"Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding
what the will of God is." Eph. 5:17
In my humble opinion, one of the most important instructions given to Christians in the furtherance of their Christian lives is the one Paul gave to Timothy in 2Tim. 2:15. There he said "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."
Why I think this is so important is because of two things seen in that verse with the first being "study." The second thing is one that is totally reliant upon the first - so we can "rightly divide the word of truth." "Rightly dividing" isn't something hard to understand. It simply means "so we can correctly explain or teach the word of truth."
What brought about our lesson subject today was an article in our local newspaper last Sunday, penned by one of their staff columnists. I know him personally and have debated with him before on occasion when I disagreed with one of his opinion pieces. I did so again after reading his column last Sunday. I'll just briefly mention the gist of the column and quote the part that "fired me up."
The headline of his column read "Murder is blood sport in San Bernardino." In it, he was addressing the phenomenon of our city being blessed (?) with an over abundance of murders so far this year. I have no quarrel with his subject matter nor his opinions as to their occurrence. What I took exception to is his use of a Bible incident in order to support his opinions.
Better yet, I should say his MISUSE of scripture in his editorial effort. Here is the paragraph to which I took exception and felt strongly enough about it to write a letter to the editor regarding this scriptural atrocity. Hopefully they'll print it in the "Letters" column, but I'm not holding my breath. Here's his paragraph, his scriptural gaffe.
"According to the Bible story, Cain slew his brother Abel in a dispute over a bowl of gruel. What at depressing story. These are the first young men on Earth, the sons of Adam and Eve, and already they're fighting and killing over nothing."
Can you believe that? Cain killed Abel in a dispute over a bowl of gruel? My first thought was that I know this writer and I can't believe him to be that ignorant of the Bible. Then I came to realize that he's no different from a lot of people who have a smattering of Bible knowledge, but not near enough to "rightly divide" or "correctly explain" anything from the Book. Following is what I wrote to the editor in rebuttal to the columnist. Then we'll have some further discussion on our lesson.
"In the Sunday edition, Mr. 31st, 2013 appeared John Week's column regarding murder being a "blood sport in San Bernardino." I have no complaint with John regarding his views and opinions of homicide events in our city. What I do have a complaint about is his use of a Biblical illustration and the possible results of its inclusion in the piece.
The very first result noted is that it's almost totally incorrect. I've met John in the past and I usually agree with his opinions voiced in his columns. I just didn't believe that he would be so ignorant of The Scriptures that he would misspeak them in the manner which he did. The only thing correct about his use of Cain and Abel was that they did constitute the first murderer and victim. Where he got that the murder was due to a "dispute over a bowl of gruel" is beyond me.
I've taught Bible classes for about 50 years or so and I have to admit that, in all those years, I somehow missed the scripture telling us that fact. In my studies of the 4th chapter of Genesis I always read that the reason behind the murder of Abel was because he offered the type of sacrifice that God required and Cain didn't which caused God to question Cain about it. In his jealous anger over not being approved of by God he did what's common in a lot of murders - he took his anger out on another person, his brother. I just never saw anywhere in that passage where a "bowl of gruel" was involved.
Perhaps John once picked up a Bible or actually heard someone teach a lesson from it and that lesson was about the two brothers, Jacob and Esau, and Jacob, the younger brother, obtaining the "birthright" from their father in a situation involving a "bowl of pottage (stew)" (Gen. 25:29-32). I would just say this to John: if you are going to cite something from the Bible in a future column, it might be wise to actually have someone who is versed in that Book to check your draft before printing it for the world to read. I see the misuse of scripture as being dangerous because someone else as ignorant of the Bible as you might believe what you said." Respectfully, Ron Covey.
The first point I'd like to make is, that I feel that it is a Christian's duty to stand up to those who misuse or fail to teach the truth and do so in a public forum, IE: the daily newspaper. I don't believe that this writer was intending to teach falsely or deliberately mislead someone by his citing Cain and Abel as examples in his column. I truly believe that he simply wrote what he did out of ignorance of the Word.
I can only explain and speak for myself here but, I feel that, should I just overlook that scriptural deviation from the Biblical record and not say something, in essence I would be agreeing with him. For the past several years, there's been a movement seen in both society and religion that has sort of stemmed from the philosophy of just "looking for the good in everyone and not being critical." We've even seen the ecumenical statement "let's agree to disagree" pop up, even in the Church.
I saw a T-shirt once that read: "IF I AGREED WITH YOU WE'D BOTH BE WRONG." That shirt sums up my feeling on ignoring something such as our recent column in the paper. And I recall something written in 2John 10 that tells me that if I fail to rebuke or speak out against error, then I'm bidding them "god speed." I don't want my silence to, in anyway, indicate that.
This brings me to the most important reason for me to answer the mis-truth in the paper's column and that is the effect it may have on others who do not have a lot of knowledge about the Bible. The only thing they may hear is something miss-communicated or misspoken by a person who has a "pulpit," so to speak. There may be many people who actually believe what was proffered as "according to the Bible" and that bothers me.
On several occasions in his letters, Paul said that "I would not have you ignorant, brethren" meaning that he desired to make them knowledgeable about a particular subject. I guess that's my desire in our lesson today. There's an old maxim that originates from Latin jurisprudence that we use today: ignorance is no excuse of the law." That means that our ignorance of a law doesn't relieve us from the liability of a violation of it.
There is another maxim that also comes from the Latin system of law that I am really partial to and we'll wind up our lesson with it. "IGNORANTIA IURIS NOLET" which translates to: "NOT KNOWING THE LAW IS HARMFUL." As Paul told Timothy (and us) "study," know the "word of truth," lest by our ignorance, we do harm to another's soul.
Ron Covey
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