‘Beware False Balances’ (Talk 1 of 2)

A Talk by Dusty Peterson 

(Virtual transcript of the sermon given on the morning of Sunday 25th July 2004.  The Bible readings for that service are presented in an appendix.  The talk was taped, and transcripts have also been supplied to the Fellowship.)

1 – Introduction 

            Good morning everyone.  It’s great to be able to speak here again.  My talk today has the rather un-snappy title of ‘Beware False Balances’.  (Actually the talk is in two parts, so I’ll give part one now and I’ll present the second part if I’m ever asked to speak here again after today!)

As per the last time I spoke, I intend to allow a few minutes at the end of the talk for any questions, but here’s a quick question for you in order to get the blood pumping.  Who can tell me roughly how many denominations are generally believed to now exist within professing Christianity?  Let’s see, you’ve got Anglicans, Baptists, Congregationalists… Any estimates? 

Well, in 1986 a document called “The Christian Sourcebook” reported that there were 21 THOUSAND denominations in existence, with 270 new ones expected to emerge each year.  But that was inaccurate.  Many more than 270 per year have formed since then.  Just eleven years later, in 1997, there were reportedly seven thousand additional denominations, and a U.S. Census Bureau study a couple of years ago indeed found that there were over 30,000 in existence.  Yes, 30,000 separate denominations, most (if not all) apparently developing different sets of beliefs but still calling themselves Christian.  Do think about that for a moment.  It’s an astonishing thought. [1]

2 – Why so many? 

Some people wisely ask themselves how this extraordinary state of affairs could have been reached - especially when no non-biblical religion sees anything like that degree of fracturing.  Now, one obvious possible explanation is that the Bible is true (and therefore that the Devil about whom the Christian Bible teaches is far more interested in dividing and undermining Christians than in expending his efforts on pagans - who are already serving him).  This is, of course, a correct conclusion, but it’s only part of the reason for this incredible amount of splintering… 

The other reason is that, particularly since the Reformation, Christians in many countries have had increasingly easy access to the Bible and have reached a huge number of distinct interpretations of the scriptures.  But if we stop to think about it, this fact alone doesn’t really tell us why it should be possible to reach up to 30,000 different doctrinal outlooks from the same book. 

Even if we make the fairly large assumption that there are actually 30 denominations per unique doctrinal outlook held, and that these like-minded sets of denominations are only divided from each other because they don’t know of each other (or because they have become divided through personality clashes or false brothers in their midst or whatever), this still means that there are over one THOUSAND, differing (and frequently mutually exclusive) belief systems about God and His Kingdom within professing Christianity - and most, if not all, of these differing worldviews are derived from the same source.  How does this come to be?… 

3 – Answer: Ambiguous verses 

The fact, as I mentioned in my first talk here, is that there are a lot of ambiguous portions within Holy Scripture.  These ambiguous bits usually just comprise individual verses or even just parts of verses, but they can each be interpreted as pointing in different directions to the rest of the Bible.  If we pause for a moment, I’m sure we can all think of examples.  I’ll just mention a couple at this stage… 

(1)  Firstly, although there are quite a few verses in Scripture which plainly call God "Almighty" or “omnipotent”, and although this is the thrust of the Bible as a whole, according to Genesis 2 He “rested” on the seventh day.  Of course, this simply means that He ended the work He had been doing (as a way of showing mankind that we are to work for six days and to take a day off per week), not that He spent the seventh day recovering from that work, but if a denomination is determined to believe that God is not Almighty then there is a small quantity of ammunition like this available to them. 

(2)  Next, holy writ is clear that God is all-knowing, or ‘omniscient’.  But there are also a tiny handful of verses which, on the surface, imply otherwise - such as Hosea 8:4 where God talks about the time when Israel “set up kings, ... and I knew it not”.  This part-verse could be exploited to argue that there are things of which God is not aware.  (In fact, the Hebrew for the word “knew” in the phrase “knew it not” here does not mean “was unaware of”, but rather “was not involved in” - as the rest of the verse confirms.) 

(3)  While we are looking at God’s attributes, let’s complete this set of examples by mentioning His omnipresence.  The Bible says that, although God is totally holy and is separate from this fallen world, nevertheless His presence is, in a sense, everywhere (e.g. see Psalm 139).  But if a denomination is not prepared to believe this, then a few scriptures again exist which superficially seem to oppose this doctrine…

For instance, Scripture talks about God’s presence ‘going with Moses’ during the forty years in the Wilderness, implying that God wasn’t present elsewhere during this time - and that He is thus not omnipresent.  (This, despite the fact that the word translated “presence” here simply means ‘face’ – i.e. such passages are merely saying that God was watching over Moses in a special way on the journey to the Promised Land.) 

