Do you know what a suppository
is? It is a type of medicine that
inserted into your rectum that serves many purposes, most commonly as a laxative. Gross I know.
It is with this in mind that I say many sermons are suppository in
nature. These sermons are painful
spiritual laxatives of the mouth that perverts the true intention of the Bible[1]. Ouch! That sounds painful, not only for the
pastor but for the congregation.
Christians should not stand for suppository sermons within the church. But these types of sermons still happen. Why? I
believe that it is simply because they commit one out of the 15 deadly sins of
Bible study; these sins restrict the ability of the Christian to see the text
authentically. These 15 sins are
normally called ‘eisegesis.’ If your
pastor commits eisegesis on a regular basis he is not an expositor - he is a
suppositor!
·
Reading
my experience into the text: This is
allowing your experience to trump the authority of the text, and determining
the meaning of any given text by what has happened to you.
·
Too much
trust in a particular English translation:
This happens when the student falls short of due diligence in study and
blindly accepts the wording of one translation as being the only rendering of
the text.
·
Acceptance
of someone else’s interpretation:
This happens when someone takes the word of a given theologian, pastor,
friend, scholar, church, etc. instead of searching the scripture on one’s
own.
·
Reading
my culture into the text: This is
when I read my particular cultural views into the text. For example, my cultural view of slavery into
another cultures view of slavery.
·
Reading
my philosophical axioms into the text:
When I take my philosophical axioms and make the text form to them.
·
Misreading
of the text: This happens when the
student skims the text and simply miss-reads what the author is saying.
·
Failure
to read the context: This is when
the student reads a verse and not the surrounding verses, and then makes the
surrounding verses conform to that one particular verse.
·
Protecting
a position or a sin: When a student
has a sin or a theological position and makes a text as a justification of
their views.
·
Loving to
entertain “New Ideas”: This happens
when a student is only interested with something that has never been heard
before. Thus, the new trumps the old without serious consideration. This also happens when someone changes
theological persuasion or attempts to make profound interpretations.
·
Wanting
to be a mystic: A mystic is someone
who receives intuitive revelation from God, thus, a student can easily allow
that ‘intuitive’ voice inside to influence the meaning of any text.
·
Arrogance: This happens when the student thinks too
highly of himself, and assumes that every word written was written specifically
for him. They completely disregard the
original author, audience, and intent of the text. This also exhibits itself when someone
assumes that they always see the text correctly and is never willing to
challenge their interpretations with the context.
·
Seeking
application: This happens when the
student does not care about what the text means, only an easy how-to manual to
live their life. For example, looking at
the ten plagues in Egypt and asking, “What are the plagues that I need to
overcome in my life?”
·
Lost in
the particulars: This happens when a
student gets lost in the individual words and they forget the entire
context.
·
Laziness: This happens when a student does not want to
do the due diligence needed to understand the text, so they simply don’t
try.
Seeing
a theme that is not there: Many exegetes commit the sin of seeing a
theme that threads itself throughout the entire Bible, and then interprets
every text with that theme in mind.
[1]
As you can tell I think a lot about how we as Christians understand the
Bible. I am suggesting that understanding
the text is one of the highest priorities of the church; not the only priority
but is one of the biggest. Yet, I am so
amazed at the sermons that pass for being “biblical.” And I suppose that in a way, really bad bible
study can lead to some dynamic sermons.
How else do we attribute the growth of Creflo Dollar, Benny Hinn, and
their friends? I am not one to rock the
boat, but if we are heading down a waterfall I will warn the skipper. I believe that the church is about to fall
off the waterfall!
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