SCRIPTURE ISN’T A MYSTICAL CROSSWORD PUZZLE (PART II)

“If Math Problems Aren’t Solved by Lighting Candle or Burning Incense, Why Do You Suppose They’ll Work for Deciphering Scripture?”

By Akin Ojumu

Truth hurts. Criticism stings. Calling out erroneous doctrines aggrieves. It doesn’t matter how calm, how nuanced, how polite, how respectful, how gentle, or how genteel you say it, when you denounce false teachings, false teachers and their fans don’t take it kindly.

Yet, if we don’t offend, we can’t correct. If we don’t correct, we can’t heal. If we don’t heal, people are going to die. To stand by and watch and let people die, simply because we are afraid of offending, is an untenable posture my conscience would not allow me to assume. 

So, even if it results in me getting punched in the face, as long as God gives me the ability, I’m going to continue to decry the rot at the heart of the modern-day religious industrial complex erroneously called ministries. 

If it means standing all alone by myself, I will not stop sounding the alarm that your Daddy GO, your holy General Superintendent, your prosperous Bishop, and your apostles of realms and dimensions are all spiritual Pied Pipers who, with their doctrines of demons and destructive heresies, are leading you all down the broad road that leads to destruction.

The critical truths of Scripture have long before me been interpreted accurately. The critical doctrines, the critical interpretations, the challenging difficult passages, have all been interpreted by a long line of faithful men in the history of the Church. How sad it is to see contemporary Christians completely disconnected from the vast, rich legacy of illumination by the spirit of God in the lives of these great men of the past.

The greatest problem that exists in the Church today is lack of spiritual discernment. There’s nothing worse than an undiscerning Christian, someone who can’t tell truth from error. Lack of discernment is like spiritual HIV/AIDS. Just as people don’t die of HIV/AIDS itself but of different types of co-occurring diseases caused by the compromise of the immune system, the Church has a case of spiritual HIV/AIDS and the spiritual immune system of church folks have been compromised, and they are dying from a thousand heresies.

Unless we clarify doctrine, unless we defend threatened truth, unless we guard the truth of Scripture, unless we expose error, we are not faithful brokers of God’s Word. We are leaving the very people we call “brothers” and “sisters” vulnerable to the ravenous wolves and the rapacious jackals who are running loose and are on the rampage inside the Church.

Jude 1:3

“Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.”

Last time, we established the fact that God’s Truth is objective. Authentic Christianity understands that the Scripture is an objective…absolute…divine truth. No person has ever had in himself any idea or any experience or any thought or any intuition that determines the truth. The truth is already determined by God and revealed in Scripture. No human individually, no humans collectively are sources for establishing the truth. Neither is any angelic being a source for establishing the truth.

In this installment of the commentary series, we’ll examine another attribute of God’s Truth. And that is its rationality. Just as the Truth of God is objective, so also is the God’s Truth rational. The objective revelation of God in Scripture must be understood rationally.

For years we’ve heard preachers tell their followers to listen for the voice of God. They’ll say, “Listen for God to speak in your mind, listen for God to speak in your heart and show you what He wants you to do and show you the meaning of Scripture, blah blah blah!” 

Like the typical Buddhist practitioner, they tell their audience to empty their mind of everything. “Create a vacuum of nothingness in your mind and let God fill it with some revelation of Himself unique to you,” you hear them say. 

Such an approach to understanding the Truth of Scripture is mystical, not biblical. It is irrational, not objective. Folks who promote this sort of practice fail to understand that an objective revelation of God is to be understood rationally. 

What does that mean exactly? Well, it’s simple. The objective revelation of God in His Word must be understood by the application of normal human reasoning, and by applying the normal human mental faculties. 

Scripture is not a mystical book. Understanding it does not require a mystical means. You don’t lead stirring – aka soaking – music playing in the background. You don’t have to light candles. You don’t have to put on incense in the room to create some spiritual aroma as many do. You don’t have to turn out the lights and try to empty your mind so God can deposit something there. To understand Scripture, what you do is to sit your behind down, put your head down, go to work to work and study hard, utilizing your intellect and deploying your mental faculties.

Scripture is logical because God is logical. Scripture is non-contradictory because God is non-contradictory. Scripture is clear because God is clear. There are no errors, no discrepancies, no lies, no unsound truths, no fantasies, no absurdities, no inconsistencies, no myths. It is infallible, it is inerrant, it is true and it is to be understood by normal mental powers.

2 Timothy 2:15 

“Study to show yourself approved of God, a workman needing not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth.”

Understanding Scripture demands a mental exercise, not a mystical one. In the great revival in Nehemiah, when Ezra brought the Scripture, and they read it for most of the day. And it says that after they read it, they gave the sense of it. And the people understood it and they repented and a great revival broke out.

Nehemiah 8:6-8

“And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. Also…the Levites helped the people to understand the Law, while the people remained in their places. They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.”

They read from the Book of the Law of God, and the Levites clearly explained the meaning of what was being read, helping the people understand each passage. That requires a mental and rational exercise, not a mystical gobbledygook.

Scripture is understood by the process of reason, in the same way you would solve a math problem, in the same way you would solve a science problem, in the same way you would solve any issue, the same way you would deal with an engineering problem, or any other problem that you are trying to solve.

You put your brain in gear. You are not going to solve a math problem in your calculus class by lighting candles, turning on the incense and hoping something comes down out of the sky or mystically appears. You are not going to understand the Bible that way either.

And, of course, the meaning of the Scripture is the Scripture. By “Scripture” I mean the writings from God. Scripture is the meaning of Scripture. If you don’t have the meaning, you don’t have the Scripture. If you don’t know what it means, you haven’t heard God.

The meaning of the Scripture is the Scripture. And the worst thing you can do is take it and abuse it and make it mean what you’ve already predetermined you want it to mean to fit your scheme. The Truth of Scripture is in the meaning. The Truth of Scripture is in the interpretation of the words themselves. And this is an exercise in reason. You use your mind and your mental faculties.

To be continued.

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Reference & Attribution: This commentary is adapted from Pastor John MacArthur’s teaching titled, “The Authoritative Nature of Truth.”