4 – Applies to all doctrines 

Most of us will undoubtedly have come across many other examples of this feature of the Bible.  Indeed, from my own reading of Scripture over the years, all the evidence suggests that EVERY true doctrine can superficially be undermined using bits of the Bible.  (For any who doubt this, I’ll give a few more illustrations in a moment.)  It has often been said that it is possible to “prove anything from the Bible”.  In the past, I’ve claimed this myself.  But it’s not in fact  correct.  For instance, you cannot, as far as I am aware, prove that King Ahab was a ten-foot-tall circus contortionist who also went by the name ‘The Great Bendini’.  But it does seem to be the case that you can ‘DISprove’ anything from the Bible – i.e. it appears that you can attack any true doctrine via passages from Holy Scripture itself… 

(Now, there are actually some very good reasons why we should expect this to be the case, and I’ll come to that issue a little later.  For now though, let’s just say that this feature of the Bible should encourage us, prayerfully, to read the whole of God’s written Word - rather than limiting ourselves to favourite passages or pet books - and to seek God for the wisdom to know how to rightly “divide”, or correctly interpret, Scripture.) 

Below are some promised further examples to help bolster my assertion.  However, you need to be aware that I am constrained from offering many of the examples I would like to.  This is because I want this talk to be as widely circulated as sensibly possible but I know of large numbers of sincere believers who have fallen for one or more of the instances I might otherwise have given here and who would probably walk away from the rest of my material if I did include such instances.

*  Is anyone we know uncomfortable with the fact that the Holy Spirit is a Person?  Well, He appears to be called an "it" at different times in the Bible.  (See Part 5 of the book identified in this footnote {} for a straightforward resolution to this seeming difficulty.)

*  Is anyone you know opposed to the teaching that the Messiah is the only way to God?  Do they need to find some scriptures they can exploit to gainsay this truth?  No problem!  (At least, no problem in the sense that there are ambiguous verses, and various 'Old Testament' passages, available to such people.)

*  Does anyone not want to believe that people are saved by grace alone - despite the rest of the gospel making little sense otherwise?  Let’s see, we’ve got the "sheep and goats" passage in Matthew, plus two verses in the epistle of James, that we can take out of context to deny this teaching.  (Please don't misunderstand me; all such ‘problem passages’ need to be honestly explained rather than just swept under the carpet - and it is certainly unwise to teach a given doctrine until one can resolve each of the relevant ‘difficult’ passages.) 

*  Are we not prepared to believe that Jesus was infallible?  Well, He chose Judas Iscariot as a disciple didn’t He?  This fact must have undermined His standing in the eyes of some of His fellow Israelites who didn’t know their Scriptures and didn’t realize that the Lord had to choose Judas in order to fulfil prophecy.  To have chosen Judas must seem a flawed decision to some.  Think of it.  One of the Lord’s twelve disciples was a devil!  In other words, fully one twelfth of that evidence looked truly dreadful.

We could go on and on with examples of this feature of the Bible.  (And it’s important to note that this feature applies to our practices as well, not just to our doctrines.  It applies to the ways in which we run our Fellowships, for example.)  It appears the old saying ‘The exception that proves the rule’ is not such an odd expression after all.

(As an aside, if you disagree with any of the doctrinal statements I give in this talk, can I urge you to make sure that you have not fallen for the ambiguous minority over the unambiguous majority?  If, after checking this, you find that it is I that am wrong, then please let me know.)

Allow me to sum up this section.  If you or I would prefer to reject ANY true doctrine, then a small, but noticeable, proportion of the evidence in the Bible appears, on the surface, to deny that particular teaching and enables us to "believe a lie" (2 Thess. 2:10).  

5 – True of Bible itself 

Now, just as with every doctrine, if anyone wants to hold to a false view of the Bible itself, Holy Writ seems to enable us to think we are right in doing so.  In other words, despite all the irrefutably miraculous features of the Bible, from its staggering quantity of precisely-fulfilled prophecies, plus its amazing internal patterns in the original languages both in terms of letters and numbers, and its completely unrivalled - and totally accurate - histories, to its glorious beauty and its awesome power to transform lives, if anyone wants to disrespect, or even reject, the Bible then God seems to have arranged for a modest, but non-negligible, proportion of the available evidence to superficially support that person’s wrong attitude: 

*  Does anyone we know not want to believe that the Bible is complete?  Would they prefer to believe, for example, that the Gospel of Thomas (a book from the New Testament Apocrypha) is part of the Word of God – despite the fact that, for more than 1500 years, only fragments of this gospel were known to the world, and despite the fact that it would be a deeply unimpressive God who couldn’t protect His own Word and make it available to His People?  Alongside the massive amount of evidence demonstrating the completeness of the Bible without that 'fifth gospel’, you can indeed find a small amount of evidence which can be made to support the opposite stance. 

