Whose Lens Are You Reading Through?

Everyone reads Scripture through a lens. Learn to see yours, test what you’ve heard, and hear the other side fairly before you open the hard questions.

Intro

• Nobody comes to the Bible empty-handed. Our parents, our church, our culture and the teachers we trusted all shape what we expect a passage to say before we read it. That is a lens.
• The lens is not the problem. Forgetting that you are wearing one is. Three habits help: name your lens, test what you’ve heard against what is written, and read charitably when someone disagrees.

Name your lens

Before you open a hard question, ask yourself where your answer came from. There is nothing to fill in; just be honest with yourself.

Questions

• Who first taught you what the Bible says?
• Which church do you attend, or which were you raised in?
• When you hear a familiar verse, whose voice do you hear: a preacher’s, a song’s, or the text’s?
• Have you ever changed your mind about a teaching after reading the text for yourself?
• What would it cost you to learn your church is wrong about something?

The two disciples on the road to Emmaus knew the prophets, but they read them through the hope of an earthly redeemer. Jesus did not hand them a new lens; He opened the Scriptures. Tradition can be a lens too, and Jesus warned that it can make void the word of God.

Test like a Berean

In Thessalonica, many met Paul’s preaching with a mob. In Berea, they opened the Scriptures to check it. Here are five things many people believe the Bible says. Take the lens off each one and read what is written.

Money is the root of all evil.

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil: which some reaching after have been led astray from the faith, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

The saying blames money. Paul blames the love of it, and calls it a root of evil, not the only one.

God helps those who help themselves.

For while we were yet weak, in due season Christ died for the ungodly.

No verse says this. The gospel says the opposite: Christ died for us when we could not help ourselves.

Often heard as: never call anything wrong.

Judge not, that ye be not judged.

Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment.

Jesus forbids hypocritical judging, not all judging. Deal with your own beam first, then judge righteously.

God won’t give you more than you can handle.

There hath no temptation taken you but such as man can bear: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation make also the way of escape, that ye may be able to endure it.

The promise is about temptation, and it comes with a way of escape. It is not a promise that life will never be too heavy to carry alone.

Pride goes before a fall.

Pride goeth before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall.

Close, but the proverb is stronger: pride goes before destruction, and the fall belongs to a haughty spirit.

Read charitably

It is easy to judge a view by what its opponents say about it. Scripture shows how often that report is wrong. Take the lens off and hear each one in his own words.

But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This man doth not cast out demons, but by Beelzebub the prince of the demons.

And knowing their thoughts he said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand: and if Satan casteth out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then shall his kingdom stand? And if I by Beelzebub cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? therefore shall they be your judges. But if I by the Spirit of God cast out demons, then is the kingdom of God come upon you.

The charge sounded convincing. Jesus’ own answer shows it could not be true.

and set up false witnesses, who said, This man ceaseth not to speak words against this holy place, and the law: for we have heard him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered unto us.

This is that Moses, who said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall God raise up unto you from among your brethren, like unto me. This is he that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel that spake to him in the Mount Sinai, and with our fathers: who received living oracles to give unto us:

Howbeit the Most High dwelleth not in houses made with hands; as saith the prophet, The heaven is my throne, And the earth the footstool of my feet: What manner of house will ye build me? saith the Lord: Or what is the place of my rest? Did not my hand make all these things?

They said he spoke against Moses and the temple. He honored Moses, and spoke of the temple in the prophet’s own words.

and they have been informed concerning thee, that thou teachest all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children neither to walk after the customs.

all shall know that there is no truth in the things whereof they have been informed concerning thee

Then Paul took the men, and the next day purifying himself with them went into the temple, declaring the fulfilment of the days of purification, until the offering was offered for every one of them.

The report said Paul taught Jews to forsake Moses. The elders knew it was not true, and Paul showed it in the temple.

When Apollos taught something incomplete, Priscilla and Aquila did not denounce him. They took him aside and showed him the way of God more accurately. Hear the other side fully, then answer it from Scripture.

My lens

Paragraphs

• I have a lens too. I was taught the Scriptures by my parents, in the same congregation where my family has worshiped for more than four generations. That shapes how I read, and I won’t pretend it doesn’t.
• I hold the Scriptures as the only authority, and I try to follow the pattern of the New Testament church: what the apostles commanded, and what the churches they taught practiced with their approval. That is why these charts reach the conclusions they do. History tells us where a teaching came from, but only the text tells us whether it is true.
• So test me the way you’ve just learned to: open the Scriptures, and see whether these things are so.

Open the hard questions →

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