Don’t Make Me Think!
Give Me a Proof Text and
Simplicity!
Published on Facebook, June 12, 2010
By Bud Powell
Thus the Jews: Jesus called them blind leaders of
the blind. They did not understand their own scriptures, but quoted them as
heavy burdens to lay upon people. Jesus couldn't be the Messiah: He came from
Galilee and Scripture said He will come from Bethlehem. He could not be good,
He healed on the sabbath: let the people come some other day to be healed.
Healers should not work on the Sabbath. He ate with publicans and sinners; Jews
were called to be holy and separate. He forgave sins, the law said not to
suffer sin upon them, but to rebuke them. He died the death of one accursed of
God; Messiah would rule the nations with a rod of iron. How could Jesus be the
Messiah?
There are so many disciples of the Pharisees today; the churches are full of
them, the churches with blind men leading blind men. Oh, they quote the Scriptures--a
piece here and a piece there--and follow their "proof texts" no
matter how in conflict with the rest of Scripture. Along with the proof texts
they desire simplicity above all. "I just want the simple gospel,"
they mutter, as if "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see
God" is a simple concept. Just ask them what "Blessed"
"pure" "heart" "see" and "God" mean,
and watch them squirm. So they settle for preaching themselves and their experiences.
Study to show thyself
approved....
The Gospel isn't simple and it isn't taught by proof texts. The demand for
simple proof texts is a demand for perversion and corruption of the gospel.
James contradicts this demand for simplicity by writing:
19 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to
speak, slow to wrath:
20 For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
21 Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and
receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
--James 1
Against the tendency of the flesh to be swift to utter nonsense in anger, we
are commanded to be slow to speak and swift to hear. We are to put aside excess
sin. No man can live without sin in this life, but we don't have to be fools.
The word "superfluity" in the AV was used by the Greeks to describe
the weeds that grew in the field along with the good seed--it was also used to
describe excess wax in the ears. It refers to the outbreaking or the
overflowing of malice and deceit and railings.
Instead, we are with "meekness" to receive the engrafted word, or the
planted word. The word must become part of us.
The Scriptures speak to the whole man and must be received by the whole man
into his very heart and life. The whole man is involved the the process: the
heart, the mind, the soul, the will, the rational process. To bring forth good
fruit the word must be heard and understood, as Jesus said in Matthew 13:23.
There is no blind faith here, but the word heard and understood.
This is the reason that the blessed man of Psalm 1 delights in the law word of
God and meditates day and night in it.
Prooftexting and simplicity take the man out of the process and produces the
true robotic man, the pseudo Calvinist, the holy fool. God has included man in
His great plan of salvation, for Jesus did not take on him the nature of
angels, but the seed of Abraham. Christ runs through all history and all the
Bible, from the creation of man and Eve, the companion and love of man, a
figure of Christ and His church according to Eph. 5, to the marriage supper of
the Lamb and the New Jerusalem with the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve
apostles of the Lamb. The royal seed begins with Eve and runs through the
patriarchs, pulls in Ruth and Rahab, to David and Israel, to the Virgin Mary
and a great multitude born of the Spirit out of every nation and family of
earth.
We are called to love the Lord our God with all our soul, with all our mind,
with all our strength, and with all our heart. Salvation does not mean to shut
down any part of our being but to give it up completely and earnestly to Jesus
Christ the wisdom of God. Hence, we are called present our bodies as living
sacrifices, "holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of
your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect,
will of God." Rom. 12:1,2.
We are not to puddle around with dreams of simplicity and search for proof
texts to lord it over other Christians and prove our own moral and spiritual
superiority as the Pharisees of all ages do but to pray with Paul that we might
be "strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ
may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and
depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge,
that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. Eph. 3:16-19
Get out of the salt marshes and launch out into the fullness of the grace of
God and the water of life.