*  Do you know people who are not prepared to believe in Sola Scriptura – i.e. that the Bible is sufficient in itself for all matters of faith and practice, now that we have the full canon (despite God strongly warning us not to add anything to the Bible - and since we have no way of being certain what is true unless we have an objective basis)?  Likewise, no hassle; some ambiguous evidence is available to defend such a foolish notion. 

*  Ever come across a denomination which was uncomfortable with the idea that the Bible is infallible – despite it being God-breathed and despite the Lord Jesus Himself saying “Scripture cannot be broken”?  We’ve already seen that verses can be found which appear to negate others.  It is precisely when people do not interpret such verses properly that they understandably feel the Bible contradicts itself – and thus that it must be flawed…

The Lord has arranged, for instance, for the gospels to appear to have a fair amount of disharmony between them.  Now, I’ve studied quite a lot of cases of this and I have yet to see a single one where a genuine disharmony can be shown.  (This is because every single difference between the accounts is either due to the same event being expressed from different, but complementary, spiritual angles, or because these differing passages, while having similarities, actually refer to separate events – and hence differ.  I repeat: NONE of the differences I have yet seen end up being remotely irreconcilable.) 

As a bit of an aside, I used to know a young chap who was the unsaved son of a friend of mine.  Now, this young man had a truly brilliant intellect.  He gained a double-first at Oxford without trying – if memory serves.  You know the type.  And, as well as having an incredibly quick mind, he also had a very inquisitive mind, and he started investigating the Bible as a possible source of truth.  But he simultaneously came across a book which listed a number of these supposed contradictions and errors in the Bible, and he felt (rightly) that if the Bible has errors in it then it can’t be the true Word of God… 

   So he started investigating each of these supposed problems in turn, and, after looking up the original Hebrew or Greek, or determining the full context of the relevant passage, or making whatever checks were appropriate, he kept finding that these so-called errors vanished quite readily after proper inquiry.  The problem was that he then came across another list of supposed scriptural mistakes and discrepancies.  He finally got a bit fed up with having to check each of these claims, and, feeling that there couldn’t be smoke without fire, he sadly decided to give up on the Bible… 

This is a vivid example of where great mental capacity is no substitute for wisdom.  This young man simply refused to see the pattern in front of his nose:  There were all of these supposed problems in the Bible, most of which were not hard to spot, and which all disappeared when carefully considered.  There were far too many of them, (and most were simply too conspicuous, given the wondrous and intricate construction of the Bible), to have been included by accident, yet my friend could not see the enormous likelihood that they were therefore included deliberately by God.  If this is true, as I contend it is, then no matter how many of these ‘problems’ a person is able to reconcile, it follows that God will have ensured the presence of enough additional instances such that anyone who wants to have reasons to disbelieve the Bible’s divine nature will find some. 

6 - Does God REALLY deceive? 

            Now, I appreciate that what I’ve been saying today may lead you to believe that I think God deceives people.  Actually that’s not what I’ve been claiming.  What I’ve said is that God enables people to deceive themselves, which is not the same thing.  I also need to clarify that God hates all lies and would never Himself tell an untruth.  But an outright lie is clearly not the same as, say, using ambiguous wording which people can take the wrong way if they so choose. But let's have a look at what the Scriptures have to say on this whole matter of misleading people without lying...

            Let’s start with God's handling of His enemies.  On more than one occasion, God's tactics for Israel's army involved deceiving the enemy.  In Joshua 8, He instructed the Israelites to split into two groups so that one group would pretend to flee, deceiving the enemy and thus drawing those forces out of the enemy city - so that the other half of Israel's army could slip in behind and destroy that city.

            Additionally, the Lord sometimes sent a deceiving spirit into the mouths of the 'prophets' (e.g. in order to destroy Ahab in 1 Kings 22).  God also warns Israel, in Ezekiel 14, that if a “prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the LORD have deceived that prophet…”. 

            Now, you may say these were only deceptions against the Lord’s enemies, but nevertheless they were deceptions from God.  Besides, let us consider what constitutes an “enemy” of God.  Does it necessarily mean someone implacably opposed to all of God’s ways?  Well, remember that the Lord deceived a man of God via an old prophet in 1 King 13 only a very short while after the former had faithfully been doing the Lord’s bidding and had healed someone in God’s name.  And Jeremiah referred to a time when God deceived the whole of backslidden Israel when he said, in chapter 4: “Ah, Lord GOD! surely Thou hast greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall have peace; whereas the sword reacheth unto the soul” (v10). 

