Bible Question:
Does anyone see anything doctrinally unsound in the following: Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another. But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. Do ye think that the Scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain. And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain. Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain. |
Bible Answer: Uma: I wonder whether anyone sees anything unsound or confusing in the following "news item," which is composed of several sentences extracted verbatim from several articles that appeared on the front page of this morning's edition of my hometown newspaper, The Times Record: "Timmons is an associate professor at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith. The churches are really acting like churches. For people to vote a tax increase is always a push. More than 630 school-age children who escaped to Arkansas in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina have enrolled in the state's public schools. The Quorum Court is considering an expansion of the current jail." ..... These excerpts from one page of a newspaper are out of context, they are non sequiturs, they don't make sense, and can even invite false and ridiculous conclusions; as if, for example, the enrollment of 630 children from the Gulf Coast had something to do with the expansion of the local jail! ...... Now, if we can take snippets from a newspaper and put them together in a collage in such a way that they become absurd, misleading, and even comic -- and we can and I just did -- then what is to keep us from walking all over God's word in such a crass and outrageous manner? .... There are some 39 Shakespearean plays extant. One could select a line or two from King Lear, from Hamlet, from Romeo and Juliet, from Julius Caesar, or from any of the 35 other plays, and by careful manipulation make up any number of absurd "doctrines" from the Bard. But is this sort of adulteration of his works fair to Shakespeare or fair to the readers of such out-of-context quotations? Of course it isn't. Yet hardly a day goes by that one doesn't see on this Forum a scissors job being done to the Bible in some vain effort to prove a point or tout a false teaching. ..... How many times have some of us who contribute regularly to the Forum stressed context...context...context! ..... It's odd indeed that some of the very folks who can readily see my ridiculous error in pulling lines from a newspaper out of context think nothing of doing it with Scripture. --Hank |