or How to Take Bible Verses Out of Context in Order to Make Yourself Seem Right and Totally Disregard 2,000 Years of Church History, So That Everyone Can Be Included in the Kingdom of Heaven.
One of my college students recently brought home an article from their “Christian” college student newspaper. Well actually she first called me enraged at what one of her fellow students had written. “Jason, you are not going to believe this!” She said, and then she began to read me this sort of “story form” article about how this writer interacted with what seemed to be his Pastor in a Sunday School class.
To make a long story short he basically took a bunch of verses out of context in order to show that Jesus is going to allow those of “sincere” belief into heaven, no matter where there sincerity of belief lies. In other words if you are a Hindu and a gosh-darn committed one, why wouldn’t God let you into heaven. His basic problem is that the “Traditional” church way of explaining the Gospel leaves to many people out. He slams on his pastor for preaching out of Matthew 7 about the way being narrow and his Pastor not paying attention to the beginning where Jesus says not to judge. Of course this writer has missed the point entirely of Matthew 7 and fails to deal with the narrow way part at all. He does this with several other passages to prove his point. I do plan to interact with each point of his article at some time. This blog is sort of serving as a primer to future work.
The point is this kid is revered as humble on his campus. He accomplishes this I am told by the way he dresses and carries himself and with these sort of communication that are described above delivered in a philosophical tone. The problem is that anyone who claims this sort of “knowledge” of scripture is completely arrogant. Why? Look at my subtitle (Which comes alarmingly close to 1/8 of a puritan title, I know). Because in essence what he is saying is that for 2,000 years the church has got it wrong (I believe there was another young man who did this…Joseph Smith ring any bells?) This my friends is arrogance. Not only that but to say that Jesus is saying something different than what He is actually saying is blasphemy. To pit Jesus against Paul is to call some parts of the Bible uninspired! It is just unorthodox on so many levels.
This is not to say that we should not reach those who have no hope. We don’t exclude others from our sphere of influence because they have another belief system, but our goal is to show them that Christ is the only way. If we are to believe that the way is not narrow, and that there is no claim to call Jesus Christ the exclusive way to God, then He died for nothing.
