In presenting the final unintended corruption of Scripture sample in last week’s post,1 I noted in parentheses that there are those that intentionally misinterpret and apply Galatians 3:26-29 for their own end primarily to give women their version of equality. Now, I fully understand knowing the intent of the heart is exclusively the domain of God’s judgment which in fear, I also know He carries out (Proverbs 24:12; Jeremiah 17:9-10; John 2:23-24; 1 Corinthians 2:11, 4:1-5)! Nevertheless, those that corrupt Scripture typically expose their motive(s) by their supporting explanation(s). We judge their doctrine, actions and persons (Romans 16:17-20; 1 Corinthians 5; 1 Timothy 1:1-11, 4:12-16).
The foregoing statement of course, and the apostolic teaching in the New Testament passages cited flies in the face of the contemporary falsehood held throughout much of Western professing Christianity that there is no place of judgment among believers! However, this being so, where do local church, denominational and ministry leaders get off judging anyone’s doctrine and conduct as they govern, enlist those who serve or hire as examples? Some also wrongly confuse the apostle Paul’s instruction not to judge a brother in things God grants us freedom of conscience as a prohibition to judge at all (Romans 14). Biblically, nothing could be further from the truth! 2
In general, I prayerfully give most Bible teachers the benefit of the doubt about motive when from what I know about their love of Christ and the brethren, denomination (if any) and its tenets, doctrinal bent and broader context of their instruction a passage of Scripture is apparently corrupted by them. With others more knowledgeable that enrich me, I declare God’s Word as it is written in accord with His calling and gifting as a corrective in the course of the messages and instruction He gives me so that if they will, these Bible teachers can repent as I have had to do in my own journey; in obedience striving not to quarrel with anyone (Ezekiel 33:1-9; 2 Timothy 2:23-26).
To the end of doing “nothing against…but for the truth” of God in His Word (2 Corinthians 13:8, NKJV), at His directive I have also at times fervently cried out against what is the blatant corruption of Scripture, rebellious doctrines and deeds that follow. This includes the demonically inspired corruption of and casting aside of Scripture to justify adopting the worldly feminist view of women’s equality that is widely evident among American churches (1 Timothy 4:1-2).3 Besides Galatians 3:26-29, other Bible passages such as Genesis 3:16b are corrupted to tarnish and undo God’s original purposeful design of male headship as I write in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics.4
Genesis 3:16b is wickedly interpreted to be God imposing male headship as a judgment upon Eve instead of as a clarifying directive to her and the women coming after. God’s clarifying command is obviously needed and firmly given since Eve ignored the facts from the ground that her husband was created first and tasked to lead! She also willfully usurped him to lead them both into sin (1 Timothy 2:11-14). If Genesis 3:16b is punitive, who authorized it to be revoked? The pastors, elders, churches and other entities that have unilaterally chosen to corrupt or set aside God’s Word to dismiss His order of mankind from creation have committed grave transgression and iniquity.
Tragically for the guilty unless they repent, here briefly are some other intended corruptions of Scripture supporting false doctrines and wicked actions I have called out writing at length about or touched on briefly previously. One is the uniquely American constructed gospel of prosperity and health that falsely assures a Christian is to prosper financially, materially and physically at all times. This false teaching corrupts passages such as Malachi 3:8-12 spoken to Israel from the Law and 3 John 2 by couching it solely in covetous and material terms. A favorite for physical healing is Isaiah 53:5d though, the apostle Peter plainly shows its first priority application is spiritual (1 Peter 2:20-25).5
Many of those that practice manmade Christianity the religion purposely welcome devils into their midst as church members by willfully corrupting the Lord’s interpretation of His own “tares of the field” parable (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43, NKJV). He says the field is the world; they say the local church. A growing number of those among my ethnicity cry out corrupting Scripture, “black Jesus!” I understand why you do it after centuries of corruptly having a “white Jesus” shoved in our faces. Do “two wrongs make a right?” Not His typical as foretold 1st century Jew in the land olive complexion saves, but faith in His red blood poured out for all our sins (Isaiah 53:1-6; 1 Peter 1:8; 1 John 3:1-3)! Finally, believers “left behind” at any return of Christ corrupts His promise in John 12:26 and 14:1-3.6
God graciously calls professed Christian male and female feminists with all of the guilty corrupters of His Word to repent since you cannot serve Him and the world (Luke 16:1-18)! Either God’s unchanging Word is right for all time or it has not been from the beginning. Neither God nor His Word evolves with the times of sinful flesh (Psalm 119:144, 152; Matthew 24:35). And if one believes only certain liked parts, but rejects the rest of the Word haven’t you become an evil judge of God who inspired it all (2 Timothy 3:16-17)? If you are ashamed of biblical Christianity, why don’t you just walk away? Your end as a rebel is the same (Mark 8:34-38; Hebrews 10:26-31)! Therefore, receive God’s grace and repent or in proud obstinacy, His eternal damnation (Mark 9:42-48).
