Do Bible Principles Need to be Stated Twice to Matter?

It began with a conversation I had four years ago at the local Christian bookstore concerning Bible features. As the guy was looking at one in particular, he said, “Oh good, it’s got the precepts.”

The first time, it didn’t really register. Then he looked at another and said something like, “Does it have the precepts?”

Huh?

It turned out he was talking about what most of us would call cross references; the notations of other passages either in a center column, the bottom of the page, or at the end of the verse itself where something related may be found.

The idea of ‘line upon line, precept upon precept’ is taken from Isaiah 28:, 9-10 in the KJV. The NASB expresses it as:

To whom would He teach knowledge, And to whom would He interpret the message? Those just weaned from milk? Those just taken from the breast?  “For He says, ‘Order on order, order on order, Line on line, line on line, A little here, a little there.’”

The NLT is really contradictory to this idea on its rendering of this:

He tells us everything over and over–one line at a time, one line at a time, a little here, and a little there!”

implying that the learning or teaching or knowledge is linear, but not necessarily cumulative. In other words, one line at a time, doesn’t mean that line B is necessarily building on line A, but to say upon is to imply that it is or does.

(In case you’re wondering if there’s any irony to be found, you’re wrong; the verse itself is reiterated in scripture, albeit 3 verses later in verse 13.)

As we discussed this the idea of “Out of the mouth of two [or three] witnesses was brought into the conversation. This is found in the Old Testament twice.

The one condemned to die is to be executed on the testimony of two or three witnesses. No one is to be executed on the testimony of a single witness. (Deuteronomy 17:6, HCSB)

A solitary witness against someone in any crime, wrongdoing, or in any sort of misdeed that might be done is not sufficient. The decision must stand by two or three witnesses. (Deuteronomy 19:15, CEB)

Those OT passages are cited in the NT by Jesus and by Paul.

But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. (Matthew 18:16, NIV)

This is the third time I am coming to you. Every charge must be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.  (2 Corinthians 13:1, ESV)

In the Corinthian example, you have to go back to the previous chapter to get the context. Paul is speaking about sorting out matters concerning people who have been found in sinful practices.

Capital crime. Wrongdoing. Sin. Denial of Sin. Nowhere do these passages suggest something related to “the establishing of doctrine.” But don’t get me wrong:

I believe the Bible always corroborates itself on matters of important doctrine.

In other words, it’s internally consistent. I’m just not sure that we need to force it [scripture] into a situation where everything has to be said twice or three times in order to establish a doctrinal pattern, or make it conform to an overarching systematic theology. Or, to come at it differently, it may reinforce something but in an entirely different way than our Western way of thinking can process too simply.

I think to do so is to doubt the value of what we read the first time. It’s saying to God, ‘Now, if you’ll just show me one more time where you say this, then I’ll obey.’ I think that undermines the text somehow. That doesn’t mean to imply that at a crossroads of life we don’t ask God for confirmation of what we are to do. There is the example of Gideon, who put out a second fleece.

So what are precepts? Yourdictionary.com says

precept pre·cept. … The definition of a precept is a guiding principle or rule that is used to control, influence or regulate conduct. An example of a precept is a commandment found in the Ten Commandments.

At that we would need to get into the differences between a rule and a principle. Principles are timeless, never location-specific, widely applicable. Rules apply to one group of people in one particular situation at one unique point in time. The rest of that we need to save for another day.

A cross-reference is simply:

•noun: cross reference; plural noun: cross references
–a reference to another text or part of a text, typically given in order to elaborate on a point.

Anyone who has been reading the Bible for any length of time knows that sometimes the Bible editors have chosen to take us to a reference to a rather obscure part of the verse, not something which indicates its overall meaning. There are times when I have been completely mystified as to the inclusion of a particular reference. Many of you know the danger of over-spiritualizing things, and I don’t want to be guilty of under-spiritualizing something, but… They’re. Just. Cross-references.

And at risk of stating the obvious, there’s 2 Timothy 3:16, which reminds us that all scripture is inspired. (Italics added; four expressions of this verse may be found at this link.)

Here’s my concluding statements on this:

We read scripture not so much because we’re trying to learn precepts as we are recognizing the importance of understanding the ways of God.

and

If God is saying something to us with unmistakable clarity through a scripture passage, we don’t need to start hunting around looking for a second verse.

