CREATIVE SCRIPTURE READING

alternate textA recent article in the Time Magazine was entitled “What the Bible Has to Say About Sex.” The article was based upon a book by Michael Coogan on the same topic, in which he looked into questions like “Does the Bible have a positive attitude towards sex?”; “Is polygamy sanctioned in the Bible?”; “What is the Bible’s view on abortion?””; “How do we know that Adam and Eve were married?” and “How were women treated sexually in Biblical times?” One of the comments on this article came from a reader who did not think much of the way people tend to use (or abuse) Scriptures or “The Bible” to support their own view on almost any subject under the sun. This reader commented angrily:

The Bible is the world’s longest-running, most widely read, and least deservedly respected Rorschach Test. You can see in it whatever you want to see, find whatever you want to find … It’s because man created God in his own image.”

Let’s not proceed into a discussion on what Scriptures have to say about sex – although this is something that we need to do, on a regular base, in the light of all the confusion, abuse and immorality that we have come to see in this area over recent years – not only globally, but right here in our own community and our own schools. In a local school the subject of sex, and sexual harassment, caused something like a volcanic eruption this past week, and the ripple effect of this eruption was something that both pupils and teachers – and even the parents at home – have felt very severely. But let us put the subject of sexual harassment aside, at least for the moment, and come back to the comment of this disillusioned reader in the Time Magazine (by the name of Richard): “The Bible is the world’s longest-running, most widely read, and least deservedly respected Rorschach Test. You can see in it whatever you want to see, find whatever you want to find … It’s because man created God in his own image.”

Perhaps not everyone knows what a Rorschach Test is. It is a psychological test in which different patterns of inkblots are shown to a person. What one person “sees” in these inkblots, will usually be different from what another sees in them and may tell something about how individuals differ from one another and how each person’s interpretation and perception of the surrounding world may be influenced by factors like childhood memories, emotional trauma, disturbing experiences, etcetera. The bottom line is: different people will see different contexts and different images, by looking at exactly the same picture.

In the same way, Richard wrote in his comment to Time Magazine, different people are looking at exactly the same Book, and sometimes even exactly the same verse, but they see in that verse something very different from what someone else is seeing in it. People tend to see and hear in Scriptures what they want to see, not what the Author wants them to see. People tend to approach Scriptures with an agenda, a wish list – a list of things that they are hoping to find in Scriptures, coupled with another list of things that they do not wish to see in Scriptures. This is what Shaúl had in mind when he wrote to Timothy: “For there shall be a time when they shall not bear sound teaching, but according to their own desires, they shall heap up for themselves teachers tickling the ear, and they shall indeed turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to myths” (2 Tim 4:3-4).

Not that this phenomenon is surfacing in our day for the first time. Even the prophet YermeYahu (Jeremiah) knew and wrote about this phenomenon.

Jer 5:31 The prophets have prophesied falsely, and the priests rule by their own hand, and My people have loved it so. And what are you going to do at the end of it?

Jer 14:14 Then Yahweh  said to me, “The prophets prophesy falsehood in My Name. I have not sent them, nor commanded them, nor spoken to them. They are prophesying to you a false vision, worthless divination, and the deceit of their own heart.

Jer 18:18 Then they said, “Come and let us devise plans against Yirmeyahu, for the Torah shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come and let us smite him with the tongue, and let us not listen to any of his words.”

Jer 23:16 Thus said Yahweh, “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, they lead you astray. They speak a vision of their own heart, not from the mouth of Yahweh.

Jer 29:8 “For thus said Yahweh, Elohim of Yisraél, ‘Let not your prophets and your diviners who are in your midst deceive you, neither listen to the dreams which you are dreaming.

The very same thing is happening on a very broad scale in our day. Sometimes the way people are misquoting certain Scriptural texts is so obvious and so blatant, that it gives rise to a good laugh. Like the person who wanted the president of his country to resign, who sent a quote from Scriptures to the Parliament: “Let his days be few, Let another take his office” (Ps 109:8).

The need for looking at context.

Pro 22:15 Folly is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of discipline drives it far from him.

Psa 53:1 The fool has said in his heart, “There is no Elohim.” They have done corruptly, And they have done abominable unrighteousness; No one does good.

The danger of over analysis.

The illegitimate use of the Bible Code. Here is an example, taken from the Hebrew letters that form the text of Shemot 7:6-7. Notice the word “Yeshua” formed by the vertical letters and the Hebrew words for “Yahweh” and “darkness” crossing it horizontally. Bible code “maniacs” may want to read into this text: “Yeshua is Yahweh”. If they are to be consistent, however, they should also conclude: “Yeshua is darkness”. Truth is: none of these two Statements is part of the text of Shemot 7.

The devastating result of twisting Scriptures.

2Pe 3:15-17 and reckon the patience of our Master as deliverance, as also our beloved brother Sha’ul wrote to you, according to the wisdom given to him, as also in all his letters, speaking in them concerning these matters, in which some are hard to understand, which those who are untaught and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do also the other Scriptures. You, then, beloved ones, being forewarned, watch, lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the delusion of the lawless

The quest for honesty.

Mat 5:17-19 Do not think that I came to destroy the Torah or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfil. For I say to you, till the heaven and the earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall by no means pass from the Torah till all be done. Whoever, then, breaks one of the least of these commands, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the reign of the heavens; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the reign of the heavens.

The necessity of facing it all.

2Ti 3:16-17 All Scripture is breathed by Elohim and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for setting straight, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of Elohim might be fitted, equipped for every good work.

The recognition that Yahweh is supreme.

Rom 1:25 (men) who changed the truth of Elohim into the falsehood, and worshipped and served what was created rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amain.