Today on A Better Bible Study Podcast, we have  a QnA episode. In these episodes, Rudy discusses questions or subjects related to Bible study and the church of Christ.

When the Bible speaks we speak, when it is silent we keep silent.

“Whatever I command you, you shall be careful to do; you shall not add to nor take away from it. (Deuteronomy 12:32 NASB95)

1. 
   
2. What do you see as the  benefit of taking this attitude, the nothing in between the lines attitude, to our Bible study?
   
3. Why in the Lord’s church today, do so many people find this such a hard walk to walk, especially preacher type people? Why do you think that is a problem?
   

Why is the Bible what we should follow? There isn’t anything else. I have met and spoken with a score of religious clerics and non-Catholics who graduated from schools of divinity or theological seminaries. The first time that  I spoke with one was in 1976 in Canada ,where I was doing some missionary work. I ran into a fellow who had graduated from a theological seminary and I asked him what the first four books of New Testament were. He did not know. I think most of the people who graduate from theological seminaries are taught that the Scriptures are not reliable. Most cults and denominations, that stray from what Americans would call middle-of- the-road-standard Christology, teach  that they should be reading materials outside of the Bible and arriving  at doctrinal conclusion on that basis rather than what the Bible taught.

When talking about Christianity, there isn’t any other source than the Bible. Were it to be erased from literature, from existence in history all knowledge of the Bible, what would there be to give us the ideas that Christians have about God, salvation, Christ and the future. There would be nothing.

The Bible is the only source. Sceptics have attacked its validity from 360 degrees. At first , they caused me some doubt and seemed to have some weight. However, as my thinking became more systematic and dependable based on a gradual acquiring of an understanding of the basics of logic, these challenges rarely had any merit.

The only authority that we have is the Bible but we have strayed from thinking of it as an authoritative source of knowledge. In doing so, we have made room for other things that claim to be authority.

Why is it hard for us today to see the benefits of speaking what the Bible speaks?

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• That would be confining our claims and assumptions to those that have been validated by the Bible and so speaking what the Bible speaks and being silent where the Bible is silent.
  
• That would mean not delving in our own resources to establish criteria or postulations that have no biblical grounds.
  

Naturally the only source I would have for answering this question would be the Bible. I can think of dozens of reasons why people do not adhere to the Bible. It is more common today than it was before but that is really a different question. The question is why one would stray from speaking what the Bible says and staying silent when it’s silent.

In general there are at least four major reasons.

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• Matthews 7
  

The first reason is hypocrisy. The problem is an old one. It is compounded by the obstacle that very few of us can see that we are committing this error.

Jesus pointed this out, this flaw in Matthew 7.

1 “Do not judge so that you will not be judged.

2 “For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.

3 “Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

4 “Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye?

5 “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

6 “Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.

Prayer and the Golden Rule

7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

8 “For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.

9 “Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone?

10 “Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he?

11 “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!

12 “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

13 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.

14 “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

15 “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

16 “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?

17 “So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.

18 “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.

19 “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

20 “So then, you will know them by their fruits.

21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.

22 “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’

23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’

24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.

25 “And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock.

26 “Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.

27 “The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.â€

28 When Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at His teaching;

29 for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.

Jesus strongly implies that this phenomenal is hypocrisy and a kind of blindness in that it obstructs one’s spiritual vision. Without hypocrisy, the implication is, we will be able to see clearly enough to do some good.

If we are professing to be precise in our own analysis of Scripture and yet we hypocritically choose to relax our determination to speak what the Bible speaks and also decide with hypocritical reasons to inject and drive extra biblical canon into our conclusions,  it may be we are guilty of driving blind. That seems to become part of the hypocrisy package.

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• Acts 13:6-12
  
• Galatians 1:7
  

Another reason why we would stray from the Scriptures would be self-interest; it is another reason for hypocrisy.

In Acts 13 we see Paul interact with an exponent of this problem  in Bar-Jesus or Elymas, which is  his Greek name.

 When they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they found a magician, a Jewish false prophet whose name was Bar-Jesus,  who was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence. This man summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God.  But Elymas the magician (for so his name is translated) was opposing them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith.  But Saul, who was also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, fixed his gaze on him,  and said, “You who are full of all deceit and fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord? “Now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and not see the sun for a time.†And immediately a mist and a darkness fell upon him, and he went about seeking those who would lead him by the hand. Then the proconsul believed when he saw what had happened, being amazed at the teaching of the Lord. (Acts 13:6-12 NASB95)

Luke refers to Elymas as a false prophet. As time passes, we become more biblically ignorant. We seem to lean more heavily on calling everyone who disagrees with us a false prophet or false teacher. The Bible provides  a more dependable view of what is a false prophet or a false teacher. The view of the inspired writers in living in the 1^st century in Judea.

In the New Testament ,this term refers to someone who

1. 
   
2. claims to be a follower of Jehovah,
   
3. profits monetarily from his new teachings ,
   
4. professes untrue doctrines which contradicts sound doctrines, and
   
5. glorifies himself by means of magic sorcery or magic powers.
   

