It’s contextual

Praise the Lord Saints.

You cannot just pick and choose whatever you want from the Bible and make it applicable to your our feelings or beliefs. The entire Bible is contextual and based solely on the various dispensations in which the scriptures are referencing.

For instance:

Praying for healing of the land

2 Chronicles 7:14-16: “if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

If my people will pray is a promise to Israel, not to the Church. Only Israel was a theocracy, the church is not a nation in a specific land. My People was a common phrase for Israel in the Old Testament. There is a principle that we are to pray to receive, however this is not a promise to the Church like it was to Israel. In their conditional covenant God said that if they do this, I will do that. Israel was the only nation ruled by God (a theocracy). They were under a different covenant than the unconditional for the church. If they would obey, God would do what He promised. We are under an unconditional covenant, under grace, so this cannot be a promise that will make everything right in America, in Britain, or any country. To lift this out of its context changes its meaning.

If one is going to take promises to Israel and specifically apply them to us than one might as well apply what was said to Abraham, that I would have uncountable offspring, make me a great nation and be rich. The principle is still there, that we are to pray to receive but again it is not a promise.

Context always makes a difference in having a correct interpretation. 2 Chronicles 7 goes on to state “Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place. “For now I have chosen and sanctified this house, that My name may be there forever; and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually. He is speaking about Israel.

Sow your seed so that you can reap a harvest. 30, 60, 100 seed is used to justify their reaping of blessings of money from sowing money. But it was riches that caused some of the people not to receive THE WORD. “Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful” (Matthew 13:22-23).

Matthew 13:18-23 Jesus explains the seed is the Word and how the people need ears to hear, so they can understand the spiritual meanings of the word and be fruitful. Four examples of soil are given, only one has the seed grow correctly and eventually bear fruit, the other three do not. Jesus explains of the seed being sown in Mark 4:20: “But these are the ones sown on good ground, those who hear the word, accept it, and bear fruit: some thirty fold, some sixty, and some a hundred.” The Word of God brings salvation, the fruit of the Spirit in ones life in various degrees when understood correctly. When misapplied it can bring ruin. Despite what many have been told, Jesus said the seed is the WORD, not money and certainly not numbers.

Jesus told us not to Judge. “Judge not, that ye be not judged,” No he did not. Read in its context, vs.2-5 goes on to refer to hypocritical judgment. A brother who has a beam in his own eye should not be judging the brother who may have a mote in his eye. In other words, you cannot judge another for his sin if you are guilty of the same sin. However if you take care of that sin you can help your brother.

The fact that His (Jesus) whole ministry was a judgment against the Pharisees who wanted him to agree with their way of practicing Judaism. To the Pharisees he said to their face, “O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matt. 12:34). He stood up to them to their face and called them “hypocrites,” “blind,” “blind guides,” “whited sepulchres,” “serpents,” and a “generation of vipers.” (read Matthew 23 to find out who the real Jesus is, not the tolerant scrawny mild manner milksop that some portray).  John 3:19-21 “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” That’s judgment is it not?

Jesus in John 7:24 said to the people: “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment.” so he is telling us to judge, and he is not contradicting himself elsewhere. Jesus said, “Beware of false prophets!” (Matthew 7:15) How could we obey and “beware” of “false prophets” unless we test them- that’s judging.

The apostles teachings are from Jesus and the spoke far more on testing and judging than even Jesus did, they named names (8 of them in the New Testament, as the prophets did in the Old Testament) and were correcting the church in their letters.

Till next week,

God Bless.

Rev. Dr. Robert L. Harrison, PhD