Welcome To The Arena Of Indubitable Truth! Topic: To Avoid Error – Have The Right Interpretation Of The Scripture (10)

Topic: To Avoid Error – Have The Right Interpretation Of The Scripture (10)

Continued from last episode-

Preamble: There is obvious gross interpretation of the Scripture as a result of the way and manner the Scripture has been studied and read. The inappropriate studying and reading of the Scripture has led to wrong interpretation of the Scripture and that has resulted into wrong application of what the Scripture says.

Anchor Text:

“And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest?”

Acts 8:30

Text of Interest:

“But ye have not so learned Christ;”

Ephesians 4:20

So as many cultures in the course of time wanes up, most things associated with them couldn’t find relevancy in the system of things and hence the judgment varies. For instance, in the days of Noah, his righteous life which is a display of God’s level of knowledge in him became the standing point to judge the culture of his generation. The same goes to Daniel and his colleagues, the level of knowledge of God they brought into the land of Babylon became the standard to judge the culture of the people of Babylon as vile. So certain cultures that are seen as perfect as certain times became vile as the knowledge of God in man increases and they are done away with. The Jews though the people of God as perceived by many were seen as having the right culture but when the revelation of the knowledge of God came to them by God’s Son, loopholes in their culture and ways of worship to God were discovered. One has to point out here that their culture was established based on their understanding of the Scripture, but due to the fact that they have a wrong interpretation of the Scripture, they established and practice a wrong culture. And Jesus speaking to them said “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.”

However, it is interesting to know that many laws were enacted based on the culture of the people and any defiance amounts to serious penalties. There were so many unjustifiable things done to humanity through culture because of the lack of the knowledge of God in the life of people at a given period of time. The truth is that culture even in this present day has influence and affected the ways and manners Christians worship God. Though we are Christians but we bring in some elements of our cultures into our act of worship. The impact of culture cannot be overlooked but should not be used as a standard or yardstick to evaluate the knowledge of God. Therefore, when laws are enacted based on the culture of the people, the knowledge of the God according to the stipulation of the Scriptures takes preeminence and nothing more, nothing less. So the cultural law though accepted among some Christian folds in order to maintain law and order should not be the standard to establish Christian ethics because some situations are exceptional. Like I said earlier some instructions were allowed to exist in the some Christian folds because of their culture and in order to allow peace and orderliness to prevail in their gathering.

However, remember one cannot ascertain the truth in error!

To be continued…..

Till I come your way again, keep on basking in the Arena of Indubitable Truth!

Chukwuemeka C. Asiegbu