Understanding Scripture can be challenging. This challenge
gives opportunity to various churches and cults to twist Scripture to conform
to their own philosophy of life, each claiming that they alone have the ultimate
interpretive key. According to H. Wayne House, A Course in Miracles makes this claim:
·
Many people regard the doctrines presented in
[the two volumes of] A Course in Miracles
as Christian. The Course often speaks
of Jesus Christ, God, the atonement, sin, and other concepts reminiscent of
Christianity. When closely examined, however, it becomes apparent that the
meanings given to the Christian terminology reflect beliefs consistent with the
New Age movement. (“Charts of Cults,
Sects, & Religious Movements,” 91)
Consequently, to properly understand Scripture, it must be
seen through the lens of the New Age movement. The Way International also has their own lens by which to
understand Scripture. The founder, Victor Paul Wierwille, taught that only
certain Books were authoritative for the Church. Not even the Gospels were able
to make his cut:
·
So are the Gospels addressed to us? Not if the
Word of God is right, for Romans says that all Scripture before Pentecost is
for our learning, and the Gospels obviously come before the founding day of the
Church…The New Testament actually begins with the book of Romans…Hebrews is not
addressed to the Church…James is addressed to the same Old Testament minded
believers. (“Power for Abundant Living,”
207-13)
Therefore, in order to properly interpret the Scriptures,
they must be understood through the lens of particular Epistles selected by Wierwille.
Similarly, in The
Divine Principle, Sun Myung Moon had written that he too had been given the
key to understand the Scriptures:
·
“The Bible is not the truth itself but a
textbook teaching us the truth.” [What is needed] “is a new truth that can
elucidate the fundamental contents of the Bible so clearly that everyone can
recognize and agree with it.” “This new truth has already appeared. With the
fullness of time, God sent His messenger to resolve the fundamental questions
of life and the universe. His name is Sun Myung Moon. For many decades, he
wandered in a vast spiritual world in search of the ultimate truth…He came in
contact with many saints in Paradise and with Jesus, and thus brought into
light all the heavenly secrets through his communication with God.” (James Sire,
“Scripture Twisting,” 117)
Moon alone has the secrets to unlock the truths of
Scripture. In contrast, Paul refused to twist the Scriptures:
·
Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of
God, we do not lose heart. But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways.
We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open
statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in
the sight of God. (2 Corinthians 4:1-2)
The Biologos
Foundation, a Christian group funded to evangelize the churches in favor of
Darwin, has twisted the plain sense of the Word. In order to remove any
contradiction between the Bible and the theory of evolution, Biologos has taken the position that
Genesis 1-11 should not be taken as history but, instead, as mere theology. To
support their claim, they denigrate the teachings of the Bible about the
physical world as errantly influenced by the “science” of their day, the
Ancient Near-Eastern cosmology.
In this manner, Biologos
and other groups have violated the numerous Scriptural injunctions to not
tamper with the Scriptures by imposing upon it a foreign set of interpretive
rules:
·
You shall not add to the word that I command
you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God
that I command you. (Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32; Rev. 22:18-19)
This same stance is taken by many rabbis, according to
Orthodox Jewish writer David Klinghoffer:
·
Scripture is cryptic…The Pentateuch contained
innumerable textual difficulties…The Rabbis taught that what looked like
editing glitches in almost every verse were really allusions to esoteric
teachings. (David Klinghoffer, “Why the Jews Rejected Jesus,” 24)
How then do the rabbis interpret Scripture? They have their
own key – Gematria, taking the numerical value of each letter and deriving
meaning from the patterning of these numbers.
All of these attempts to apply their own key to the
interpretation of Scripture assume that the correct interpretation is
inaccessible to the ordinary reader, but is it? Not according to Moses:
·
"For
this commandment which I command you today is not too
mysterious for you, nor is
it far off. It is not in
heaven, that you should say, 'Who will ascend into heaven for us and bring it
to us, that we may hear it and do it?' Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, 'Who will go over the
sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?' But the word is very near you, in your mouth and
in your heart, that you may do it.” (Deut.
30:11-14)
Consequently, Israel had no excuse for their disobedience.
They couldn’t complain that they were unable to understand God’s Word; nor did they
ever use this excuse.
Also, Paul insisted that Scripture, even his own writings,
were accessible:
·
For we are not writing to you anything other
than what you read and understand and I hope you will fully understand—just as
you did partially understand us… (2 Corinthians 1:13-14)
Even if the Church didn’t fully understand Paul, he seemed to assure them that understanding was available, even if it might take some time.
Peter also acknowledged that some of the Scripture Paul had
written might be difficult to understand (at first):
·
And count the patience of our Lord as salvation,
just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom
given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these
matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand,
which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the
other Scriptures. (2 Peter 3:15-16)
It was not the uneducated believer who had twisted Paul’s
writings “to their own destruction,” but the “ignorant and unstable.” On the whole,
Paul’s writings were accessible at the moment. However, some of his other
teachings would require more time and maturity.
By this, Peter also suggested that his own writings were
easier to interpret. He never hinted that his own writings could be easily
twisted, perhaps because they were plainer.
Is there a secret key that we need to unlock the meaning of
Scripture? Some might recall that Jesus even used the word “key”:
·
“Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the
key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those
who were entering.” (Luke 11:52)
According to Jesus, the knowledge of Scripture itself is the
key, not a secret esoteric knowledge. It was a knowledge that those who knew
the Scriptures already had. However, they had self-righteously perverted it.
In a parallel verse, Jesus charged that it was the pride of
the Pharisees that had caused them to obscure the true meaning or key to the
Scriptures:
·
“Whoever exalts himself [like the Pharisees had
done] will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. But woe to
you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in
people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter
to go in.” (Matthew 23:12-13)
The problem wasn’t with the Scriptures. Instead, their
arrogance had blinded them to what Scripture actually taught. They had convinced
themselves that they deserved the blessings of God (Romans 3:19-20; 9:30-32).
Consequently, they blinded everyone else into believing that they could merit
their own righteousness through their obedience to the Law.
What then is the key to understanding Scripture? Simply this
– the Spirit working through an open and prayerful heart and mind!
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