There are four characteristics and in the New Testament it is always a Jewish Christian.  People try to extrapolate or extract these words from the New Testament context  and put them into contemporary terms. This is inappropriate. There has to be an acceptable New Testament name. When we say false teacher or false prophets, the meanings of those words are determined by the inspired context of the Bible.  It is a mistake to believe we have the right to redefine Biblical words. There are better words that we can use accurately.

In Acts 13:10 , Paul gives us a portrait of such person.

When the New Testament refers to a person as the son of anything, what is being said is such a person

1. 
   
2. engages in the same or similar behavior to the one being referred to as a son of and
   
3. implied that the reason such behavior is being engaged, is  a shared constitutional, inward makeup.
   

When Barnabas is called a son of encouragement ,for example, it means that he encourages and is internally and constitutionally hardwired to be encouraging.

An important note to make here is that Satan refers to that aspect of evil that opposes everything that God is, represents, stands for and promotes. The devil is that aspect of evil that accuses ,belittles maliciously degrades, maligns and causes divisions. In this passage , Paul identifies Elymas as being son of the devil. He really identifies this satanic and devilish aspect in Elymas. Elymas distorts and twists the word of God.  Paul is saying that  he is satanic.

Today’s nullifying preachers, who are paid preach, who use their pulpits to personally attack those who disagree with them, are the same ones who insists on their right to sever relationships. They threaten anyone in their fellowship who won’t endorse their actions or condemns those who disagree with leaders of such movements. These are Elymas-21^st –century-parallels although they are not by New Testament standards false teachers. Hardly any of them claim to have special powers though some may intimate extra biblical knowledge.

The vast majority of what is being taught by the major erroneous religious movements of today is right. It is just a small percentage that is wrong. Like most efficient pawns of Satan ,whatever truth or accuracy is  in their actions only serves the purpose of  their modern day Elymas’ message, which is to oppose the doctrines of Christ. Some know what they are doing, some don’t.

Logically, these kinds of people cannot permit themselves to confine their pronouncements to that which is biblically verified. As Paul warns in Galatians 1:7,they must actively distort the Gospel of Christ. Paul says that is what they want to do.

which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. (Galatians 1:7 NASB95)

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• 2 Peter 3:16
  

Another reason from the Scriptures is ignorance.  Peter  speaks of people in 2 Peter 3:16 who are distorting Scriptures. Presumably,they do not know better.

as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction. (2 Peter 3:16 NASB95)

Peter says that they are ignorant or unstable. Their instability leads them to make things up. There are probably scores of other attributes or influences which lead well-intention Christians or non-Christians alike, to depart strictly from what the Bible says. In the end though, the problem to a well-known and fundamental characteristics for humans, that is, hearts that are far from God.

In Mark 7:1-23 (this passage also occurs in Matthew 15), Jesus is challenged by leading religious figures to defend his disciples over the fact that they had not washed their hands before eating. What transpires is similar to the  problem we have today with religious people who cannot let the Bible stand on its own merits but have to employ their own imaginative creativity in manufacturing doctrinal assumptions, and other pronouncements.

Mark 7 (NASB95)

 The Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered around Him when they had come from Jerusalem, and had seen that some of His disciples were eating their bread with impure hands, that is, unwashed. (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thus observing the traditions of the elders; and when they come from the market place, they do not eat unless they cleanse themselves; and there are many other things which they have received in order to observe, such as the washing of cups and pitchers and copper pots.) The Pharisees and the scribes *asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?†And He said to them, “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me. ‘But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’ “Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.† He was also saying to them, “You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition. “For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, is to be put to death’; but you say, ‘If a man says to his father or his mother, whatever I have that would help you is Corban (that is to say, given to God),’ you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or his mother; thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that.â€

After He called the crowd to Him again, He began saying to them, “Listen to Me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside the man which can defile him if it goes into him; but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man. [“If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.â€] When he had left the crowd and entered the house, His disciples questioned Him about the parable. And He *said to them, “Are you so lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him, because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and is eliminated?†(Thus He declared all foods clean.) And He was saying, “That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. “All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.†(Mark7:1-23)

Christianity is not a religion. Neither Christ nor the Bible referred to it as a religion. The applications of those terms are almost always negative. The Holy Spirit, Christ, the apostles, they don’t see what we are seeking as a religion so why should  we? If we stick to what the Bible says we will certainly stand on solid ground. It does not appear to be considered a religion in New Testament.

We today have made a mistake of taking the fundamental  elements, principles and  revelations that are confined within the sphere of Christianity, and  moving them into what we believe religion to be.

Let’s look at either Judaism or Islam. What you have is adherence of a belief that

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• there is one God,
  
• He is a law giver,
  
• He provides mankind with rules, codes, regulations, and instructions on how to do the things that count in a certain way,
  
• He rewards those who obey him with eternal existence in heaven and
  
• He punishes those who fail to do what He says as He says to do it with an eternal existence in hell.
  

These are religions.  Christianity departs from all of that.

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