The Grand COG Tradition Of Taking Scripture Out Of Context

It has been a while since I have checked out the posts on Concretized Christianity They had this excellent piece up recently about how the Church of God has been so good at taking scripture out of context. They start off with a zinger about the "cheerful giver", which has been twisted by the COG to justify tithing and giving generously to the church. They demonstrate that it means nothing of the sort. 

The other excellent point is the COG attitude that when everyone who is a true Christian becomes a king or priest in the kingdom they will be sitting around ruling over underlings doing all of the work as they revel in their new power and authority and do nothing to get their hands dirty.

I have long said that if the church really wanted to grow and practice what they claim about the kingdom then they would want to do all they can in this day and life to bring a foretaste of that to those around them by helping in disasters, the local food bank or kitchen, and doing good in their communities.

Lifting Scriptures Out of Context

The COG groups are infamous for lifting scriptures out of context and applying them to a different narrative. If we’re so busy reading a group’s literature and listening to their online content that we don’t have time to sit down and study the word of God (the Bread of Life), we will not be able to tell when they do this and why it is wrong.

One example of this is something we hear on almost every holy day.

“But this I say: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver.” (II Corinthians 9:6-7) is often read before taking up an offering, as if it applies to giving money to a corporate organization. But, when you read the context in II Corinthians 8, it is really about collecting an offering for another congregation (in Jerusalem) in need.

So beyond the misuse of the scriptures for something it’s not talking about, let’s stop and consider whether we have ever had a request to help another congregation in need. Have you seen a collective effort for food, water, money, supplies, etc., for example, for a congregation in an area that has been devastated by a tornado, a wildfire, or a hurricane? Have volunteers from the COG congregations poured into those communities to help out?

The short answer is “No.” The corporate COG groups diss “so-call Christians” for many things, and yet these are the very people who respond in a tangible way after a disaster. Want to make disciples and preach the gospel? Live it by helping and serving others, especially when their worlds have been turned upside down.

In fact, is this any different than what we will be doing when Jesus establishes God’s kingdom on the earth? Humans who are still alive are going to be shell-shocked and they will need the most basic of their needs met. Food, water, shelter, clothing.

Someone thumping on a Bible and “preaching” at them won’t help them a bit. Someone helping provide those basic necessities will. In the process, they will see the fruit of God’s spirit on display: agape, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. That will make an impact, considering what they have just experienced, and that’s the first step.

One of the things that the COG groups imply is that we’ll have offices and ranks and we will sit on thrones and direct little underlings, but you and I won’t actually get in there and get our hands dirty laboring to help people. For me, that’s no better than the idea of going to heaven and playing a harp for eternity.

We’ll be a kingdom of priests to our God. What does that look like? We don’t have to look any further than our High Priest, Jesus. What did He do when He was on the earth? What does He do now?

He served and He serves. He didn’t go sit down and pontificate somewhere and ignore the needs of the people he encountered. He healed, he fed, he counseled. Most of his actual teaching was confined to his disciples (120 by the time we get to Acts 1). Now as our High Priest, He mediates, intercedes, and saves us. That’s work, my friends (at least in my case, it is!).

I recently heard a sermon about the life of Hezekiah. And I encountered another instance of lifting scripture out of context. The speaker actually said that the second part of II Kings 20 happened before the first part. I’ve never seen such an egregious act of completely twisting a narrative.

To summarize the story as the speaker told it, Hezekiah showed the Babylonian ambassadors everything in Jerusalem before he got sick, showing a lack of faith in God, but later down the road he got sick and humbled himself.

That’s not true. Period. The Babylonian ambassadors came to Hezekiah because they heard he had been sick!

Why did God give Hezekiah 15 more years of life when he was dying? I think II Chronicles 32:31 gives us an idea. It was a test and Hezekiah failed. Now, in II Chronicles 32, there is a second mention of Hezekiah humbling himself after he showed everything to the Babylonian ambassadors and God not letting the fall of Jerusalem happen during his lifetime.

But when you read the same account in II Kings 20, Hezekiah’s attitude seems less humble. He basically responds to God’s judgement with relief that it wouldn’t happen while he was alive and a total lack of concern that his children would experience it. Not exactly my idea of father of the year.

We cannot twist scripture and lift it out of context for our own meanings and interpretations. In a sense, this is no different from adding to scripture and taking away from scripture, against which God gives strict warnings twice.

We also need to know the word of God intimately so we know when other people are doing this. Otherwise, we’re ripe for deception, and there is more than enough of that already going around.

Let’s study the word of God instead of the words of man. One is absolute truth. The other is not. Concretized Christianity