            But it goes beyond this, and I'd urge you to hear me out here.  I realise what I am about to say is rarely taught, but if you'll bear with me I'll supply fulsome biblical proof.  Specifically, and only for greater good of His Kingdom, God could even be said to fool His own people at times.  For instance, Jeremiah cried out “O LORD, Thou hast deceived me” (Jer. 20:7).  God also used deception in order to reveal to Solomon's court the true mother of the disputed baby in 1 Kings 3:23-28, by having Solomon deceptively order the child to be cut in two; and God used various deceptions in order to bring Jacob and his whole family to Egypt for its safety (e.g. see Gen. 42:7-9 where Joseph hid his identity from his brothers and accused them of being spies).

            There's another, particularly apt, example I want to mention at this stage.  You see, God deceived Abraham to test him regarding his son (see Genesis 22).  God never intended for Abraham to actually kill Isaac, but He sure gave Abraham that impression!  It was a test of Abraham’s devotion to God, and this gives us an important clue as to WHY God would deceive people – or, more accurately, why He would enable people to deceive themselves.  (We’ll come back to this point shortly.) 

            Now, some of you may believe you know of a verse in the Bible which says that God is opposed to all deception.  But once again we are talking about a vanishingly small fraction of the Biblical evidence, so we need to ensure we interpret it in the light of the rest of the Bible rather than the other way around.  As I say, God is totally opposed to all LYING, but you can mislead someone without having to actually lie, and it is the latter type of deception we are looking at in these talks.  The fact is that there are numerous places in the Bible where the Lord unambiguously employs the method we have been discussing.  (Please see the footnotes for several more examples and for more explanation of this particular issue if it is troubling you.) [2]

            In other words, please don’t think I am misrepresenting God.  He can, and does, allow us to mislead ourselves if we prefer that route over loving the truth no matter what the cost. 

7 – But WHY? 

A sensible question at this stage is: Why on earth would God do this?!  I will look at that issue more fully in just a few minutes, but, at the very least, this pattern we have identified should encourage us all to be very open to correction - and should also encourage all teachers of the Word to be exceptionally open (and to be prepared to learn from the doctrines held by sincere members of denominations other than their own).  It should also lead serious Christians to develop a good working knowledge of the whole Bible, and to take care that they do so in a very respectful way.

Now, some people would use this surprising feature of the Bible as an argument for ignoring the Bible.  For example, certain people say, “We can effectively forget the Bible, because Jesus said He is the truth”.  But this is another example of the very thing I am talking about – i.e. taking just part of one verse and interpreting all other verses in the light of it.  If we don’t really need the Bible then what are the epistles, which were, let's remember, all written to believers, doing there?  If we don’t need the Bible then the highly unambiguous words of 2 Timothy 3:16-17, for instance, (which formed part of our second reading this morning), become a nonsense.  As you will recall, that passage says:  “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.”  So, at least until you or I are perfect, we still need to be reading our Bibles! 

(Incidentally, the explanation for Christ Jesus calling Himself “the Truth” is quite straightforward.  I want to return to this matter in my second talk, but for now let me observe that our Lord Himself stated, in John 17, that God’s Word is truth.  (If anyone is interested, the Greek term translated "Word" in that passage is “Logos”.)  Now, Jesus Christ is God’s Word in human form – and can therefore rightly call Himself the truth, but the Bible is God’s Word in WRITTEN form – and is therefore also the truth.  When He was on the earth, Jesus Himself repeatedly encouraged us to know the Scriptures.  He did so in Luke 11:28, in Luke 6:3, in Luke 20:44 and in many other places.  (Incidentally, most of these additional passages are listed in the first chapter of a book I’ve co-authored - see footnote [3].) 

8 – In Proportion   

I'm not, at this stage, going to say much about the proportion of the relevant evidence that will appear misleading on a given doctrine.  I plan to look at this particular matter another time.  But what I will say is that the misleading proportion always seems to be enough to convince those folks who do not put the truth first.  If someone prefers to side with the minority, ambiguous, part and ignore the greater weight of evidence which unambiguously points in the correct direction, then God seems to have made sure that that ambiguous part is enough to fool such a person.

(I should clarify this.  In my experience, the ambiguous proportion varies between issues.  Some doctrines see a lower proportion of evidence pointing in the wrong direction than others.  However, this smaller proportion will always, I find, include pieces of evidence which are more compelling.  Thus the overall EFFECT seems to be equivalent.  This can produce a very interesting situation.  Let's imagine that a given doctrine is supported explicitly, or at least reasonably directly, by a huge proportion of the Bible and that this doctrine's negation is only supportable by a very small number of passages indeed.  To achieve the necessary 'effect' we have discussed, some of these few passages will seem unexpectedly compelling at face value.)

