot of good thoughts and principles and concepts and ideas, and we take from that and it helps us understand the way God wants us to live. That’s what’s happening. And so I’m just warning us about being careful about mysticizing everything, thinking that this is like some special code. Here’s another one. The Bible is not a health book. Who’s seen Ezekiel bread on the shelves?

I’ve taught Ezekiel a few times now. It’s interesting. Before I had taught Ezekiel, I’d seen Ezekiel bread. And it’s like, oh, you know, this is from the Bible, you know, the right grains and all of this. It’s the most healthy thing you can eat and all that. Have you read Ezekiel 4? I wonder if the creators of Ezekiel bread, the ones that are on the shelf, if they’ve read Ezekiel 4. You know, initially it was supposed to be cooked over human dung. Now, God, when Ezekiel complained and said, hey, I’ve never defiled myself like this. God said, okay, you can use cow dung. I’m pretty sure they’re not using cow dung to cook Ezekiel bread that you’re, I hope not.

Ezekiel bread is about siege rations. They’re going to be judged and their city’s going to be surrounded, and he’s saying, you’re going to scrap together whatever you can find to make some bread to eat. This is not a health manual. It’s not giving you the right types of foods. It’s not what the Bible’s about. It’s not a health book. It’s not a nutrition guide. Now, are there things in there that can help us think about the right things to eat? Sure. Maybe we can find some things. I’m not saying you’re never going to find anything there about good things to eat or bad things to eat. You might. But the intention of all this, even when those sorts of things are talked about, typically the idea is to explain holiness or being separate, for instance, in the old law.

There’s a purpose behind it that goes beyond the thing itself. But particularly with Ezekiel bread, it couldn’t be any more clear. This is not about nutrition. Right? But this is the way sometimes people use scripture. They change what these documents are actually for and what their purpose is. Here’s another one. Don’t be mad at me. It’s not a science book. And it’s not even a history book. Now, you can find some scientific things in there, and you can find some history in there, but the intention, again, of all of that, is to lead us to the idea of who God is. It’s not to give us a history lesson about the ancient world. And yes, it mentions cities and it mentions people and all that. And some of those things are great.

I mean, it’s wonderful to have that. But the goal there is not so then we can then do archaeology and confirm all this. No, there’s a story being told. And the story is about God and the things that God is doing and teaching us about who God is and who we need to be. This is what’s actually happening in scripture. It’s not teaching mystic or magical formulas, right? You ever heard this? If you don’t say in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, then the baptism doesn’t count. You didn’t do it right, preacher. You didn’t say the formula. Because in Matthew 28, it says that, well, you know, it says other things, other places. Like Acts 238. So by the authority of Jesus or in the name of Jesus.

Right? Now, some of this, maybe it seems ridiculous to you. Some of this, maybe some of you have heard. And I just I’m pointing this out because some of these are very obvious. That God’s not trying to lay down rituals and formulas and especially magical incantations. That’s not the goal here, that you say just the right words and then the baptism is empowered in works. Right? It’s what’s actually happening that matters. And our obedience to God and our faithfulness to Him. It’s not a liturgy book. Now, certainly we can find some things about how we should go about doing some stuff. But it’s not guiding us to some set system of worship structure. Appreciate the way that 1 Corinthians 16 was used this morning. And the way it wasn’t used, I got real nervous when you went there because I knew I was going to talk about it.

But I get it, even with what I’m going to say, if you’re guilty of this, I’ve been guilty of it too. But I’m just going to tell you, 1 Corinthians 16 is not commanded to us. It’s just not. This is a perfect example of what happens when we think something’s being written directly to us and we’re actually reading other people’s mail. So read it with me. Now, concerning the collection for the saints. Now, if you stop right there, you think, oh, this is the collection for the saints of all time and all places. No. We have to keep reading. As I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come.

And when I arrive, I will send those whom you accredit by letter to carry your gift to Jerusalem. If it seems advisable that I should go also, they will accompany me. What is this text about?

Is it about how all churches of all time should set up the way they give money? I’ve heard people talk about the five acts of worship or those sorts of things. Maybe those are good memory devices of some of the things that we do. But you know, some of this actually leads to some really incorrect ideas. Paul is writing to the Corinthian brethren about a specific collection for specific people in a specific place. And he has asked the people of Galatia and Macedonia and Achaia to do this in a certain way so it’s ready when he arrives. There’s a lot of things I don’t know, but I’ll promise you this, Paul’s not coming to Decor Prairie. Now, can we not learn from this? Is it not a good example?

Of course it is. It’s a great example of how to do some things. It makes a lot of sense because they’re coming together on the first day of the week, and so probably this is why Paul sets it up this way, so that when he gets there, they’re not scrambling around trying to figure it all out. He doesn’t want to mess with that. He’s got too many things to do. Paul’s a busy guy. He wants to get there, get what he’s supposed to get, have a plan, get it to Jerusalem. He doesn’t have time to waste time. Right? And so he’s setting all this up in the places that he’s going. Are there other places to talk about how Christians gave? Yes, there are. Acts chapter 2, Acts chapter 4, actually the very beginning of the church, we call it.

