Let the Light In by Colin McCartney

Author:Colin McCartney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MennoMedia
Published: 2020-06-07T00:00:00+00:00

NINE

Reading the Bible through a Jesus Lens, Part One

Every one of us brings our own presuppositions to our understanding of what we read in the Bible. This is why we can find a wide variety of interpretations on the same passages. To help us clear up this confusion, we need an outside authority that can help us work through our own personal biases toward what we are reading in the Bible. This is where a Jesus lens comes in. But how does this Jesus lens work? How do we operate a Christ-centered jeweler’s loupe so that Jesus opens the Scriptures to us?

A good example of how important it is to have a Jesus lens is found in a recent sermon I heard from a very highly esteemed preacher who reads the Bible without a Jesus lens. I share this with you as an example of the importance of reading Scriptures correctly. In his sermon, this pastor defended earlier comments he had made in which he declared that God hates us because we are sinners. The certainty of his belief in God’s loathing toward us was based on Psalm 5:5-6 taken from the English Standard Version of the Bible, from which the pastor was preaching. “The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers. You destroy those who speak lies; the LORD abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.”

This Scripture, when read as a flat text, does state that God hates all evildoers. Not only that, but it claims that God destroys those who speak lies and abhors bloodthirsty and deceitful men. This pastor claimed to only be stating what the Bible says. Since we are all guilty of doing evil, lying, and being deceitful, he argued that God really does hate us and has every right to destroy us. After all, this is exactly what these words say when read with a flat reading of the Bible.

However, if you read this passage through a Jesus lens, you will be left with many questions, and that is a good thing because questions lead to truth. In this case, your Jesus lens would have detected that you are looking at a counterfeit diamond, as you would see the great contradiction between God’s apparent hatred toward sinners and Jesus’ great love of sinners, which would immediately raise questions like the following:

Since Jesus is the exact representation of God, how can a Christlike God hate people?

Is God even capable of hating people?

Since Jesus loved sinners and enjoyed being in their presence by eating and drinking with them, why would this passage state that God hates, abhors, and seeks to destroy sinners? Jesus certainly did not act this way toward sinners, so how could God view sinners in such an opposite way from Jesus?

Jesus told us to love our enemies. Doesn’t this command apply to God as well?

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.