I was reading a blog by a former fundamentalist today and he had an
interesting point in his article. It reminds me so much of when I read
Philadelphia Church of God, Living Church of God and Restored Church of God's
web sites and articles. A person finds scant information on their web sites
about Jesus, but will find hundreds and hundreds of articles, booklets and
books dealing with Old Testament concepts and law.
He talks in his blog about how those embarrassed by Jesus or made to feel
uncomfortable by Jesus like to flip backwards in the Bible till they find
something that makes them feel comfortable again.
The Church of God has always been a backwards flipping church. It
lived in the past and in the law of the Old Testament stories and hero's.
Jesus makes them extremely uncomfortable, but they do like to quote angry Paul
and others that are pissed at the local churches for some failure. That
makes them feel good. Jesus' words have the opposite effect so they would
rather find comfort in law or an angry pissed off God who is ready for revenge.
He writes:
The beauty of the context of this discussion in
John, is that Jesus is talking to religious people who are quite similar to a
lot of folks we encounter today- folks who, when confronted with the radical teachings
of Jesus will keep flipping the page away from Jesus, backwards or
forwards, until they land on a verse that makes them feel a little safer. This
process of flipping the page away from Jesus until we find something more
comfortable- in the name of “believing the whole Bible”, is a gross
abuse of scripture. When Jesus confronted these people he blasted them, saying
(my paraphrase):
“You know the scriptures backwards and forwards, but you’ve missed the most
important part: me.“ (John
5:39-40)
If you see something in Jesus that makes you uncomfortable, but flip the
page backwards until you feel more comfortable, you are misusing scripture.
Oh, how we especially like flipping the page backwards. The Old Testament
has so many different verbal portraits of God, that everyone would probably
find something to suit them. There are portraits where God is angry, portraits
where he is sad and regretful, portraits where he is a warrior, portraits where
he commands baby killing, portraits where he is feminine and compares him to a
nursing mother, portraits where he is loving and patient, portraits where God
is…
There are a lot of portraits. This provides a very convenient opportunity
for those who wish to avoid the teachings of Jesus, and instead turn the pages
backwards until one finds a portrait of God that seems to line up with who we
want him to be. I see people do this for a host of reasons- there are all sorts
of things we can seemingly justify if we flip the page away from Jesus.
Want to justify nationalism, oppression, violence, sexism, and ____ (fill in
the blank)? Just keep flipping the pages away from Jesus and you’ll probably
find something to make you feel justified.
- See more at: Flipping the Pages Away from Jesus: why
some parts of the Bible are more important than others
