(Ver 1.1) When studying the Bible, we discover some of theological qualities of the deity of God.  This is sometimes overlooked when we just read the Bible.  But knowing these characteristics can help us in our understanding of God’s Word.  We should always start by knowing that God is the only deity power that knows everything.  This is called being “Omniscient”.   Then we must realize that we are not Him.  This is a very basic truth, but I’ve heard some preachers get up and make statements, that sounds like they are God.  For example, I heard more than one preacher say something like “Search the Bible and you won’t find anything that says blah, blah, blah”.   This is about as foolish of a statement as anyone can make.  I can only say that God is the only one that is qualified to make a statement like that.  He is the only one that knows everything that the Bible says.  Humans sometimes act like they have searched and because they haven’t found anything, that means there is nothing about that subject in the Bible.  Here is a truth that you should be aware of, in the New Testament Paul wrote “For we know in part” (1 Cor 13:9-12).  If Paul knew only a part of the truth, I would venture to say that we only know a part of the part that Paul knew.  I won’t call names in this blog but I will give examples.

I heard a minister say, you can search the Bible and you won’t find anything in it that says the church is the bride of Christ.  What an ignorant teacher.  Who does he think he is?  Obviously he thought he was near the level of God who knows everything about the Bible.  What people don’t realize is the complex ways that God uses in the Bible to conceal subjects.  God uses a multitude of different methods to make the Bible a giant puzzle. There is symbolism, typology, analogies, patterns, parables, allegories and a multitude of other ways to call the same object by the same name  There are multiple things called by the same name, there are independent truths, dependent truths, and on and on I could go.  Guess what, I did what he said, I searched the Bible and I found a huge number of scriptures that confirmed the identity of the church as the bride of Christ.  Just because he didn’t see them, it doesn’t mean they don’t exist.  What he did was he made a statement that caused a lot of people that were not so capable or immature Christians to believe wrong.  What he did was contribute to the confusion and the divisions that we are already familiar with being well ingrained into the body of Christ.  After I studied the subject, I have a hard time understanding how they miss it and don’t see it.

This is such a problem that teachers make this mistake more often than they realize and this is the root cause of the majority of the divisions within the church.  One group sees a truth, the other groups don’t.  It would be nice if teachers only taught things that were really truth.   I’ll end with one more example of arrogant misleading.  I heard a minister make this statement, “This woman is Israel, you can’t make this woman any other identity because it won’t harmonize with the rest of scripture”.  Do you understand what an prideful statement that could be?  He doesn’t know the rest of the scripture, so how can he make a statement like that?  All he did was contribute to a falsehood using his opinion of one truth.  He was talking about the identity of the woman in Revelation 12.   After I studied the subject I didn’t have clue how he could have made that statement.  He didn’t give any scriptures or backing for the statement, he just said it like it was Gospel and therefore everyone was suppose to believe it.

I don’t fault these teachers that I just gave you as an example, for they truly think and believe they are right.  The Bible is however so much more complex than it appears on the surface.  So instead of telling people what the Bible doesn’t say, concentrate and focus on what God tells you that it does say and only teach that.  We have so many examples, of this in the church it would be impossible to include every example.  So what is the low hanging fruit of this topic?  Teach what you know and not what you think you know.  If you make a statement make sure you can provide the verses to back the statement.  If you can’t do that then it is wise to keep your mouth shut.

God Bless you with the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation in Knowing Christ Jesus.  May He open the eyes of your understanding to see what is the truth.  Pray this for yourself.  Pray this for me.  Pray this for all of your teachers.  Pray this for you family.  It is based upon a prayer that Paul prayed for the church in Ephesians 1:15.  Until next time may God keep you all safe and fill you with His Spirit.