People are selling their possessions or they’re bringing things that they’re having, they have already, and they’re laying those things at the apostles’ feet. And day by day, they’re in the temple. And they’re meeting people’s needs. That’s the time reference given in Acts 2 and Acts 4.

When I was quite a bit younger, a man who’s an elder now was telling me that he tried to gift some Walmart stock to the church. Now, some of you might say, why would anybody do that? Some of you understand why somebody would do that for various reasons, for tax purposes, whatever. Here’s the thing is, you know, I don’t think they’re giving dollars back then. You know, the way that we give isn’t, you know, he doesn’t say give an American dollar. That’s how you contribute to the work of the kingdom. Right? So this guy’s trying to give, and they said, Well, we can’t do that because stock transactions, transfers don’t happen on Sunday. Now, relatively minor in a lot of ways, but I want you to understand, we’re not reading comprehensively.

We’re reading other people’s mail, and we’re neglecting other texts that show that people were taking their possessions and giving them to people as they had need, and everybody’s needs were met. And this was a day-by-day thing. Now, I’ve warned you in the very beginning, some of this may challenge you. And I want to tell you what I’m not saying, and I’m not saying that we just should stop doing weekly contributions. But look, things work in certain ways, and they work well. But what I am concerned about is when we turn those things into word of God, as if that is the only way to do it, and we’re misreading scripture and we’re reading other people’s mail, the things they were supposed to be doing for a very specific reason, and acting like that is the only way to do everything.

Telling you that’s a mistake. And I’ve been in more than one conversation with people who are questioning all this and saying, why was I told this when you had these other passages and other situations? Acts 11 is another one. They decide they’re going to give money, they take it seems like it’s happening right then, and they bring it to the elders in Jerusalem and bring that contribution. Now we’ll use that often to talk about benevolence for Christians in other places and things like that. So we’ll use those texts for those reasons. But I just want to point out the need for comprehensive and proper use of scripture and not abuse, particularly when we get so frustrated by our religious friends who disagree with us who do that very thing themselves.

Conclusion

You know, they just won’t look at baptism for what baptism is supposed to be. They just proof text that passage in this passage. What am I doing? Am I proof texting passages to defend what I already think and what I already believe? Or am I actually using scripture comprehensively? So when it comes to scripture, am I reading it the way is it intended? Am I sure? Am I sure that’s what I’m doing? This goes back to a lesson of a few weeks ago where I talked about humility and conviction. I mean, I need to be convicted about the things that I see in scripture and I believe. But there’s just an element of humility that also must exist. That somebody else, somebody may come along, Scott or Aaron or Ed, and say, hey, you know, that’s not what I see there.

I think you might be wrong about that. Have you thought about these other verses? And I need to be honest and sincere with myself and say, no, I haven’t. I hadn’t thought about that. And be willing to admit that maybe the way I’m thinking is fine, but maybe there’s other ways to think too on certain things that God has left freedom in. And to really be serious and convicted about the things God has not left room in. And that’s what I want my kids to see, and I want your kids to see. Is that I have a passion for my God for what He’s told me, for what He says, for what apostolic writing says, not just how I feel, right? I mean, that’s like the spirit of today, just how I feel about something.

You know, it seems right. So it couldn’t be wrong, right? It seems right. That’s a concern that sometimes we have. Or maybe the bigger threat is this is how we’ve always done it. It seems dangerous. Seems concerning to do it some other way. But I would just challenge us, is it? Is it really? Or is it just because it’s what I’m used to? Apostolic authority is the authority. I love my parents, but they’re not the authority. There’s a lot of preachers I’ve respected over the years, but they’re not my authority. And elders, their authority over a local congregation to keep the will of God and do what He has said to do, not to make up their own rules and say we need to do something different.

Surely we wouldn’t think that’s the right thing to do. Because the message from God is the true authority. And this is where we go and where we turn for answers. Not what people have thought before, not how I feel now. None of that works. So I hope that you understand the spirit of my message this morning. It’s not to create problems or to get people upset. It’s just to get us to think about scripture more closely. And understand some principles of how to do this well. Rather than just how I feel about it or what makes me uncomfortable or what I don’t like or any number of other things I could say. And my commitment is to King Jesus and what he says. And having a heart for him to do his will.

If you want to do that this morning, if you realize you have not submitted to his will, he tells us how to do that. We’re to give our lives to him, we’re to be baptized into Christ. Give up the old man. Colossians 3 talks about that. Become a new person, being recreated after the image of our Creator, becoming after the image of Christ. That’s the process he wants from us. And you can start that this morning. Can we help you? Why don’t you come now as we stand and we sing?