1 Read the September 12, 2021 post, Unintended Corruptions Of Scripture, under the category, Call To Repent.
2 The same apostle of Jesus Christ that instructs refraining from judging each other in liberties God grants us, also teaches in appropriate instances of doctrine and conduct that corrupts or violates apostolic teaching (now, Scripture) we are to judge; meting out discipline in accord with God’s Word as it is written (Matthew 18:15-20)! This is im- possible when a relative few honors God’s Word this way. Hence, the spiritual chaos and conflict that is raging across Christendom.
3 To be sure, the motives I have encountered for doing this by those convinced that God sees things their way in childishness, emotion, experiences and worldly thinking run the evil gambit of supporting justifications (see all five of my May 2015 posts, under the category, The Cause). Most common among the justifications is agreement with the world that Scripture is out of step with the times followed closely by the noble sounding objective of making the local church more acceptable to prospective worldly visi- tors and future members to increase the numbers. Is Christ’s Church about numbers by any means or in obedience preaching the Gospel and letting Him add to it those to be saved (Acts 2:36-47)?
4 You can pick up a copy of my book at your favorite internet book seller and in the Strong Man Store.
5 The better verse in Isaiah 53 for hope in the Lord’s willingness to physically heal is 4a quoted in that sense as “fulfilled” by Matthew as he described the healing ministry of Christ in Israel (Matthew 8:16-17, NKJV). Not everyone was healed back then, nor is this the case today usually due to unbelief, but also the sovereign will of God (Mark 6:1-6; 2 Corinthians 12:1-10). Has the Lord healed folk who were standing on Isaiah 53:5d? Yes and why? The Lord Jesus ultimately honors faith in Him (Matthew 9:18- 22)! His stripes work God’s priority spiritual healing or restoration to relationship with Him and the resulting benefits as Paul celebrates in Romans 5:6-11 and throughout his Epistles along with Peter as cited.
6 If a professed Christian is to be “left behind” by Christ in an any moment, secret appearing as the Tim LaHaye fictional work asserts or His biblically taught one and only globally seen and heard Second Coming, it would mean he or she was not an authentic Christian (Matthew 7:21-23), an apostate or a neglectful, unfruitful and disobedient servant (Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23, 24:45-51). In the false secret instance of Christ’s appearing, professed Christians that missed the cut are able to go through the “great tribulation” as a sort of Protestant version of purgatory to earn a second chance to be with Him eternally (Matthew 24:15-28, NKJV). In the biblical instance of Christ’s Second coming, there is no second chance; you are either faithfully in with Him at His appearing and Kingdom or left out forever (Matthew 24:29-31, 36-44, 25:1-13)!
Listening to Bible teachers without really studying the passages being taught in my Christian infancy especially, I like perhaps many of you accepted without question what was being said. For me, it was not that the teacher was a media star or mega church pastor, it was my own ignorance and the acceptance church folk around me granted to what was being taught along with the authority figure--mostly a pastor--teaching it. This is how error is perpetuated even by those who know better as the apostle Paul showed in his letter “to the churches of Galatia;” rebuking Peter for his hypocrisy and exposing the active complicity of Barnabas in the process (Galatians 1:1-2, 2:11-13, NKJV).
As the Holy Spirit deepened my diligence as a Bible student, I began to be more intentional to compare what was being taught to me by whomever with what the Scriptures actually said. My purpose was not to be anyone’s critic, but to protect myself from being led into error and avoid teaching it to others knowing God is deadly serious about the consequences of doing so (James 3:1; 2 Peter 3:14-18). This does not mean I think myself infallible. But fearing God “the Word” who is, I seek to be as careful as possible to say only what Scripture says knowing He will not fault that nor the plain exposition of it after receiving His instruction (Psalm 119:97-104, 113-120; John 1:1, NKJV)!1
No one claiming to love God shown as Christ Himself teaches by obedience in first priority (John 14:15) not emotion (so prevalent in much of post-modern professing Christianity), can long purposely believe and teach error to His people who he is also supposed to love (John 21:15-17)! Yet, having been in biblical error myself, I painfully know how easy it is to unintentionally slip into it as Peter did among the Galatians; whose rebuke from Paul no doubt, snapped him back to spiritual sobriety leading to repentance.2 Or else, how do we have his two letters written after this unless the Lord had inspired and entrusted a forgiven Peter to write them (1 Peter 1:1-2; 2 Peter 1:1-2:3)?
