Yes, that’s what I said — “Redactive Christians.”
Occasionally a news program will display a document that has
been “declassified.” Often when they show these 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.”
In Christian circles, we don’t ever admit to being redactive
with Scripture. Instead, some believers talk about their great love for the
Book even though they may read only certain parts of it. For instance, I have
friends who read only the New Testament and occasionally Psalms and Proverbs.
They 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.
Another bad habit in our personal study of Scripture is
mentally dismissing certain portions as being of little or no value. I have
been guilty of doing this very thing. No, I didn’t break out the black marker,
at least not so you could see it. But I broke out the marker in my mind by
dismissing entire passages. There was a time when I couldn’t be bothered
reading the prophetic passages in the book of Daniel. My interest was in understanding
how Daniel could be victorious in a very hostile environment. I was guilty of
being selective by rushing past or completely skipping his prophecies.
Along with being redactive, there is a great push going on to
say that Scripture needs to more carefully reflect our world; it needs to be
more in line with our contemporary culture. Just as I was writing this article,
a news report appeared about a statement regarding gay marriage made by Rob
Bell, the former pastor of Mars Hill, a megachurch in Michigan. Bell became
very controversial when he wrote a book several years ago stating that there is
no hell, and now he has made a controversial statement affirming gay marriage.
As much as I disagree with Bell’s affirming gay marriage, in
his statement he said something that bothers me even more. When referring to
the biblical standard regarding homosexuality, Bell said, “The ship has sailed
. . . This is the world we are living in and we need to affirm people wherever
they are.” Essentially he is saying the Bible is out of date on this subject.
Among some segments of the emerging church, there is a strong push to
“contemporize” the Bible. The proponents suggest that the Bible, which was
written thousands of years ago, is reflective of the culture then but not now,
and therefore it needs to be reinterpreted into today’s culture.
In coming to grips with these two issues, the Holy Spirit
used several Scriptures to get me straight on this.
“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, NKJV).
“All Scripture is
breathed out by God (inspired) and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for
correction and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete,
equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17, ESV).
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 “all Scripture” 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, NKJV).
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 a refined and purified conversation that
will bring results if we let it! Gold refined hundreds or even thousands
of years ago is still pure and still gold today! Gold does not lose its purity
and worth through the passage of time and neither does the Word of God.
When I redact or contemporize Scripture, either
intentionally or subconsciously, I am showing my distrust of God’s eternal
purposes for me. When I try to change Scripture, I reduce its ability 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.
We have no more right to suggest that Scripture needs to be
“updated” or “contemporized” than we have the right to suggest that God needs
to redecorate heaven.
It is time to redial the Bible-reading rheostat from
“selected parts” to “all.”
“Our business is to
present the Christian faith clothed in modern terms, not to propagate modern
thought clothed in Christian terms . . . Confusion here is fatal.” J.I. Packer