The Principle of Accommodation

Note: There are no specific scripture references today. You’re encouraged to search for texts related to the section in bullet points below.

Bruxy Cavey is the Teaching Pastor of The Meeting House in Toronto, Canada.

■ This subject was something I was aware of in scripture, but didn’t realize there was a formal term for it. The first section is taken from the fourth message in a series called Origins, and the section quoted has been greatly abridged. Watch starting at 8:24. (To 15:01.)

with Bruxy Cavey

Religious sacrifice is our invention that God accommodates and uses for a season and then eventually enters and ends through Jesus. This raises again the principle of accommodation…. The principle of accommodation is an accepted Biblical understanding — there’s really no debate about this one, there is overwhelming Biblical evidence — that God accommodates human practices or decisions or desires in how he works with us. God made us in his image and his likeness and he honors his image in us and so once God made people instead of pets, He then partners with those people even when some of the things that we want are not His initial will. There’s lots of examples of this in scripture

• Kings — It was Israel who said, “We want to have an earthly king.” And God said specifically, “It’s not my will, in fact I take that personally, that’s a rejection of me… That’s a bad idea.”… [But then he says,] “Okay, let’s give them kings.” …He uses the kingship of Israel to teach them things… If you were to jump into the middle of the story, you would think God is really into kings. But if you zoom out, you learn that God never really wanted kings in the first place.
• Physical Temple — God said, “I want you to make a tent as a meeting place because a tent is portable.” Portability is part of what it teaches us about God. And it’s David, one of the kings that shouldn’t exist, who says, “I get to live in a castle. If you’re the king of the universe, you should have a castle, too.”
• The Law – the Ten Commandments — Living by a list of rules instead of the heart relationship that we had in the garden of Eden (and that Jesus brings us back to.)
• Divorce — In Matthew 19, Jesus is having the same debate with the religious leaders – the Pharisees – about how in the law of Moses (Deuteronomy 24) Moses commands a certain way of getting a divorce… Jesus changes their language when they say, “Why did Moses command divorce?” Jesus says, “He permitted it … because your hearts were hard.”
• Slavery — …Not God’s will but he works within that model for a season.
• Animal sacrifice — [part of the introduction re. Genesis chapter four.]

…This is a harm-reduction model. [God says,] “You’re going to run headlong and do some damaging things…I’ll meet you where you’re at and at least try to mitigate some of the harm you’ll cause yourself.” …And then Jesus comes in and leads us into a New Covenant and says, ‘I’ll give you a better way, and I’ll give you the power of the Spirit to help you live up to that ideal.

■ This section is taken from week five of the same series, a question-and-answer wrap up week. The video for this section begins at 27:06 (This section is quoted more verbatim.)

Q: Couldn’t the principle of accommodation become a dangerous slippery slope, allowing us to justify almost anything?

A: The principle of accommodation [is the belief that] God often enters human designs, human impulses, human wishes, such as the desire to have earthly kings, the desire to have an earthly temple, the desire for divorce; there’s all kinds of things… But God often enters those desires, those impulses, and He uses them and He governs them and He makes them his own. He accommodates us as image-bearers of the divine.

So someone asks couldn’t the principle of accommodation become a dangerous slippery slope, allowing us to justify almost anything, and the answer to this is yes. Absolutely.

Just like grace.

See, just because something can be abused doesn’t mean that it isn’t true. When the Bible teaches something, we should not shy away from it just because it’s dangerous.

The Bible clearly teaches grace; that we are saved under the new covenant by simply trusting that it’s true. And this grace should so change our hearts and help us see how much God loves us that we live a moral life, we live a loving life,  because we want to not because we have to. We want to get closer to this God that loves us that much and is so gracious toward us that it changes our hearts and everything we do is a want to not a have to.

But is it possible for that to be abused?

Absolutely. Right from the very beginning of Christianity there were Christians who abused grace. Who said, “Well, if I’m just saved because of faith, then it doesn’t matter how I live. I’ll just go an live however I want.” And it’s interesting, the early church didn’t say, “Wow; we better stop preaching grace because it can be abused. We better preach grace plus law just to make sure we keep people in line.” No, the Apostle Paul doesn’t take that approach, in Galatians, in 1 Corinthians, etc. He just continues to preach grace all the more to help people’s hearts catch a picture of it and become transformed.

