REDACTIVE CHRISTIANS?

Yes, that’s what I said—“redactive Christians.” (For my family and friends in Arizona, no, I did not say “radioactive”—that’s what you get for living in the sun and dry heat of the desert too long!)

Have you ever been watching a TV news program and they show a document that has been “declassified”? Or they show a document that had to be requested under the Freedom of Information Act? Often when they show these formally sensitive documents, there are heavy black lines obscuring whole sections in the document that were deemed “sensitive” by the government and, therefore, the document had been “redacted.” The term means “to select or adapt by obscuring or removing sensitive information.” The government redacts documents to protect national security and most likely to keep themselves out of jail!

In evangelical Christian circles, we don’t ever admit to being redactive with Scripture. Instead, believers talk about their great love for the Book—while they only read parts of it and build whole doctrines on Scriptures that are taken out of context. I have friends who only read the New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs! These friends never suggest that the “other portions of Scripture” are not valuable; they just act as though those portions have no meaning for us in all our contemporary enlightenment. We even have Bible publishers who print and publicize New Testaments (with Psalms and Proverbs) because in their estimation that’s where “the action” is!

Another bad habit in our personal study of Scripture is mentally dismissing certain portions as being of little or no value to us. I have been guilty of doing this very thing. There are whole books of the Bible or large portions of books that I have tried to avoid because I was either not interested in the subject matter, it was difficult to understand or, frankly, because I found sections of it boring. As a consequence, I “redacted” Scripture. No, I didn’t break out the black marker, at least not so you could see it. But I broke the marker out in my mind by dismissing entire passages. I have never really cared for the prophetic passages in the book of Daniel. My interest was in understanding how Daniel could be a victorious believer in a very hostile environment. I have been guilty of being selective by rushing past or completely skipping the prophesies of Daniel.

Was I wrong? Yes I was! Is being selective, redactive, wrong? Yes, it is, and I will tell you why. When we say that certain portions of Scripture are not meaningful for us, we are admitting several things. First we are admitting that we do not fully trust God and how He would work in us. Second, we are suggesting that we know better than He does what we need to succeed as victorious believers and, therefore, we are demeaning the character and integrity of our Heavenly Father. Sadly, when I selectively approach Scripture, I limit Scripture’s ability to work effectively in me (see 1 Thessalonians 2:13).

The Holy Spirit used two Scriptures to get me straight on this issue.

“For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope” (Romans 15:4, New King James).

As much as I don’t like to admit it, there are truths that the Holy Spirit will bring alive to me in Leviticus, Deuteronomy and the Minor Prophets if only I will stop being so thickheaded. When Paul wrote these words, there was no New Testament as we know it; he was referring to what we know as the Old Testament. Paul asserts that the entire Old Testament was written for us to learn from, to be instructed from. When we dismiss the Old Testament as being irrelevant to us, we are short-circuiting our own spiritual growth.

“Every word of God is pure; He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him” (Proverbs 30:5).

The word pure means to be refined, the way gold is refined by intense heat that removes the impurities. The Word is not God’s babbling, like some of us do when we get on the phone with a friend. The Word is an extremely refined and purified product that will bring results if we let it! When I redact Scripture, either intentionally or subconsciously, I am showing my distrust of God! When I redact Scripture, I limit God’s ability to protect me from the onslaught of the enemy and from the pressures of life. When I redact Scripture, I reduce the ability of Scripture to change me. It’s like dialing a rheostat back from the setting of potent to semi-potent. Dial the rheostat back far enough and you will get to impotent!

It’s time to lay down the mental marker and redial the Bible rheostat back up from “selected parts” to “all.”