The Assembly Of A Bible Study: There is no room for creative liberty!

I had recently wrote an article, located here, where I discussed that although there is no right or wrong time to spend time studying God's word there are times when it is unwise to study Scripture. One such time is when your fatigued and frustrated from the stresses of the day. The reason for this in order to glean the message that God has for us in his word one has to take into account both its historical and philosophical influences. The Bible is a theological book but its theology is not written in a vacuum; it has a historical backdrop and it provides its own philosophy so to understand its theology. This means that Scripture isn't merely a theological book that contains some historical facts and provides various ways to look at various aspects of life - it is a historical, theological and philosophical book. And in order to recognize how these academic studies are knitted together one has to be fully alert in both mind, heart and body.

Another point to consider is that Scripture has an overall message and various acute messages for the Christian to learn and represent. In the aforementioned article, I alluded to the fact that the natural instinct of the human mind is to gravitate to its own form of thinking, a form that is corrupted by sin. Therefore one hard task that the Christian has to overcome is to let the Bible teach them and not have them use the Bible to teach their perspective. Scripture has specific morals and perspectives on various aspects of life; such aspects include views on the nature of right and wrong, various sexual practices, relationships between people in various social roles such as government officials, employers, teachers, friends, family and strangers. Scripture also teaches about the nature of God and how he responds to human sin and obedience and what constitutes as sinful and obedience. It is important to interpret its teachings through its own philosophy instead of the various philosophies adopted by sinful mindset, (cf. Colossians 2:8). In some when Studying Scripture there is no room for creative liberty.

In the article alluded to above I indicated that I have recently gotten into assembling plastic model vehicles and the lessons I learned through the assembly of various models. One of my first models I did was a Ferrari FXX. With this model, my goal was to mimic the picture on the box, right down to the right shade of red and the smallest decal. However the latest model I did, a Kenworth T900 "Australia" truck, things were different. Although I did want to mimic the picture on the box I chose to veer off on the aesthetics and give the body a personalized paint job. The picture on the box required that I airbrush the body of the truck in a rich desert type of yellow. However in order to do this I had to mix three different kinds of base paints in specific portions. The problem was however I didn't have those three base colours nor an airbrush. I didn't want to make the trip back out to the store to get those three paints nor spend over $100.00 on an airbrush and so I compromised. Instead I painted the top half of the body a dark metallic-blue and the bottom half metallic black and then hand painted flames over the bottom half with red and yellow paint.

Was their anything wrong with compromising on the intended aesthetic design of the truck? Considering that "beauty is in the eyes of the beholder" of course not. I did a simple google image search of the 'Kenworth T900' for inspiration and I was presented with hundreds of pictures of this truck with a variety of paint-jobs ranging from white or dark-green with decorative stripes to solid colours like dark blue or red. However what if I compromised on a physical aspect of my model T900 by neglecting the trailer hitch, also known as the fifth-wheel? Outside of making it look incomplete, nothing as I am not going to invest the money into building a box for my toy truck. However what if Kenworth compromised the physical design of the T900 and left out the fifth-wheel? The T900 would loose its purpose, that is to haul heavy loads.

Is there anything wrong with compromising on the facets of Christian theology? Truth is not akin to a paint-job for a vehicle; it is akin to a vital piece of the vehicle. If the owner of a T900 gave their truck a new paint-job or changed another aesthetic feature like giving it new hubcaps the only cost for the driver would be to his or her bank account. The truck's ability to function would be still intact. However offering alternative perspectives to what is truth, as an alternative to truth is akin to the T900 truck driver replacing their properly calibrated GPS with one that is mis-calibrated. A GPS has no preferential value; it doesn't make the vehicle look nicer nor cause it to function better; it simply allows the driver to successfully get from point-A to point-B.

However it could be argued that the GPS is not a vital piece of the vehicle. If the driver knows where to go and how to get there a GPS is useless. This is true however there is a difference between knowing the truth of getting somewhere because of one's mental roadmap and knowing the truth of reality. Answers to the big questions such as the meaning of life and the true nature of God is something that the naturally sinful mind is oblivious too. Jesus points this out. In a discussion with the Pharisees about who their God was Jesus states:

“If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.” - John 8:42-47

Jesus is using linguistics to make his point. His point is the sinful human being's natural mother-tongue is lies and deceit. The natural sinful state cannot speak nor understand truth. Human beings cannot know God on their own cognitive ability because they are naturally driven to recognize God but not treat him as such (cf. Romans 1:21). Jesus states that if the sinful human being really knew him we would love him, in sum recognize him as God and treat him as God. This is why human beings are naturally incapable of knowing the true God as everyone recognizes God's existence but are blinded to who this God is. Scripture is a correctly calibrated GPS that will guide us to the truth of reality. It is this truth that allows the correct perspective on truths throughout academia.

However other theists believe that their holy-books, e.g. the Quran, the Book of Mormon, the Jehovah Witness', New World Translation, etc. is the correctly calibrated GPS for life? How can one determine which of life's GPS' is the correct one? ANSWER: When one examines the content of the text in light of objective facts such as history, the sciences and logic. When one takes creative-liberty with the vital piece of life, namely 'the truth' they are recalibrating reality's GPS. This will cost the person clarity and will result in, with 100% certainty, delusion. The person will believe wholeheartedly what they are offered as fact. In conclusion when studying God's word listen to what he has to say in light of the textual and academic context he provides it in. Thus don't be creative with the word of truth!