The Bible is About God's Agenda, Not Yours (Part 1)
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:16,17
It is really easy to make the Bible say what we want it to say. People have used Scripture not just to warn about the sinfulness of overindulgence on alcohol, but to claim any use of alcohol is sinful. In the past, people used the Bible to defend slavery in America. Some people still use God’s Word to defend racism today. Sinful people often twist the words of Scripture, take them out of context, or change the intended meaning of the words to fit their own agenda.
Do you do this? It’s easier than you might think. Over the next few weeks, we’ll take a look at how we fall into the trap of using the Bible to promote our agendas rather than God’s agenda.
#1 You don’t really use the Bible at all
It might sound strange to start a list about misusing the Bible by saying you’re not using the Bible, but this is an easy trap to fall into. Since God reveals himself in the Bible, we want to talk about him based on what he says in his Word. Yet, somehow other ideas about him can sneak in to our thinking.
The popular phrase “God helps those who help themselves” comes to mind. That phrase isn’t found in Scripture. Truly, God wants us to use the gifts he has given us. He wants us to work. Many times the book of Proverbs condemns laziness. BUT, “God helps those who help themselves isn’t in the Bible.” And in many ways, it is antibiblical. In the matter of salvation, God helps those who CAN’T help themselves, poor, miserable sinners whose only hope of salvation is a Savior outside of themselves. Even in the matter of providence, it is God who “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45).
Another way you might promote your agenda simultaneously with and without the Bible is by leaving the Bible a closed book. You speak from a platform as a Christian, even speaking ideals with a moral veneer, but they aren’t truly biblical. They only sound biblical because we so easily confuse morality, even non-Bible based morality, with biblicalness. In other words, if it sounds right to my ears, it must be biblical.
“‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.’”Matthew 15:8,9
The most obvious danger of talking about God and the Christian life without actually using the Bible is that it’s all too easy to say something God doesn’t say. As human beings, we have a natural bent toward works-righteousness. We want to do something for God to earn his blessing. We have a tendency to add to what God says to attain greater piety or to soften God’s law so that we can actually fulfill it.
But God’s agenda in Scripture is to give us his blessing, not make us earn it. He gives us his righteousness through his Son Jesus Christ. Jesus has fulfilled the law, as written, as intended, in our place. God’s agenda is to forgive us, first and foremost.
And as his forgiven children, then he calls us to follow him. He doesn’t ask us to do whatever amazing things pop into our minds. He gives us clear direction in his Word about what he wants us to do. Since he has brought our hearts near to him through Jesus, how much more we want to honor him with our lips and our hearts by sticking closely to his Word.