 

 

 

 

The Old Testament on Jewelry: Principles Behind the Rules

This is an excerpt from a book by Rachel Held Evans, an author who is accused of great theological liberalism, none of which manifested itself at least in this particular book. What I found instead, in the four paragraphs which follow my introduction, was a tremendous insight into the principles behind the rules.

I was greatly enlightened on this subject by a booklet published by InterVarsity Press (IVP) in 1981, What’s Right? What’s Wrong by Donald E. DeGraaf (sadly out of print, with no e-Book edition or Google Books file, nor can I find my copy.) In it he talks about the difference between rules and principles. A rule applies to one group of people, or people in one particular place, or at one particular time. A principle applies to all people in all places at all times. Rules derive from principles.

So when God gives his people rules — especially in Leviticus, but also in today’s text in Isaiah — God has His reasons. Sometimes we need to spend longer in the text to see what His intentions are. We’ll let Rachel pick it up from here…

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In his list of God’s grievances against Israel and his warnings of Jerusalem’s imminent destruction, the prophet Isaiah wrote:

16 The LORD says, “The women of Zion are haughty, walking along with outstretched necks, flirting with their eyes, strutting along with swaying hips, with ornaments jingling on their ankles. 17 Therefore the Lord will bring sores on the heads of the women of Zion; the LORD will make their scalps bald.” 18 In that day the Lord will snatch away their finery: the bangles and headbands and crescent necklaces, 19 the earrings and bracelets and veils, 20 the headdresses and anklets and sashes, the perfume bottles and charms, 21 the signet rings and nose rings, 22 the fine robes and the capes and cloaks, the purses 23 and mirrors, and the linen garments and tiaras and shawls. – Isaiah 3: 16-23

At first glance, this passage would suggest that Westboro Baptist Church has it wrong: what God really hates is accessories. But the larger context reveals that what so troubled Isaiah and his fellow prophets was the blatant materialism among Israel’s rich to the neglect and disenfranchisement of its poor.

In biblical times, gold jewelry signified wealth, and although several of the Bible’s heroines wore it (Genesis 24:22-31; Song of Songs 1:10-11), jewelry was far more commonly associated with excess and idol worship (Genesis 35:2-4; Exodus 32; 33:4; Jeremiah 4:30; Ezekiel 7:18-20; 16:9-15; Hosea 2:13). This sentiment carries over into the New Testament, where both Paul in his letter to Timothy and Peter in his letter to the churches of Asia Minor discouraged women from wearing gold jewelry and pearls in the context of a Christian community that prioritized simplicity and charity.

In fact, it seems that most of the Bible’s instructions regarding modesty find their context in warnings about materialism, not sexuality… a pattern that has gone largely unnoticed by the red-faced preacher population. I’ve heard dozens of sermons about keeping my legs and my cleavage out of sight, but not one about ensuring that my jewelry was not acquired through unjust or exploitive trade practices.

Some conservative religious communities, such as the Amish and Old Order Mennonites, continue to forbid women to wear any sort of jewelry at all. Others simply discourage excess. I’m a bit of a jewelry fanatic — not so much of the gold and pearl variety, but of the beads and hemp variety — so I figured it would be a healthy exercise in self-discipline to ditch my necklaces, bracelets, and rings for Lent. I wore only my wedding band, not my engagement ring, and I avoided the items in Isaiah’s list: bangles, headbands, earrings, bracelets, anklets, sashes, perfume, charms, rings, nose rings, fine robes, capes, shawls, and, of course, tiaras.

~A Year of Biblical Womanhood, Rachel Held Evans (Thomas Nelson, 2012) pp 127-8

When Values Shift

While we normally leave the topical subjects for the Thinking Out Loud blog, there is no denying that today (Saturday, June 27) the United States woke up having entered a whole new era. Something that was once illegal (and still is in many places) and was considered an abberation (according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM) is now the law of the land, mandated by a constitutional ruling by the Supreme Court.

Now, I don’t wish to discuss the particular issue here, but rather, I simply want to note that we’ve seen over the last few years leading to this decision has been a huge shift in values, and I couldn’t help but think of Isaiah 5:20:

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

I know that among my readers are those who have different feelings on not only the issue of the day, but on many different areas where the sphere of spiritual concerns overlaps the sphere of civic or legal issues. Some are truly rejoicing in the events of yesterday, for many different reasons. My point is simply that through one Supreme Court decision we have witnessed a tectonic shift of huge proportions in the last 48-or-so hours, and many Christ-followers who don’t monitor news reports may be unaware of it.

