an analogy to consider

Picture this:

A man enters a grocery store with a hand-written list prepared by his loving wife.

The first item on the list is romaine lettuce. He gets to the produce aisle, finds where they keep the fresh greens and asks himself, “Now, when she wrote romaine lettuce, did she really mean romaine lettuce, or did she mean iceburg? Perhaps she really meant to write spinach since she knows how much I enjoy spinach, or maybe she meant to write parsley, knowing that I love that minty taste after a good meal. That’s it. I’m sure she meant to write parsley.”

By now, you’re probably thinking, “No sane husband would ever play Russian Roulette with the ever-dreaded grocery list like that. He brings parsley home when she’s expecting romaine lettuce, and he won’t know what hit him!”

My point exactly.

We live in a world that constantly screams to us a very singular message: the Bible doesn’t really mean what it says. In fact, many “Christian leaders” teach that constructive Bible interpretation begins and ends with whatever you feel it says.

The Bible is very clear, though, about our need to avoid the thought system of this world and instead cling to those good and right teachings of Scripture. (John 17:6-18; Romans 12:1-2; Colossians 2:6-8, 3:1-3; 2 Peter 2:1-2, 18-20.)

Bottom line: We should not dare to approach God’s Word with a consumer mentality. If we glom on to the truths that we like and discard those that make us uncomfortable, we’re doing nothing short of playing Editor (with a capital ‘E’) with the Bible. Revelation 22:19 states, “…if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book.” (NASB)

Do you really want to go there?