Do you make New Year's Resolutions? I normally don't because I find them confining and they interrupt creativity. However, there's one "resolution" I made many years ago that has stood the test of time and remains true for me today. This was not a New Year's Resolution, it was simply a resolution I made to myself in response to spiritual abuse and I resolved to never let that happen again.
My decades-long resolution: To never take anyone's word for what God's Word says; always look it up for myself.God's Word is very commonly misused, misinterpreted, used as a weapon, and abused in many other ways. I have not found even one "Bible study book" that does not misuse, misrepresent and/or teach things that are outright against what God's Word actually teaches. I honestly can't for the life of me figure out why people buy and use so-called "Bible study books" since they are anything but.
Most abuses of God's Word are very subtle and hard to spot. Bill Hybels, in his book Simplify, misuses God's Word right in the introduction. He said, and I paraphrase, that if we fail to simplify our lives by cutting back on our hectic schedules, we run the risk of forfeiting the abundant life Jesus promised us in John 10:10. We cannot forfeit the abundant life promised in Christ since he's talking about quantity of life in this verse.....as in, eternal, everlasting, unending life. Bill Hybels is wrong, but without such threats to our very relationship with Jesus, Bill wouldn't sell many books. He has to keep his target audience under threat.
In nearly all her books, Beth Moore refers people to her other books telling them they "need" to read another one of her books to answer a particular question and she claims her books will change your life. She does not refer people to God's Word, she refers them to her own books. She claims that if she did not write her books, the rocks would cry out. She equates her books with God's Word in this way. Her books have been recommended to me by well-meaning friends, but I've yet to get past her introductions before I find her abusing God's Word. No, thank you.
I was once told by a pastor that he did not want me to teach the Bible in his church, but I was to teach a curriculum he chose, verbatim. When I told him I would not teach it verbatim if it had doctrinal errors, and that I would use God's Word as the final authority for all my teaching, he would not let me teach in what he called "his" church. Goodbye, dude, we have nothing more in common. If God's Word is not your final authority, you have bigger issues than a shallow curriculum filled with bad interpretations of Scripture.
My list of examples and encounters like this is nearly endless, but the bottom line for me is, I will not take anyone's word for what the Bible says. I will look it up. If I'm listening to you preach, I will have my Bible open and make sure you're staying in context and not using the pulpit to bully people or push an agenda. While I would never make a scene, I have quietly walked out of many services and never gone back when the preacher has violated the very Scriptures they claim to be preaching.
Looking things up for yourself creates discernment, confidence, and wisdom. This practice prevents spiritual abuse. It helps your spiritual growth. This is a good practice. Because of this resolve, I do not use Bible study books to study God's Word, I use the Bible. And my related tools are not commentaries, but a good lexicon. I use Logos software, which has lexicons and concordances built in.
A commentary is not a Bible study tool; it is simply someone else's study. Do your own study. Take no one's word for what the Bible says.
Happy New Year!
Happy 2020!
~Tricia
