You and I, along with every other Christian on the planet, believe some things that are untrue. Sin has corrupted human beings in every area of life, and that includes our understanding. None of us is free from holding wrong ideas about things.
Often, wrong ideas
are so firmly ingrained that Christians don’t even consider the possibility
that they might be mistaken. There are various influences that can lead to us
having deeply held wrong beliefs.
Culture
To begin with, many
of the wrong ideas Christians hold come from the culture in which they were
raised. Since we could first understand speech, we have been taught to think
about things in certain ways, but what we often don’t realise is that some of
this thinking is culturally conditioned rather than being universal.
Importantly, every
culture around the world gets some things right and some things wrong. However,
we tend to be especially blind to what is wrong in our own culture.
Church
denominations
Another reason why
many Christians hold wrong ideas is because they are idolising a certain Christian
denomination.
There are huge
numbers of Christians who believe that there is one true denomination that gets
everything of significance right. And many therefore accept all that this
denomination teaches without ever stopping to consider whether it might be
wrong on anything.
I would suggest,
however, that this is wishful thinking. No one denomination gets everything of
significance right. Each of them is mistaken on things to some extent.
That is not to say
that there are not better and worse denominations in God’s sight. Some are much
better than others overall. But there is no true denomination that is always
right.
Church leaders
Another common reason
for Christians holding wrong ideas is because they idolise certain church
leaders.
There should be no
doubt that every Christian leader will teach some error no matter how hard he
prays against this. Given how we all see things indistinctly at present (1 Cor
13:12), it is very unrealistic to think that any one individual gets every
single thing of significance right.
Besides, it is surely
a fact that no two Christian leaders agree on every significant point. This
means that if there were a leader who is always right, there could only be one
of them. And to think that of the thousands of Christian leaders in the world
today, the one we personally happen to like the most is the one who always gets
things right is hopelessly implausible.
One sign that helps
to show whether someone might be idolising a church leader is their attitude
when people disagree with the leader. Those guilty of this kind of idolatry
often get very offended and angry with people for simply holding a different
opinion on something. Their attitude seems to be: ‘Who are you to dare to
disagree with such an eminent pastor?’
I have had
experiences like this where I have simply disagreed with a certain well known
church leader on some point or other. I haven’t been offensive or judgmental. I
have just taken a different view on something. But a Christian who seems to idolise
that leader has become very angry with me just for doing that.
Parents
The influence of
parents is another reason why Christians hold wrong ideas about things.
Christians who had a happy upbringing that involved good
Christian parenting sometimes go through their entire lives without questioning
anything of importance that their parents taught them. Either they imagine that
because their parents were such good parents, they couldn’t have been wrong in
anything significant. Or they experience feelings of guilt about questioning
their parents’ teaching, because they think (often largely subconsciously) that
this would be disrespectful. They therefore immediately suppress all thoughts
of questioning what they were taught.
However, it makes no sense for a believer to think that
great Christian parents can’t have been wrong on any important issue. Such an
idea ignores the obvious truth that there are bound to be other excellent
Christian parents who would disagree with them in some respects.
We must also be careful not to confuse love and respect
for parents on the one hand, with accepting what they taught on the other.
These are very different things. It is quite possible to love and respect
parents deeply, yet also to disagree with some of what they taught us.
Preconceived
ideas when reading the Bible
The list above
contains some examples of the reasons why Christians have wrong ideas about
things, although there are certainly other reasons too. Again, it must be
stressed that holding wrong views is something that affects every single one of
us to a greater or lesser extent.
This means that when
each of us sits down to read the Bible, we come to it with some wrong
preconceived ideas. And because Scripture teaches what is true, this means that
when we sit down to read it, we come to it with some beliefs that contradict
what it teaches.
The right
attitude of heart
One of the main purposes
for God giving us the Bible is to correct our wrong preconceived ideas. But if
this is to happen as it should, our hearts need to be in the right place as we
read it.
First, we need to
realise that there are bound to be things we believe that are wrong. We should
understand that our minds are damaged by sin and prone to making mistakes.
Second, as far as we
can, we need to abandon preconceived ideas.
Third, we need to
humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, opening ourselves up to His
willingness to teach us from Scripture by His Spirit.
And finally, we need
to listen to what the text says, really listen. We can start by asking what the
passage we are reading would have meant to the original readers. And then we
can ask what it means for us today.
If we have this sort
of attitude of heart towards the Bible, we will be in a great place to grow as
Christians.
Many Christians
don’t do this
The reason I am
writing this article is because over and over and over again I encounter
Christians whose approach to reading the Bible is not remotely like this. There
are many who have some or other preconceived idea that contradicts Scripture,
and they hold this idea with an iron grip.
Instead of allowing
the Holy Spirit to shape their thinking as they read and to steer them away
from their wrong views, they either ignore what the text is saying, or they start
trying to force it to say something it doesn’t.
Please don’t
interpret me to mean that I often encounter Christians who disagree with me on
the meaning of some biblical passages, and that I am just annoyed about this.
That’s not what I am talking about at all. I am talking about Christians who
are clearly not trying to listen to the text because they have preconceived
ideas set in stone in their minds.
One way to tell that
someone has this sort of attitude is that when they are challenged on their
views, they just ignore biblical passages that don’t fit with their
preconceived ideas.
Let me go into a bit
more detail on what I mean. Suppose that there is a biblical passage we will
call passage A, and that a Christian takes a certain interpretation of this
passage. Suppose too that someone else points out that this interpretation of
passage A seems strongly to contradict another passage we will call passage B. If
the Christian wants to interpret passage A correctly, he will also have to
explain why B says what it says, because God has inspired both passages.
However, if he sticks to his original interpretation of passage A while just
ignoring passage B, that is a sign that he is not really interested in getting
at the truth and that he is probably more interested in holding to his
preconceived ideas.
I see this sort of
thing all the time, and I am sure it grieves God deeply.
Summing up
Holding on to preconceived
ideas as we read the Bible, then, is exactly what not to do.
Instead, when we read
Scripture, we need to do our best to give up preconceived ideas along with any
idols that are the root causes of these ideas. And we need to open ourselves up
to the biblical text and listen as intently as we can to what it is actually
saying, trusting that the Holy Spirit will do His work and teach us what is
true.
I don’t think it can
be overstated how important this approach is. If we do this, and if we are
regularly confessing and repenting of our sins, I don’t see how we could do
anything but grow as Christians.
See also:
Fighting
Temptations to Believe What We Want to Believe
It
Is Never Right to Tamper with the Bible to Make It “More Helpful”
The
Problem with Drawing Conclusions from a Few Bible Proof Texts
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