Chapter 2 Proof read.
“Isn’t everything I read in the Bible “Biblical?”
Many Christians, especially new Christians believe that if they just “read a passage” in the Holy Bible, it automatically becomes the thoughts and teachings of the New Testament writers or even those of the Old Testament prophets. At first glance, this approach may seem plausible and even logical, but if one examines this methodology, one can see that reading a passage in the 21 st century without considering the context of the writer, (2000 years and 3 languages removed), one is more likely to misinterpret what the writer was trying to communicate.
How then does one know if one is “reinventing” the meaning of a passage/concept? One good indicator is historical Christian precedent. If one’s personal interpretation of the Holy Bible is a new idea, never before heard of or taught in historic Christianity or before the last 500 years, most likely the Apostles did not teach the idea. This brings us to the definition of what is Biblical and what is not. I would hope all Christians would agree that a concept or interpretation is only “Biblical” if it was previously taught by the Apostles to Christ’s early Church, at least as far as the New Testament is concerned. For how can an idea or concept be NT Biblical if the Apostles did not teach it and write it into the NT Bible? Can you think of an idea that is NT “Biblical,” that the Apostles did not teach and write into the NT Bible?
An example I always use is Thomas Edison who invented the electric light bulb in the 19 th century. The analogy goes like this. For a Christian to claim a modern idea was taught by the Apostles in the first century, when this idea was not invented until the 19 th century, is akin to saying the Apostles wrote Scripture by electric lights. How can the Apostles have written Scripture by electric lights when the light bulb was not invented for another 1800 years? This sounds silly but the analogy is the same. How can the Apostles have taught a certain doctrine in the first century if the first person to teach that idea was not born for another 1800 years? On a linear and sequential timeline this is impossible.
Case in point is Mormon theology or Jehovah’s Witness theology. Both products of the 19 th century. Both of these sects can quote scripture verse after scripture verse justifying their theology and therefore claiming “Biblicism.” But when asked if the Apostles taught their ideas or who else taught these ideas in the before the 19 th century, what one receives is a blank stare. The reason is because no one taught these ideas before Joseph Smith who founded the Mormons or Charles Russell who invented the JW’s ideas. Saying Mormon or JW theology is “Apostolic” is essentially saying the Apostles wrote Scripture by electric lights. There is just no evidence to support these claims. Therefore saying this or that is “Biblical” means nothing unless one can find Christian precedent that the idea was taught by the Apostles to Christ’s early Church and subsequently written into the NT Bible. This same “litmus test” needs to be applied to all Christian belief systems. If the Apostles did not teach it, nor did any other Christian in the first 1000+ years of Christainity, it is impossible for the ideas to be Biblccial for the NT writers had no knowledge of the idea to write about.
Many Christians are astounded to realize that there was but One Christian faith in the first millennium, not two and not twenty thousand as we have today. One. And since the Apostles lived in the first millennium, this was the Faith of the Apostles. But what of the modern Christian theologies, are they “apostolic” in nature? Part of their theology is, but their “distinctive” ideas or non-Catholic ideas have the same problem the Mormons and the JW’s do. None of these ideas predate the Renaissance era. None were taught by a single soul in the first millennium. And again, since the Apostles lived in the first millennium, this means that all distinctive modern Christian ideas are outside the teachings of the first Christian millennium to include the teachings of the Apostles. This comes as a surprise to many Christians so it must be tested as the Holy Bible commands:
“Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.”
1 Thessalonians 5:21-22
It is easy to say “this is Biblical” or “that is in the Bible,” it is another thing to actually prove it was taught by the Apostles or anyone else in the first millennium. So can a Christian just “read the Bible” and received the spirit and intent of the Apostles thoughts? It is possible, but these thoughts must be verified to be authentically Apostolic, verse renaissanic or modern in nature. The bottom line is if one cannot find a single Christian who espoused their theology in the first millennium, logic tells us that these ideas were not taught in the first millennium and therefore were not taught by the Apostles to Christ’s early Church. Logic tells us that these new ideas on Christ’s Gospel are just that, modern ideas invented and taken out of context that have no place in Apostolic Christianity, or even the first Christian millennium (and as we will see, many don’t even have a place in reformational Protestantism). These are therefore ideas not taught by the Apostles to Christ’s early Church and by definition, these ideas are not NT “Biblical” for the Apostles did not teach them and subsequently write them into the NT letters.