Throwing Jesus Under the Bus

Is your tradition important enough to you that you are willing to throw Jesus under the bus, so to speak, in the way you interpret and argue scripture? If so, you need to consider the following.

The Bible does not contradict itself. This is because it is from God, and it is truth. Christians are expected to treat the word of God in a manner that shows they understand this. Unfortunately, human tradition too often wins out when a disciple of Christ is presented with the choice of receiving truth and giving up tradition or simply closing their mind to truth and saying whatever helps to defend that which has become their standard.

Jesus set forth the Jews, who rejected him, as an example of being lost because of love of tradition.

Mark 7:6 He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. 7 Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. 8 For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do. 9 And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.

The apostle Paul reiterated Jesus' teaching to Christians.

"See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ" (Col. 2:8 ESV). "All these refer to things which become useless once they are used; they are only human rules and teachings" (Col. 2:22 GNB).

Perhaps you are guilty of throwing the word of God under the bus in defense of your tradition. If you are guilty but willing to reject tradition for truth, then you simply need to learn good hermeneutics. We should get all the scriptures on a subject before drawing a conclusion. The conclusion we come to should be one that allows the scriptures to harmonize. Study the meaning of words, observe context, and pray for wisdom to understand (James 1:5). Then and only then can you fully comprehend what the Bible teaches.

Take, for example, the following passage:

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: (Ephesians 2:8).

Christians often argue with those who say we are saved by faith alone. But the use of proper hermeneutics could quell the need to become embroiled in such discussions. When you see clear teaching that indicates the necessity of obedience to comply with God's written conditions to be saved, don't be too quick to defend the position that one is saved by faith only, or at the point of faith. Look into the possibility that the word "believe" is inclusive or comprehensive, which means that when you read that believers will be saved it is to be understood that it is talking about their life as a believer rather than that they merely acknowledge that Jesus is who he said he is (See 1 John 1:7). It is BAD hermeneutics to construe one passage to contradict another. We are indeed saved by faith. We simply must understand what that means. We are also saved by grace, and a host of other considerations could be added to this list. Thus, the absurdity of arguing that a person is saved by any one factor is apparent. (See the link on "things involved in salvation" below.)

Generally, those who teach “faith only” also teach "once saved always saved," which is another extremely harmful doctrine to the cause of Christ. There is no biblical subject that has more passages to support it than the idea that a Christian can fall from grace. The teaching is scattered through the Bible from the beginning to the end. Here are a few scriptures for your consideration: Gal. 5:4; 2 Pet. 1:5-10, 3:17; 1 Tim. 1:19; Luke 8:13.

By using good hermeneutics, we can teach truth without compromising the word of God or throwing Jesus under the bus to win an argument. We can be assured that the Bible will never contradict itself, and we can let it speak for itself.

Links to study on hermeneutics.

https://www.totalhealth.bz/spiritual-health-things--involved-in-salvation.htm

https://www.totalhealth.bz/spiritual-health-faith-only.htm

https://www.totalhealth.bz/marriage-divorce-remarriage-hermeneutics.htm

Eternal Security of the Believer in Christ
A debate between Dr. Lloyd Olson and Robert Waters

http://www.totalhealth.bz/EternalSecurity.pdf