Interestingly, BibleHub posted a link to Habakkuk 1:14 (NLT)

The law has become paralyzed, and there is no justice in the courts. The wicked far outnumber the righteous, so that justice has become perverted.

There are some who would argue that the only thing that changed yesterday is that another court, the court of popular opinion, grew vocal enough to tip the scales of justice.

Unfortunately, there are also a few who have a misunderstanding that if something is legal it is no longer sin. It is important to recognize that there is not a one-to-one correlation between the two. Many things that are legal are still sinful, and many things that the law says are illegal have little to do with the spiritual condition of the heart.*

It’s more to the point to refine our understanding of what sin is and isn’t. The word means ‘missing the mark.’ It connotes an archery image of firing our arrows but not quite hitting the bulls-eye, or worse, not even hitting the target sheet at all.

I believe that knowing God’s best exists means we can’t settle for anything less; we can’t be content with the good or the better knowing there is a best.

When we fail to be concerned with aiming for the best we grieve Father, Son and Spirit.

The ultimate question of the day therefore is the question that should guide the everyday actions of all believers: Can God be trusted?

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*If we take a simple Ten Commandments approach, the 1:1 correspondence will hold more often, since many of our laws derive from Judeo-Christian teaching. But society accepts many other things which would go against Bible teaching. To the contrary, if where you live it is against the law to make a left turn at the corner of Central Blvd. and Main St. during the evening rush hour, that does not derive from scripture. Still we should note that in the second case, the left turn, it can also be argued that the principles of Romans 13 apply:

1Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. 4For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.

The problem is trying to read this in the reverse, and saying that what the law permits, God also is okay with; the logic of that does not hold. The “governing authorities” of verse one are not the ones to whom we hold ultimate accountability.

I’m Behind You

Today’s devotional from Janette Levellie is from CBN.com’s devotional page…

When I made my living as a waitress I quickly learned the value of three words spoken to fellow servers: “I’m behind you.”

No one wants to turn around and cannon into a tray brimming with hot coffee, Denver omelets, and oatmeal with raisins. Fifteen Cub Scouts and their troop leader get impatient when you have to re-scoop their ice cream because you dropped the original bowls on the floor after forgetting to tell the busboy, “I’m behind you.” It’s wise to let people know of a potential mess, so you both can avoid it.

As my husband was getting a pizza out of the oven recently, I walked behind him, carrying our salad bowls. Although 35 years have passed since I served food professionally, I still said, “I’m behind you.” When those three words hit the air, they gripped my heart in a new way. I was not simply telling Kevin to “watch out;” I was helping him succeed at his task of the moment. I was supporting him. And I was saving both of us a trip to the floor to clean up tomato sauce, mozzarella, and Thousand Island dressing.

We all need support, especially in the Church, where we operate as a body, and “should have equal concern for each other (I Corinthians 12:25).” As we serve the Lord and those around us, our individual loads become lighter when we help each other carry them.

The second-wisest man who ever lived said it this way,

“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: if one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up. (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, NIV)”

The list of ways to get behind a brother or sister is endless:

Are you struggling to make ends meet on a stingy budget? If I slip a ten in your pocket, I’m behind you.

Do you doubt if your marriage can last one more night, or one more fight? If I listen and pray for strength for you, I’m behind you.

Is your kid making choices that break your heart? If I hug you and say “Don’t give up,” I’m behind you.

Are you afraid of what the doctor might find on the next test? If I pray for your healing and tell you “I love you,” I’m behind you.

Do you wonder where your dream got lost? If I encourage you to keep hoping, I’m behind you.

Rebuking and finding fault rarely motivate anyone to succeed. Most of us avoid critical, sour individuals. But we enjoy the company of people who bring out the best in us, helping us believe in ourselves and our dreams. We achieve things we thought impossible by having one or two caring friends say, “I’m behind you.”

You can be that friend to someone today. Instead of turning your back on a need or mocking a dream, be wise enough to say, “I’m behind you. Let me help you succeed.”

For us fellow servers, it will make the difference between messes to clean up or miracles to celebrate.

~Jeanette Levellie