I have been trying to read a chapter a day of a book that isn’t the Bible. I do my regular Bible reading and studying, but I want to make sure I am reading other literature. I finished two books pretty quick and was feeling pretty well until I picked up the next one on my stack. It’s called, “Fool’s Talk,” by Os Guiness. It’s a book about apologetics or defending the faith, but he writes as an intellectual, which I am NOT.
Anyway, toward the end of the book (yes, I’m finally about done), he is writing about what he calls, “Christian Revisionists.” These are people who are re-writing or explaining the Bible in a way in which fewer people are offended and quite frankly sinful behavior is tolerated. He quoted a term used by Kierkegaard that these people are “kissing Judases.” He went on to quote Walter Kaufmann who said, “it is not literally with a kiss that Christ is betrayed in the present age: today one betrays with an interpretation.”
I am still on a journey to fully understand Scripture and I don’t expect to be done until the day I die. And I want us all on that journey as well. The Bible says that “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17) If we manipulate Scripture to say what we want it to say for our message, we are taking God’s breath away, and not in a good way!
Our society has come to call the Bible “outdated” and “culturally irrelevant.” God’s breath will never be irrelevant. We are facing a world that wants to make the universe about the creation instead of the Creator. God has a design plan and when we try to alter that plan, we offend Him, but we also create chaos in His plan.
Think about this. It’s springtime and baseball/softball season is upon us (or golf season). Every player, coach, and team play by the same rules. The rules don’t change for each batter or each fielder based on what seems fairer for that player. There is one set of rules that everyone who plays agrees to adhere to in order to be in the game.
I guess what I am trying to relay is that we have a book that is the Universe’s bestseller called the Bible. It is the Word of a holy, creator, eternal God. In it, we find who God is. And when we try to alter his world or his plan, we are “kissing Judases.” We betray his plan and we dismiss his wisdom.
Open your Bible and be amazed by who God is, not offended because it doesn’t seem to fit your idea of fairness.