Painting Bull’s Eyes

The story is told of the Army recruiters scouring the backwoods and hills of West Virginia, looking for boys to turn into a few good men.  It was wartime, and the quota from that great state had not yet been met, so they cranked the Model T, and off they went.

They got way back up in the hills and came to an area that hadn’t been scouted much.  Most of the folks were too poor to go to school and ignorant of the affairs of state which were the cause of our national distress.  They didn’t even know about the war.  But here and there word would come out about some fellow here or there who could shoot the eye out of a gnat and a hundred yards.  Our heroes thought that they would really make the grade if they could find such a sharpshooter.

One day, when they had come to the end of the road, they decided to walk up the wagon rut a little farther into the trees.  It was there they found the first one – it was a tree where someone had painted a bull’s eye, and right in the middle of the bull’s eye was a hole.  They got out a pen knife and dug around in the hole a bit, and they found a little fragment of a lead bullet.  It had not gone very deep so the assumption was made that the shot was fired from a long way off.  They were properly impressed and the seemingly lucky shot until they found another.  Then another, and another bull’s eye with a hole in the center – dead center.

It was almost as though someone had left a trail of targets and bullet holes all the way up to this old tin roofed cabin and barn.  As they approached, an older fellow stepped out on the porch and asked, “What can I do you for?”  The recruiters introduced themselves and explained their mission, then inquired about the bullet holes.  “There is the last one over there on the barn.  Tell us, where did the man who made all these shots learn to shoot? 

“The old man scratched his chin, “Oh, I reckoned from me, his pa.”

“So, how did he get to be such a good shot, I mean, the bull’s eyes have been punched out on every one of these targets?”

The old man laughed, “Oh, he’s not all that good of a shot.  Fact is, late in the day, while he’s awaitin’ his supper, he sits out on that stump over there and shoots.  Then, when he runs out of bullets, he goes down to whatever he happens to hit and he draws a target around it.”

Needless to say, our recruiter friends suddenly were no longer interested in the sharpshooter.  He would have been of no more value to the Army than anyone else, and as far back as he lived, he would have been harder to root out.

The young man had a problem with his marksmanship that is similar to one many have with Biblical interpretation.  He would just shoot, and whatever he hit was worthy in his eyes of a target.  Many just live their lives and assume they are hitting the target.  When they go to the Bible and find that they are not, they simply take a passage and bend it until it fits their lives.  They spend their lives painting bull’s eyes around the sins in their lives.

The expectation of God when he gave us the Scripture is that it would change us, not that we would change it.  What God desires of us and what he will accept from us is that which we find in the Bible.  “Every scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness.  That the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17).  The Bible furnishes us with an unmovable pattern for the formation of our lives, and we must build according to it (Heb. 8:5;  1 Cor. 3:10), and we must be faithful to it.

Our lives must not be lived “accidentally.”  Following Jesus involves a careful walk.  “Look therefore carefully how ye walk, not as unwise, but as wise” (Eph. 5:15).  It involves walking in the light.  “Again therefore Jesus spake unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12).  Jesus, in that same discussion says, “If ye abide in my word, then are ye truly my disciples” (John 8:31).  Following Jesus means following his teaching;  that is, doing what he says.

So many people have it exactly backwards.  Their expectation is that the Lord will follow them.  Whatever they have done in their lives, whatever they have decided is right doctrinally is what they do, and their efforts in Bible study are aimed at justifying what they have done.  That is painting a bull’s eye around the bullet hole.

The Scriptures don’t change to fit the times or our lives.  They reveal the mind of God to us in reference to what is true and what is right or wrong.  Our wrestling with the Scriptures will not alter their meaning.  Instead, the intent of God in the Scriptures is to effect a change in us.  When we study, our attitude should be to discover God’s will, not to justify our questionable behavior or confirm what we have already decided to accept as truth.

Someone has said that you make the Bible say anything that you want it to.  They are right.  Anyone can take a passage out of context, or twist its meaning, or apply it to something that is not relevant to it.  A somewhat silly but effective illustration of this can be seen in a friend’s effort to be humorous.  He told me that he could find smoking in the Bible.  Knowing that tobacco is a product of the New World and that people of the Bible knew nothing of it, I asked him for the passage.  Then he read to me Gen. 24:64:  “And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she lighted off the camel.”  If that passage justifies smoking, then I can find passages that justify instrumental music, institutionalism, “once saved – always saved,” and adulterous marriages.  The tragedy is that those things are practiced, and too many people who practice them believe they have Scriptural justification.

Paul said of those who love not the truth, “And for this cause God sendeth them a working of error, that they should believe a lie:  that they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Thess. 2:11-12).  Who is he talking about?  He is speaking of those who have made up their minds what they believe, or who have begun to live their lives how they see fit with the expectation that God approves – before they get into the Book.  He is talking about those who want to be Christians, but rather than aiming at the target where God puts it, they spend their time painting bull’s eyes.

Can we divest ourselves of our preconceived notions of right and wrong?  Can we stop misusing God’s word to defend our turf?  Can we humble ourselves to be followers of Christ, depending primarily on his word to guide us in the way we should go?  We must.

Let us be careful that we are not painting bull’s eyes.