Once we begin to get some traction on understanding the Bible, we are faced with a few temptations. Remember that our flesh wants to do the exact opposite of God’s will, that is to go against what the Bible teaches (Romans 7:21-25). Scripture teaches that our body wants to sin. Because of that we must stay on the alert. We must know that when we come to the Bible, the flesh is going to do everything it can to get us to rationalize and justify an immoral lifestyle and erroneous beliefs. At times the temptation will be to do so using verses in the Bible as support for these problems. Remember that even Satan used the Bible to prove that Jesus should give into his temptation (Matthew 4:6). The first step to preventing this is to be aware of this tendency and to use the basic interpretation principles in the previous lessons. Secondly, get connected with other believers that are good in interpreting the Bible to hold your beliefs and actions accountable to another.
Now there are two other precautions we can take. One is to not focus heavily on the definitions of words. Sometimes a person will come across a verse that says something they don’t like, don’t understand, or are just curious about, so they look up the definition in the English dictionary. It says in Ephesians 5:22, “Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord” (NIV). Now some might not like what that verse says, so they’ll look up the term submit in the dictionary. One of the definitions to submit is “to subject to a condition or process” (Webster’s II New College Dictionary). Perhaps that means to be committed to the marriage process, so I don’t actually have to do what my husband says. I just have to be committed to him.
There are two problems here. First, that is one of six definitions to choose from and why was the above definition selected? The above definition is the only one that might give some wiggle room away from obedience. Secondly, the context of the verse does not allow us to shy away from the obedient side of submission. The verse compares a wife’s submission to her husband as to the Lord Jesus Christ. We would believe a verse saying that we are to submit to Christ is saying we are to obey Him. However, when it comes to a husband, we may not like such a concept.
The other temptation would be to find the definition of the term in Hebrew or Greek. One of the definitions in Greek to submit is “put under.” One may attempt to speculate that to be “put under” is to place oneself under ones loving care, but not to obey. A wife may attempt to speculate that she doesn’t need to obey her husband, but to expect him to lovingly provide or take care of her. Again, the same problems apply here that applied above. There are too many other options for the definition of this term and the context does not allow this use of the term.
Now there are times that definitions either in English, Hebrew, or Greek may be helpful. If you do look up definitions though, make sure you let the context of the verse determine which definition is appropriate and not your own desires. If you do this enough, you will find that in most cases you don’t even need to look up the definition. Most of the time context will make the definition clear even before you look it up. Which is why many ask for a word to be stated in a sentence to figure out its’ definition. I generally dislike when I hear a preacher say, “this term in the Greek means” or “this term in Hebrew means.” It usually means that they couldn’t prove their point with just the Bible, so they had to play around with definitions to prove their belief. Now don’t always assume this is the case, but always check context before you accept a definition.
The second precaution we must take to prevent our flesh from leading us astray is to not build our theology on one verse. In other words, don’t base a belief or practice on one or two verses, especially when there are a number of verses that say the opposite. An example is the issue of marrying an unbeliever. It says in the Bible that we are “not to be bound together with unbelievers” (Ezra 10:10; Nehemiah 13:25-27; 2 Corinthians 6:14). In fact, we see in the Nehemiah passage that it is marrying of foreign women (which was the equivalent to marrying the unbeliever in the New Testament) that causes people to fall away from the Lord. However, you will find some people who see Esther marrying the foreign king and Hosea marrying the prostitute under the direction of the Lord as a justification for marrying an unbeliever.
When we look at the Bible as a whole concerning this issue we come up with these details regarding this issue. There are direct commands asking us not to marry unbelievers. There is also a declaration that doing so harms and possibly destroys are faith. Yet there are two instances in which the Lord uses or asks for a believer to marry an unbeliever. Logically, do you think that there is something we are misunderstanding about the commands or about these two rare examples of doing the opposite? The majority of the Old Testament shows bad results or punishment because of marrying foreign women, but two instances where this is not the case. When this happens, we must accept the 10 passages that say one thing and consider the other 2 that say the opposite as 2 passages that need to be studied more. We must see the two as exceptions not to be followed and believe that there is something we are missing in those two stories. We can continue to study them to attempt to figure it out, but we must not make lifestyle choices on verses that are the exception.
Again, be careful about playing around with definitions and with those rare exception passages. Make sure that before you cling to a belief or practice that you have found Scripture that is clearly justifying your belief or practice and preferably a number of passages. Plus, each passage must be justifying your belief or practice once you have applied context to the particular verse. Please be honest with yourself when you come to the Bible. Allow God’s Word to speak to you above your own beliefs and desires.
