3 things every Christian needs ... Pt 2

2. Bible Reading.

If you want to rerad what God is like and how he wants us to live, the primary and only authoritative source of information is the Bible.

As a brand new baby Christian you may need at first to imbibe the Bible’s teaching in a regurgitated form from older Christians who are acting like spiritual parents towards you. But all the same you need to grow up and get reading it for yourself as soon as you can.

Because the Bible is so vital to spiritual growth be warned that the devil will try to stop you reading it. Beware of anyone trying to get you off reading the Bible itself and on to reading books (or listening to DVD’s) about the Bible. Christian books and video sermons and the like can be helpful but never, never as a substitute for reading the bible itself! The Bible really is God’s word … anything else is anyone’s guess.

Historically one ploy of the devil to stop people away from the Bible was to keep the Bible out of the language ordinary people spoke. In the Middle Ages when the Bible was in Latin, only the priests and scholars could read it – and the people had to believe their interpretation of it. Around the 1400’s people who tried to translate the bible into English and distribute it were burned at the stake by church authorities. Eventually in England every church had to have a Bible in English where anyone could come in and read it for themselves, and it had to be read to the people at every service. This was a radical and tremendously important breakthrough and gave rise to a resurgence of belief throughout England.

Nowadays some tele-evangelists and ministers who imitate them are trying to turn the clock back to be in the position of medieval priests. They tell their people only to read the King James Version – which is so different to modern English that the people cannot possibly understand it, so are forced to rely on this new version of the medieval priest interpreting it for them.

(PS this applies to the post World War II generations only. My 98 rear old mother was brought up on the KJV – and does understand its language. She probably does not realise that she was at the same time taught sufficient ancient Greek and Hebrew grammar and idiom to make it understandable – for instance she may not know that “im” is the usual Hebrew plural ending – like “s” in English – but she certainly understands “chrubim and seraphim” to mean the plural!).

However the barely literate 13 year old girl who proudly told me “The King James Bible is good enough for [named famous tele-evangelist] so it is good enough for me!” certainly could not understand it!

Don’t let tricksters fool you. Get a copy of the Bible in language you can understand! The New Testament was originally written in the worldwide trade version of ancient Greek. Ordinary people everywhere could understand it. Get a Bible you can read and understand! Two translations I find useful are (a) the “New Living” for reading large slabs because it has tried to use modern English expressions and (b) the “TNIV” which is slower reading because it still carries over a little bit of Hebrew and Greek grammar and idioms which are not used in modern English. But as you progress in your study og the Binle and have learned these or if you’ve actually studied Greek and Hebrew at some stage they do add to the vividness and show you where you need to pause and think about double meanings etc. (the “New RSV” is like “TNIV” only I think it is harder for modern English speakers to understand because it carries over more of the Greek and Hebrew way of expressing ideas rather than translating them into English and its clunky to read: but having said that if you find it suits you then use it)

Those are my favorites. But what I am really trying to say is that you should find translations that use the sort of language you use every-day and that you find easy to read and understand.

My personal suggestion is to make a start with the New Testament and try to read through to the end even if some bits you find perplexing. One reason I say this is that even a good human teacher makes their point many times in different ways because people are different and some will understand a thing most easily when it is explained in one way, and other people will understand it most easily when it is explained in another. If humans are smart enough to know that, we should expect God to have all his important themes stated in the Bible multiple times in different ways to get through to different people.

So a thing may seem puzzling because it is a puzzle or it may just be that it seems puzzling because it is being presented in a way that doesn’t “click” with your personality but does for other people.

In the latter case reading on is sensible on the basis that somewhere else it will be presented in a way that you will find easy to absorb. Then next time you read through you will be able to see what the formerly puzzling bit means because you have already learned what it is teaching in another part of the Bible.

The Old Testament is important. It is inspired by the same God and teaches the same things about God and humans and how God wants us to live. Don’t let anyone lead you astray by trying to carve off the Old Testament from the New – the Bible is both together! As with reading the New Testament, the important thing at first is to get an overview and a feel for the general sort of things it teaches. Because the important lessons are repeated over and over, a quick read through – yes even skipping the boring bits – for the first, and maybe even second and third time will help your understanding, and protect you from con artists.

A True Example

Here is an example of how a false teacher that claimed the spiritual life of one of my recently converted people years ago.

Let us call this man “Fred”. Fred came up to me after church and told me I that had got it all wrong about prayer. He had been reading books that had let him see the truth. He explained this “truth” which basically boiled down to this proposition “We are the masters and God is our slave. We must command God to do what we want”

Boiled down to its basics I hope all of you can see that this is the exact opposite of what the Bible teaches! Of course the books he read will have built up to it much more subtly, and I suppose they wound him in like a fisherman gently reeling in a fish until it can be scooped into the boat. But if Fred had read big chunks of his Bible he would have felt there was something wrong straight away. But he hadn’t and he didn’t.

When I tried to reason wit him Fred said it was what the Bible said. Fred then quoted his proof text “Thus saith the Lord … concerning the work of my hands command ye me”. Point proved. Case closed! Or was it …

Remember I warned you against people who insist on the King James Version. Well those words only appear in the KJV. Charlatans love to use it because it’s not in understandable language and unscrupulous people ca put their spin on it and their victims can’t tell its just spin. Warning bell No. 1. beware of quotations from obsolete or oddball translations. Solution: check a couple of different modern translations!

