Please Understand How Important This Is!

This post is explaining my motives behind writing spiritually “heavy” or deeply theological things, which may appear unnecessary or exhausting. Or when it seems like theological mumbo jumbo. I want you to know I am aware it may not apply to you personally or speak to you where you are at in your walk with the Lord at this time.

The reason for me writing those kinds of posts is I am attempting to point out, and hopefully address, some things which seem to be missing from the pulpit, in many churches. My purpose is to reach the Pastor or Bible teacher so that they might address these kinds of things to their congregations in person, or online. I have heard that an individual will not grow in their walk with God beyond that of the individual they look up to for spiritual direction. And since this is the case, we have a severe problem in our generation. The problem is biblical illiteracy in both the pulpit (in many churches these days) and with the average church-going Christian. Most Christians, according to statistics, live off their feelings together with “maybe” a short daily devotion (at best) and at worst, TikTok videos sharing a verse here or there (out of context). The result of this is spiritual malnutrition. I am not saying the Holy Spirit does not work with our feelings, but our feelings apart from wisdom (the truth from God’s Word) is dangerous. Therefore, when I write “theologically heavy” posts I am trying to get you to dig into your Bible and know for yourself what is true, and I am trying to get you to spread the message to Pastors and Bible teachers who “may be” preaching sermons simply from what they were taught at a seminary years ago but who have not taken the time to examine the scriptures with fresh eyes void of some “lens” imposed upon the text which they may have been taught to read through. Here is an example, if I read the Bible through the lens of John Calvin (Calvinism) then I will see the verses through “his” lens and what he taught. Or if I was raised as an Arminianist (Arminianism) and went to a Bible College that taught through that lens then I will read the Bible from that point of view, etc. These things, as history has shown, totally affect our interpretation of the Bible. The thing is, whether we realize it or not, we all read the Bible through one lens, or another, based on who taught us how to understand scripture.

Because of this, I believe the way to move forward, so that we all can read the same Bible and understand it the same way, is to study the Bible using “its own” method of interpretation. This is called Biblical Theology. It is reading it as if you were there sitting in the congregation of say Ephesus listening to Paul’s message, or if you were listening to Jesus teach in Jerusalem. Or if you were with the Apostle John on the island of Patmos during the writing of the book of Revelation. The key is to read each book of the Bible as its own individual book and to read each book in the isolated context that it was written. What I mean is Paul wrote certain things to certain churches for certain reasons. And if we start by asking “who is he writing to, why is he writing, and what is the letter to that church saying as a whole, then that is a good place to start. [And that is just the starting place. We build our understanding from there and then we can move into how prophecy was used and interpreted in the Old Testament and how it is used in the New Testament. Knowing that Prophecy has an immediate context and a future context. Prophecy is in time and outside of time. It is fulfilled in that generation and simultaneously has fulfillment in a later generation. But that is a different subject than what I am writing about today].

Now, why is this so important? Because when we accurately read and interpret the Bible, we receive as a result a healthy or correct view of God and His nature, of ourselves, and of the world around us. And when we rightly understand the Bible, it naturally informs our worldview. And our worldview is the lens we use to view everything. And seeing life the way God has communicated it to us (a Biblical perspective) will help us navigate daily life. Including how we view money, work, health, sickness, death, politics, the present, and the future, and all of life’s difficulties, with hope from a promise-keeping Savior and Lord.

Therefore, I post so that we might see things and feel things according to the Holy Spirit, who expresses Himself to us through living words which were written down for our understanding, growth, and hope.