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Brooke and I had a discussion about my last warning in my sermon on Sunday morning over lunch on Sunday afternoon. I started the conversation with her by saying something like, I don't think I communicated my last point very well. Then, I received an email from a member with good questions about that last warning. Following is the bulk of my reply to that email:
The last warning was against the gospel of private interpretation.
I was intending to draw distinctions between 4 things.
First, meaning vs. application.
Then, the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers vs. the doctrine of the priesthood of each believer.
I tried to accomplish this without using any of that terminology which I thought would only muddy the water, but when it was all said and done, I think it was less clear the way I did it.
When studying the Bible there are three basic questions: 1) What does it say? 2) What does it mean? 3) How does it apply to me? While the answer to the third question will be private and specific to an individual's particular circumstances, the answers to the first two should be the same for everybody. Truth lies in the meaning, and truth cannot be relative to the person or change from person to person. It is in the application of the truth that we see the Scriptures come alive and be active as the Holy Spirit in each believer makes different applications of the one meaning.
This is precisely where the confusion rests. The man in the pew has not been taught to see a distinction between meaning and application, and many pastors do not see that distinction. Therefore, it has begun to be taught that the Scriptures may mean one thing to one person and mean another thing to another person. While they may intend to say that application is different from person to person, to teach that meaning can be different is very dangerous.
This totally undoes any fellowship among believers, and brings into question all doctrinal statements from the Nicene Creed and Apostle's Creed all the way to today's Baptist Faith and Message. Who can say that any of these doctrinal statements are right, if meaning is relative to individuals? Therefore, we cannot ascribe to the priesthood of each believer determining meaning through private interpretation. Rather, each believer must live in community with other believers, read the Bible for himself and subject his understanding of the Bible to accountable relationships such as personal relationships as iron sharpens iron to help check his interpretation, covenant relationships within a local church where he is taught sound doctrine by teachers and elders to help guide his interpretation, and historical relationships with doctrinal statements to establish a frame work for his interpretation. This is why I tried to emphasize earlier in the sermon that the elder is not over the flock but rather one from among the flock who is given the responsibility of oversight. I am one of the flock and am submitted to this same relationally accountable process of interpretation. As a matter of fact, the conversation we are having now is a part of that process; you are helping me to clarify meaning.
This is what is meant by the priesthood of all believers. The Apostles, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wrote what the Bible says. The community of believers, under the illumination of the Holy Spirit, sharpen their understanding of what the Bible means. The individual, under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, determines how the Bible applies.
Now, the warning I was attempting to issue was that many Pastors are preaching a privately interpreted gospel. Many are not spending ample time submitting themselves to the interpretive process. While for the man in the pew that process does not begin at the level of the Greek, for Pastors it should, but for many it does not. Preachers are simply picking a verse, usually out of context, and making it mean something that it was never intended to mean. Then, they preach that meaning as if it were the Word of God, and that is a perversion, or twisting, of the truth which leads disciples away (Acts 20:30). I had hoped to make people aware of this practice as a way of warning, so that it can be recognized when it's happening. It's preaching a private interpretation.
For just one example, I heard a sermon by another pastor in this city just a couple of weeks ago. Now there was very little Scripture in the sermon as a whole, but in the small section where he did use Scripture this is what he did. I think his main point of this section was that people will follow Jesus in the good times but not in the bad times. So he told the story of the feeding of the 5000 from John 6 and talked about how the people followed him. Then he read John 6:26, "Jesus answered them and said, "Truly, Truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves, and were filled." (By the way, he just put these verses on the screen. No one was asked to turn to them in the Bible. So, few if any would have noticed what he did next.) He then went to verse 60. Yes, from verse 26 to verse 60 and read, "Many therefore of His disciples, when they heard this said, "This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?" Verse 26 is NOT the difficult statement or teaching which the disciples were complaining about! The difficult teaching begins in verse 32 and continues all the way to verse 58 culminating with Jesus' statement that "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life..." What makes me angry about this is that what is contained in verses 32 to 58 (the difficult teaching) is the Gospel! And it is the whole point of the feeding of the 5000 event. But Pastors just rip verses from their contexts, privately interpret them to mean whatever fits their point and preach it as if it were God's words when in reality they are giving nothing more than personal advise which often turns out to be stumbling blocks. This is the error of Balaam which the Lord warned the Church at Pergamum about in Revelation 2:14-16.
So my warning to the members of Southside is, don't fall prey to this type of false preaching. Be aware of it; be able to recognize it, and disregard it, when you hear it.
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