CONCLUSION 

Now, this principle I’ve been exploring – i.e. that the truth can be found by being fully open to it and by respecting all the evidence, but that a non-negligible proportion of that evidence will superficially point away from the truth – appears to be a fundamental spiritual principle.  If so, it applies to everything in this life, not just to the Bible and its contents… 

For example, it applies both to the whole question of creation and the age of the earth.  It also applies to the question of Bible versions and the manuscripts which underlie them.  It applies to the issue of whether a particular person’s ministry is of God or not.  It applies to every aspect of the truth.  (I plan to take a closer look at this point in my next talk where, God-willing, I will also uncover the extremely important ramifications of this principle).  For now though, I do need to return to the question of WHY God would ever mislead people (or, more often, why He would allow people to mislead themselves).  I believe there are two prime reasons: 

Firstly, I think God allows it because truth is so paramount to the Christian faith that He wants to encourage us very strongly indeed not to be tempted even to start down the path of error but instead to constantly check that we have not strayed onto that path.  By seeing other people blinded to various truths, we should be spurred on to be extra careful to avoid such a state – or, if we have started down that road, to be extra diligent to discern that we have indeed strayed, and to claw our way out of that state. 

The second reason why God sometimes misleads people is related to the above reason, but is even more profound.  I believe that God allows those people who are not properly devoted to the truth to be deceived because, in the Bible, God aligns Himself with truth so completely that He takes it as a major personal affront when we don’t love the truth – and, as such, He’s hardly going to bless such an attitude.  (I plan to develop this crucial question in my second talk.)  This idea - that we really must love the truth - is reinforced by the first Bible reading we heard this morning, from Proverbs 2.  I’ll just remind us of verses 3 to 5 before I close.  Listen out for how thoroughly committed we need to be: 

3  Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding;

4  If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures;

5  Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God. 

This plainly involves heartfelt desire.  It involves seeking the truth with the same degree of application and determination with which someone would search for hid TREASURES.  (It also involves obeying the truths that one has already found.)  Are we not now beginning to see why so many different denominations - with so many different worldviews, developed from the same book - have appeared around the globe?  Anyone who doesn't agree that this is a major reason for the existence of so many divergent views within professing Christianity needs to find a better explanation AND needs to explain the ambiguous Bible verses we have already discussed (as well as all the others they know of).  They will ALSO need to explain away the contents of my next talk!

(If anyone is planning to avoid the second of these talks on the basis that they are experiencing serious doubts about the contents of the current talk, I am extremely confident that they will find all such doubts removed in the follow-up one.  If this proves not to be the case then please do contact me.)

If anyone is tempted to reject my material on the basis that it does not fit with their existing doctrinal framework, then I would humbly suggest that they are in danger of doing exactly what this talk warns about - i.e. putting something before the truth.  I urge them to consider what I have to say in the second talk before dismissing the above.

Anyone who still thinks they are immune from the problem I have identified this morning is, in my view, dangerously naive.  I would argue that they are actually being even more naive than the newly-wed man today who, in a society which sees more than half of all marriages end in divorce, imagines that he himself will never experience any marital problems at all.  (I recommend that we all stop for a moment to consider the terrible foolishness of such an expectation.)

I feel I should end this talk by simply encouraging each one of us, myself included, to reconsider all of our doctrines and to make absolutely certain that none of them is founded on the sand of an ambiguous minority of passages, or on a subset of verses taken out of context, instead of on the weighty rock of the majority evidence that God has supplied - and which is pointing His sheep in the right direction. 

Any questions? 

Thank you for listening, and God bless you.

APPENDIX

READINGS: 

The first reading is taken from the book of Proverbs, chapter 2, verses 1 to 15. 

1 ¶ My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee;
2  So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding;
3  Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding;
4  If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures;
5  Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God.
6  For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.
7  He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly.
8  He keepeth the paths of judgment, and preserveth the way of his saints.
9  Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path.
10 ¶ When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul;
11  Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee:
12  To deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh froward things;
13  Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness;
14  Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked;
15  Whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths: 

This is the end of the first reading. 

The second reading is taken from the second epistle to Timothy, chapter 3, starting at verse 10. 

10 ¶ But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience,
11  Persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured: but out of them all the Lord delivered me.
12  Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
13  But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.
14  But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them;
15  And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
16  All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
17  That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. 

The end of the second reading.