How I See It

I have learned in my short time as a pastor that people can make the Bible say anything they want. This is called "eisegesis". It means that you read into the text something that is not there. Instead of allowing God's Word (through the Spirit) speak to you, you come to the text with a conclusion already in mind trying to prove that theory. This is a scary thing because over the centuries it has caused multiple divisions, splits, feelings of superiority and a "holier than Thou" mentality. Not good. It is very easy to do this because we all bring our own preconceived ideas to the Scriptures. We bring our personality and our life experiences as well.

I have to believe, though, that deep down the motivation is to truly know God better. Christians sincerely want to follow God and do right - but sometimes, even when we know the right thing to do, we will make excuses claiming that we need more information.

Sometimes when we know, without a doubt, that God's Spirit is moving us to act in love, we try to look for more information to cause us to evade doing God's will. Understanding God's Word really isn't that difficult if you interpret it through the life of Jesus. He summed up the whole law and prophets in two commands :Love God and love neighbor. In one word: Love.

Yet there are times that we try to protect ourselves from doing God's will by making it seem as if we need more scholarly information. "It can't be that easy" we say. "To simply love? There has to be more study, more debate, more theological reflection". In reality what we are doing is making an excuse - refusing to do what we know the Spirit is prompting us to do.

When we approach the Bible from the life of Jesus (Christocentric view) I think we will have a much easier time understanding the word of God and knowing His will. Jesus was the best expression of God's will for us in the flesh. He was the best representation of how we are to live. He showed us the way - at least that's how I see it.