Bible Question (short): May I share a simple story to help? |
Question (full): There once was a old farmer, whose son returned from college with a degree in agricultural engineering. The old farmer took the son on a tour of all 10 of his fields, and told him that he wanted to give them all to his son as an inheritance. Before, that though, he wanted him to do all the planting for one year. The old farmer took his son to each of the 10 fields, and told him what to plant; corn in this one, wheat in this one, potatoes in that one, etc. That night, the son decided to check up on his father's choices for planting based on all of the new techniques that he had learned in school. So he went out and tested the soil for pH, and nitrogen content, etc, and came to a surprising conclusion. His dad had actually been right at picking the best crop for 9 out of the 10 fields. The only field that was wrong was the cotton field. The soil there was just completely wrong for cotton. In fact, it probably wouldn't grow any at all. So the son planted all the fields, just like his father instructed, except for the cotton field, which he planted with peanuts instead so that the field wouldn't be wasted. As the summer progressed, all the fields grew very well, and when it came to harvest time, the old farmer decided to tour the farm. As he and his son came to the peanut field, he asked his son why there was not cotton there like he had instructed. The son explained that he had discovered that cotton would not have grown in that field, and so that it would not be wasted, he had planted peanuts instead. The old farmer shook his head and sadly told his son that he could no longer give him his farm, because the son had not followed his instructions. The son argued that he had followed his directions 9 out of 10 times, and had only disobeyed for the father's own good. But the old farmer explained that in truth, the son had just followed his own will 10 out of 10 times. It just so happened that their wills were the same 9 times. You see the old farmer knew that that cotton field wouldn't grow any cotton, but he wanted to see if the son would plant what the old farmer instructed, or what his own intelligence and study recommended. What he learned was that the highest authority for the son was himself, and not his father. Often, we treat God's Word the same way. We will take 10 passages, and follow 9 of them and then explain that the last one doesn't apply. We rationalize our interpretation by saying that it is not meant to be literal, or was only written for the people back then, or means something completely different in the original Greek or Hebrew. Then we say that God's Word is the authority in our lives. But this is not the truth. Our authority is ourselves. It is our logic, our knowledge of ancient culture or languages, our personal experiences. You see, if we can simply explain away one passage of scripture, then we could do that to any passage that we don't understand, or don't want to live by. Suddenly, we become the highest authority through which all Truth must pass to be approved, and this will inevitably cause us to lose the farm in the end. |