Quoting a short string of words out of the Bible is not quoting the Bible. What I mean is the Bible is a big book, it is not that hard if you look far enough for you to find a string of words in it that taken just on their own say just about anything. Put them back in their context as part of a chapter or a whole narrative and they don’t mean that at all. It is a favorite trick of people from complete charlatans to honest folk who want to get an edge in an argument to delve into the Bible and dig out sound bites. Soundbites work. They stick in people’s heads, they win arguments. But that way the Bible can be made out to say just about anything. Warning bell No.2 : Short quotations may be misquotations. Solution: read a slice either side until you can see what the whole passage of the Bible is saying.

Just as “one swallow doesn’t make a spring” One statement in the Bible - even if you have checked the two warnings above, cannot establish anything important. As I have already said the important lessons run like a thread right through the Bible.

Also some parts of the Bible are hard to understand, or can be interpreted different ways. The rules are:

1. use the really clear bits of the Bible to set the interpretation of difficult or ambiguous bits.
2. never accept an interpretation of one part of the Bible means to opposite of what the Bible says in other parts.
   
   

Warning Bell No.3 Important lessons are repeated often in the Bible: Solution if you are reading slabs of the Bible you will automatically (and the Holy Spirit will help you too) start get a feel for what is important.

So let me play out the three warning bells in this case. I’ll go from 3 to 1 for some dramatic effect.

Warning Bell 3; Does that teaching crop up all through the Bible? … Fred has read this “wonderful” book that tells him that we humans should give the orders and God should obey them. Proof text “Command ye me saith the Lord” (Isaiah 41.11(b)). Even if you have only read a tiny bit of the Bible does that sound right? No! You can’t get very far in the Bible without finding that we humans are meant to obey God not the other way round! ( Example read through John chapters 14 & 15 and see how many times Jesus things like “if you love me you will obey my commandments”!

So Fred should have been on guard, he should have suspected he was being deceived into deserting God. Then he could have done some digging for himself in the Bible and really quickly satisfied himself that obedience to God’s commands is what the Bible teaches, and he could have thrown that book out. But he didn’t.

Warning Bell 2: Do the words bear that interpretation in context. ….. Fred has been sold on this slice of words “command ye me saith the Lord” with the interpretation that God says that we his masters and inviting us to give him our orders. Well those words – cut out as they are from any background – could mean that. They are in KJV English and our language has changed so much in 400 years that we may be totally misunderstanding even these words, but for the moment we will play along with the trickster and use the KJV ourselves. Oh yes, we can beat this one even playing with his loaded dice!

Look at Isaiah 45 in KJV. (I will summarize some bits but feel free to check yourself) Chapter 40 in Isaiah heralds a change in theme from events of King Hezekiah’s time before the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and took the people off into exile in Babylon, to a message of hope for the survivors some 70 years after the exile and getting them ready for God’s plan to bring them back to Jerusalem. Chapter 40 begins with the stirring “Comfort, comfort my people …. Tell them …. Their warfare is ended … they have been paid double for all their sins … make a highway in the desert …. Tell the towns of Judah ‘Your God is coming’…” and then it talks about how much greater God is than the “gods” of the nations. Then by chapter 43 God is assuring them that he has it all planned, he is going to destroy the Babylonians who took them captive. God has ordained it that Jerusalem will be rebuilt. Then God drops the bombshell at the beginning of chapter 45: he is going to do this by the hand of Cyrus the Persian, a pagan who does not even know God exists! I am going to suggest that that would be a real problem for the devout Jews who heard it. I am going to suggest that the next section – which I will paste in from the KJV – is God saying essentially “look people, it’s my way or … my way! I AM God!)

 ⁹Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands?

 ¹⁰Woe unto him that saith unto his father, What begettest thou? or to the woman, What hast thou brought forth?

 ¹¹Thus saith the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me.

 ¹²I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded.

 ¹³I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways: he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward, saith the LORD of hosts

So even in KJV that word string “command ye me” at the end of verse 11 cannot mean what the false teachers were claiming !… Is God inviting them to tell him how to run the show? Not at all

Right from saying clay doesn’t tell the potter what to do (v9) through to “I have raised him (Cyrus) up and I will direct all his ways: he shall build my city (Jerusalem), and he shall let go my captives (the Jews)” the message is: God rules!

So “concerning the work of my hands command ye me” has to be a question with the answer understood: No! “Don’t even think about it!”

Warning Bell 1. Try other translations. I had to save this till last because it would have blown their claim out of the water straight off. That would have been too simple!

Look at just v. 11 from some other translations:

New Living Bible
¹¹ This is what the Lord says—
      the Holy One of Israel and your Creator:
   “Do you question what I do for my children?
      Do you give me orders about the work of my hands?

Contemporary English Version
¹¹I am the LORD, the Creator, the holy God of Israel.
   Do you dare question me about my own nation
   or about what I have done?

TNIV
¹¹ “This is what the LORD says— 
   the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker: 
Concerning things to come, 
   do you question me about my children, 
   or give me orders about the work of my hands?

How did it end for Fred? I tried to explain from the Bible but he had already been hooked. That is one reason I am writing this book, in my experience once people have been “hooked” by false teaching they frequently cannot hear the truth. As I stood there, open Bible in my hand pointing out what it really said, he replied simply: “this bible teacher has a multi-million dollar TV ministry: you just have a small church. I must believe him!” Some months later Fred (by then openly contemptuous of our “spiritual inferiority”) left our church, and I never saw him again.