Are We Biblical Relativists?

DISCLAIMER: My intention in writing this post is absolutely not to attack or cause offence or hurt feelings. I realize that many have been taught that we should look for confirmation of our plans from verses in the Bible. I felt compelled to write this because I am worried that we have been led down a dangerous path in how we are reading and applying the Scriptures. I hope that if this is your background you will patiently and prayerfully consider the following. If you see Scriptural support for looking for confirmation from Bible verses that you feel I am missing, I welcome your comments.

Many of you probably have heard of Relativism, the philosophy that believes that truth is only true for the beholder. In other words, 'if its true for me, then it is my truth.'

Out of Relativism was born Deconstructionism (sounds more complicated than it is). One popular view of Deconstructionism is that when we read a book, each of us view it through our own lenses of personal experience and so we each find our own meaning from it. Essentially this view holds that there is no concrete meaning from any book, there is only the meaning that we get out of the book. Now there certainly are aspects of truth to this. For example I remember rereading a book after many years, but I had grown and changed a lot during that time so my second time through I realized there were many things that I felt differently about than when I first read the book.

The question is, does every aspect of meaning change? Does the author's meaning only mean that to him, or did the author expect his or her readers to actually understand a certain point being communicated?

This is a fairly easy issue to resolve because the idea of Deconstructionism was written in books, so the authors certainly intended the meaning of their ideas to be communicated to others which is why they wrote the books in the first place. It is quite clear that there is no way to avoid the fact that authors have an intended meaning when they write something.

By now most of you are probably thinking, "Who cares?" Or "Why are you telling us all this stuff?" Well I write these posts because I desire to communicate something concrete. Most importantly I firmly believe that when the Holy Spirit inspired men to write the books of the Bible, God was VERY SPECIFIC in what He desired to communicate. God wrote the 10 commandments on stone tablets to communicate (concretely, in both a literal and figurative sense I suppose) the requirements of the law.

Now as we grow we certainly will read and understand different Bible passages in different ways. For example, passages on marriage certainly won't have the same 'meaning' before and after marriage. I hope we would all agree that a crucial aspect to reading our Bibles is so that we can apply the timeless truths to our lives. But does this mean that we can 'apply' Bible texts in any way we want?

Have you ever been asked, "Did you get a verse for that?" Or maybe you have said, "The Lord gave me a verse to confirm that I am supposed to do this."

When we view these statements against the backdrop of the Deconstructionist movement, doesn't this sound incredibly close to the Relativistic, "If its true for me then its my truth?"

In my first post I argued that the Bible is primarily a written account of God's plan of redemption. God's chief concern in giving us the Bible was to reveal Himself to us as the Creator come to be our Savior. Most of the Christians I know wholeheartedly agree with this, but as we are greatly shaped by our culture other views slip in and so we tend to fall back into looking at the Bible as an instruction manual instead.

Another way that we have been shaped by our culture is that we have a tendency to 'deconstruct' or relativize the Bible and apply it to our lives as a book that informs us of everyday life decisions. If we have a desire to do something or make a life change we scour our Bibles looking for that (allegedly) perfect verse that will speak to us and confirm whether or not we should move ahead with our plans.

Is this the way that God desired for us to use our Bibles? I absolutely agree that the Bible is the primary source of wisdom and truth, but was it God's intent for us to read and then relativize Bible passages for every situation in our life?

Perhaps another illustration of this will help. Most of the conservative Christians that I know stand firmly against the 'name it, claim it' doctrines of the health and wealth teachers of our day. However, it seems that using the Bible as our own personal 'life coach' is the same thing. We are praying about an issue but want more clarification so we read a verse (that in it's literal, historical and grammatical context has absolutely nothing to do with our present situation!!) and then we 'claim it' as support for our purposes. We 'name and claim' that verse as our own guarantee that this is God's will for our lives.

Having said all this, I recognize that some may be asking, "Is this really a big deal?" For the following reason I must respond that this is in fact a very big deal.

The first concern is that this usage of the Bible can be a huge stumbling block. Over the years I have had the pleasure of meeting and serving with some of the most wonderful saints, most of whom have never 'received a verse' for anything, and have never even heard of the Bible being used this way. What if one of these precious believers begin attending a church that does use the Bible this way? Feelings of inadequacy and insecurities about their walk could result from being questioned as to whether or not they have a verse to support their decisions. This could lead to a view that only certain believers receive verses while others do not which may cause arrogance on the part of those that do receive verses and despair on the part of those that do not.

Far more significantly, if we think back to the original sin in the Garden of Eden we remember that the Serpent twisted the Word of God to lead Eve into sin. It was the very altering of God's Word that was used to bring the curse of sin upon the world which leads me to believe that this issue of twisting the meaning of Bible is very dangerous. You may also remember when Jesus was fasting in the wilderness how Satan again tried to twist the Scriptures to tempt Jesus.

The saying goes, "A text, without a context, is a pretext for a proof-text." Or in other words if you remove a saying from the authors original body of work you can then use that text as a 'foundational' text for 'proving' anything you want.

How Should We Use The Bible?

In 2 Timothy 3:16-17 Paul says, "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."

These are some of Paul's last recorded words and he writes to Timothy about the importance and purpose of Scripture. The greater context of this passage is that Paul is warning Timothy specifically about those who would distort God's Word, and then he reminds him of the importance and purpose of God's Word. In verse 15 Paul brings the key issue to light saying, "...you have known the holy writings, which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus." Paul is reminding Timothy of the supremacy of the Word in revealing God's plan of salvation.

Paul continues saying that Scripture is inspired (God breathed) and profitable for teaching which speaks specifically of doctrine. Reproof speaks of rebuking in order to convict of false doctrine and correction speaks of restoring something to its original and proper condition. Finally the Word is to be used for training in righteousness or instructing and building up in the truth. In verse 17 the 'complete, equipped for every good work' could be paraphrased 'enabled to meet all demands of righteousness.' The idea is that as Timothy reads and studies the Word he will be completely prepared for the ministry that the Lord has for him.

While there absolutely are principles in the Bible that help us to govern our lives and make wise choices, God's chief concern was the revealing of Himself to us in the Scriptures and that the world would come to a saving knowledge in Jesus Christ. Once saved, His Word protects, instructs, corrects, exhorts, equips, (etc) believers so that they can grow in a faith relationship with Him and so that they can go and tell others about this amazing Savior God.

Of course we all desire to know God's specific will for our lives, but if we always knew His will beyond a shadow of a doubt then it certainly wouldn't be FAITH!! We have been called to walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, He guides us with timeless truths, principles, and commandments from His Word, but I do not see anywhere in Scripture that we are able to find, or even that we should try to find, a guarantee for His specific will for our lives.

As Hebrews 11:1 says, "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Then in vs 6 we read, "And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He is a rewards those who seek Him."

I hope we can all agree that God is the first and greatest communicator, even speaking the universe into existence. If He desires to communicate to us specific directions for our lives He is certainly able to do so without twisting the plain meaning of His Word just as Satan tries to do. We must honor the context of each verse within the passage, the passage within the book, and the book within the Bible.

God wrote a book about man's greatest need and about His incredible provision, and He desires for us to read it, study it and apply it at face value.