Word of Faith?
Continuing our theme of the right ways of reading of scripture, we have said that we need community and Holy Spirit’s inspiration to truly understand God’s library of loving revelation.
We have distanced ourselves from the extreme of Sola scriptura and concluded that God intends us to read through the lens of Jesus - our hermeneutic.
Having addressed one rational/logical extreme in scripture reading, I want to address another today.
The Word of Faith branch of the Church claims that taking scripture and confessing it allows the believer to direct life in chosen directions. Whilst there is some truth in this approach, history shows us that this method also takes away from Jesus ultimately. The fruit of such declarations tends, unfortunately, to be a greedy emphasis on wealth (not unlike the excesses of the Roman Catholic church that prompted Luther’s medication of Sola scriptura). Another unwelcome fruit is an unwillingness to recognize the reality of circumstances. Whilst scripture often teaches us to focus on God’s realities, there is no precedent for blindly denying present circumstances in order to see God’s higher ways.
The fault line in these excesses is applying human wisdom and desires to the scriptures declared. Too often there are verses that can be quoted out of context to justify seeking ungodly gains. This is misusing the Word of God.
God speaks through scriptural community immersed in Holy Spirit.
The reason these errors matter is that they have a major impact on our commission. God intends our commission to be Kingdom-sized; introducing humanity to relationship with God flowing from the powerful beauty of the life, death and resurrection of the Son. Over-emphasizing Bible passages to the point of minimizing relationship with our Father is an error, as is claiming Bible verses as our own and disregarding their context. These are both forms of the sin of presumption.
Our commission is not to make disciples by logical reasoning alone, nor is it to train others to manipulate scripture for personal preference. Jesus told us He is the way to the Father. Our destiny is relationship with the godhead. Anything less is deceptive.