Careful What Your Read - Careful What You Listen To

Anyone who teaches something different is arrogant and lacks understanding. Such a person has an unhealthy desire to quibble over the meaning of words. This stirs up arguments ending in jealousy, division, slander, and evil suspicions. These people always cause trouble. Their minds are corrupt, and they have turned their backs on the truth. To them, a show of godliness is just a way to become wealthy. [Ephesians 6.4-5]

I was just speaking to a man this week who very dogmatically insists on the use of a concordance to understand the Bible.

First, I am not at all opposed to confirming the meaning of a word in the Bible using a concordance. However, when understanding of the Bible becomes dependent upon the definitions of a concordance, caution should be exercised.

Having said this, it is usually all too obvious that when extra-biblical materials must be relied on to explain the Bible, there is an underlying agenda. In the case of the man mentioned above, that agenda is white supremacy. He is convinced that by using a KJV Bible and a Strong's Concordance, one can ascertain that there is a preferred race and all others are worthy of destruction.

This really differs little from those who rely heavily upon Bible Commentaries. In far too many instances, Bible Commentaries exist to explain that what the Bible says is not what it means. If that's the case, why not just discard the Bible then and adopt the commentaries as our source of truth? As ludicrous as this sounds, many denominations rely on extra-biblical sources to support their particular denominational biases.

Not to be overlooked are the prosperity or faith teachers whose recorded teachings, books and pamphlets become the fodder of their followers who quote these leaders with as much conviction as they quote the Bible. The thing is, the Bible is rife with evidence that God indeed desires to bless His children, but to focus on the blessings while losing focus on the Blesser is likened to idolatry. The work of God's children on earth is to reconcile others to Him following Jesus' teaching and example. While miracles were used by Jesus, they were not His focus - nor should they be ours (even though we also should very much use them) in bringing God's love and salvation (Good News) to the world.

The shortcoming of extra-biblical materials is that the general "Christian" population is embarrassingly ignorant of God's Word all the while quoting preachers, teachers, books, commentaries and concordances as if they were as reliable as the Bible itself. I am thinking God doesn't really have "the warm fuzzies" about this fact.

As Paul pointed out to Timothy, misappropriated focus is usually easily identifiable by its arguments ending in jealousy, division, slander, and evil suspicions.

Hmm. We need to be careful what we read and careful what we listen to!

Father, may my heart and life focus be to love the world as You love the world. I want to reach the world as Jesus reached the world. I want my focus to be on Your Word as it fulfills Christ in me... Amen.