Only by his compromising actions in error had Peter not been “straightforward about the truth of the gospel” causing other Jews watching him to follow suit and misleading the Gentile believers in their midst (Galatians 2:14-21, NKJV). What about the many unintended corruptions of God’s written Word that are taught and persist as tradition within professing Christianity today? Do they not have the same negative outcomes in our contemporary churches as they did among those back in Galatia? Yes, and it is worse since all of what the Lord specifically wills for us is written in the New Testament as settled instruction!3 Here briefly are just three well practiced unintended corruptions of Scripture.
First, there is the “Jesus walked out of the tomb” corruption spoken by many preachers waxing eloquent on Easter. This is not minor. The four Gospels are clear that the women followed by Peter and John did come to an empty tomb. However, if the Lord had to wait until someone rolled the stone away to walk out of the tomb, the supernatural character of His resurrection is removed; His death questionable. The stone rolled away or found so reveals the empty tomb and reality Christ was not only raised in power leaving His burial strips intact, but after neatly folding the cloth on His head, “vanished” as He also did later (Matthew 28:1-8; Mark 16:1-8; Luke 24:1-31; John 20:1-10, NKJV)!
A second unintended corruption is repeated by many well known and meaning Bible teachers seeking to give assurance of salvation to believers. They quote only the first half of Romans 8:1 stressing “There is therefore now no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus” and leave the absolutely essential conditional second part “who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” unspoken (NKJV). As the immediate context in chapter seven clearly shows, Paul is not attempting to give believers eternal security in Romans 8:1, but begins to triumphantly declare the superior experience we have serving God in the power of the Holy Spirit rather than through the flesh! Condemnation is the only outcome for those who attempt to please God in the flesh (Romans 8:2-17).
Last, Galatians 3:26-29 is unintentionally corrupted by some (others, intentionally) to literally remove all mortal distinctions of ethnicity, social condition or gender among Christians to the end primarily of giving what is called equality to women. It is fitting that we return to Paul’s letter to the churches of Galatia where Jewish legalism was also undermining the Gospel to close out this post and call the guilty to repentance. For as the Lord has led me to write before,4 in context, Paul in this passage plainly intends to comfort believers from all backgrounds that we have an equal eternal spiritual standing as sons of God in Christ Jesus! Nevertheless, he recognizes and teaches mortal distinctions to include for example, gender roles (1 Corinthians 11:3). Men are God’s elect leaders!5
1 There is no greater “Exegete” of God’s Word than God Himself! For this reason, the very first principle of sound Bible interpretation and application is prayer. Learn more sound principles of Bible interpretation in summary form by way of a free one sheet document the Lord led me to prepare to help those intent on “rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15, NKJV) you can download from the Strong Man Store. Understanding Scripture was never intended to be the exclusive domain of a relative few educated elite, but all and the lowliest among us who will be teachable by God (Psalm 119:33-35; Luke 24:44-45; James 1:5-8).
2 Besides the spiritual and biblical ignorance typical to newborn Christians along with the sin failures, flaws, faults and inconsistencies that have plagued me struggling to grow into maturity, I have transparently written in various places including my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics, about my initial fear of obedience driven compromise in error to honor manmade tradition over what Scripture teaches on the role of women in His house. Rebuked by God, like Peter, I repented as anyone read- ing this that is guilty should also do--unless, of course, you are greater than the apostle Peter! Read the September 20, 2020 post, What Will It Profit A Man?, under the category, The Cause. You can pick up a copy of the book at your favorite internet book seller and in the Strong Man Store.
3 The completed written New Testament we have today became widely accepted in the fourth century A.D.
4 See the September 8, 2019 post, Confusing The Issue, under the category, Call To Repent.
5 Paul and Peter are in harmony on this enduring point of biblical doctrine where it plays out first in the home (Ephesians 5:22-33; Colossians 3:18-19; Titus 2:1-5; 1 Peter 3: 1-7). In consistency, the apostle Paul also teaches how this doctrine is to be manifested and honored secondarily in the local churches (1 Corinthians 14:34-40; 1 Timo- thy 2:11-15). Not by corrupting God’s Word, but speaking and doing all things in accord with His will in it are Christians “salt,” “light” and distinctive in a dying world dark- ened in rebellion against Him (Matthew 5:13-16; Ephesians 5:8-14, NKJV)!
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