It's Okay to be Wrong

The other day I warned that we Christians need to be careful not to simply interpret Scripture by what we believe, but instead to be willing to reinterpret what we believe by the Scriptures. I came across this text.

In his epistle to Rome Paul rounds out his "bad news" section (Rom 1:18-3:20) with this scathing summary.

What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." (Rom 3:9-12)

In terms of the topic of Scripture over personal beliefs, this is what I call a "target-rich environment." This thing is full of Truth claims that make us think "I've got to rewrite this to match my thinking." And I think most of us, me included, do it without even thinking.

"None is righteous, no, not one." "Wait, wait," my mind says, "I know people that are somewhat righteous, so ... yeah, okay, I can see that no one is fully righteous. Okay, I see that." Nice dodge, Stan, but why not let the Scriptures speak for themselves? Paul talks in Philippians about "having a righteousness" but he says it is "not my own." (Php 3:9) Isaiah said our righteousness is like "filthy rags" (in the polite KJV because "filthy" in Hebrew is literally "the menstrual flow" ... you get the idea). Paul tells us to work out our salvation (Php 2:12) but specifies that this only happens by God working in us (Php 2:13). So, Stan, no! We do not have a modicum of righteousness. The righteousness humans have is only the righteousness applied by Christ.

"No one understands." Again, no one understands completely, right? No! "The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Cor 2:14) No room for "partially."

"No one seeks for God." Now, wait. We all know people who seek for God. Some of the people we know may be ourselves. Before we came to Christ, some of us were seeking for God ... right? So what else might this mean? And that's the point. We are taking our experience first and interpreting Scripture in light of that rather than vice versa. Scripture says we don't get it at all (1 Cor 2:14). Scripture says, "The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God." (Rom 8:7) Scripture says that before we come to Christ we are "dead in sin." (Eph 2:1). In this context how or why would anyone "seek for God"? Could it be that we're seeking the benefits God offers without actually seeking for God? Because Scripture is equally clear that God is not hidden (Psa 19:1; Rom 1:19-20). There are abundant biblical reasons to argue that this text means exactly what it says.

"No one does good, not even one." "Okay," some will say, "now we have you. We know that people do good. Clearly this cannot mean what it says ... so completely ('no, not one')." Really? Do we plan to explain to God why His Word is in error? He says "No one does good" and states for emphasis, "No, not one." Any 2nd-grade teacher could ask her class, "If no one does good, how many people do good?" and the class would say, "None!" And they'd be right. The problem here is not that we have degrees of bad; the problem is that humans are "rotten to the core."

These are mere examples. I chose the text because it was so rich in examples. I chose it because most of us have problems with taking God's Word at face value. What we tend to do is present God's Word to our preconceptions and figure out how it matches, reinterpreting it where it doesn't. That's not the right or even reasonable approach. What we need to do is ask, "What does God's Word say?" (keeping in mind that God's Word interprets God's Word) followed by "So how do I need to reinterpret my understanding of things?" and not the other way around. It's okay to be wrong. We can get past this ... with God's help.