A Holiness Built on Sand

In the previous post, I contrasted Christianity with modern fundamentalism's view concerning how one fights sin. The verses that are often used to support this view remind me very much of verses used to support cults. They all sound like they are saying what the traditional interpretation of the cult says they do until one reads them in context.

In Christianity, one does not remove the world of temptations from himself, but instead meets temptations with the strength of the Word of God and fellowship of other believers, i.e., the support and accountability of the Church. Those are the sources of strength for the believer to help resist sin when tempted. The fundamentalist view, rooted in the heresy of Gnosticism, where the problem is the physical object or situation or created things in the world itself, attempts to deal with sin by removing himself from those physical objects, people, situations, world, etc. In fact, salvation for the Gnostic is actually a deliverance from the physical world much like fundamentalism's idea that Jesus is going to fly back to earth to take us all away to heaven so we can be saved from this terrible place. The problem is our location and situation (i.e., the external creation itself) rather than internal. Hence, to fight sin in fundamentalist gnosticism is to remove the temptation. Avoiding temptation is a godly endeavor in the fundamentalist view, and so many laws were created to get rid of liquor stores, burn offending books, get rid of that rock and roll music, outlaw gambling, etc. I remember being at Moody where no playing cards were allowed because of this tradition.

There are a couple verses used to support this view, and I would like to look at them in context now.

The first is Proverbs 6:27-28:  

Can a man scoop fire into his lap
    without his clothes being burned?
Can a man walk on hot coals
    without his feet being scorched?

This is quoted over and over again in fundamentalism to support the idea that if one plays with fire, i.e., puts himself in situations where he can be tempted, he's likely going to sin. However, the verse, in context, is not talking about temptation at all. Here is the context.

²⁶ For a prostitute can be had for a loaf of bread,
    but another man’s wife preys on your very life.
²⁷ Can a man scoop fire into his lap
    without his clothes being burned?
²⁸ Can a man walk on hot coals
    without his feet being scorched?
²⁹ So is he who has sex with another man’s wife;
    no one who touches her will go unpunished.

³⁰ People do not despise a thief if he steals
    to satisfy his hunger when he is starving.
³¹ Yet if he is caught, he must pay sevenfold,
    though it costs him all the wealth of his house.
³² But a man who commits adultery has no sense;
    whoever does so destroys himself.

The passage is clearly talking about commiting adultery, not merely being tempted to commit adultery. Bringing fire into one's lap/walking on hot coals is parallel to having sex with another man's wife. Being burned refers to the judgment to come as a result of the sin. It has absolutely nothing to do with temptation, and everything to do with sin.

The second passage, misunderstood more than the other, has a long tradition of being taken out of context and mistranslated because of it. 1 Thessalonians 5:22, they say, tells us to "abstain from/avoid every appearance of evil." What they take this to mean is that we are to avoid even any situation that could be construed as tempting, since people could speculate and think that we are sinning. 

There is a lot more to unpack there in terms of whether Christians are to avoid situations where others could more easily imagine them sinning. However, the idea that one is to avoid tempting situations, i.e., situations that appear evil to others, has nothing to do with what Paul is saying here in context. The context is presented below, translated correctly according to the context.

¹⁹ Do not put the light of the Spirit out. ²⁰ Do not treat prophecies with contempt ²¹ but test them all; hold on to what is good, ²² reject anything that is clearly evil.

The context is clearly talking about what one does with prophecies that are given. Instead of extinguishing the light of the Spirit (v. 19) by treating prophecies with contempt (v. 20), the Thessalonians are to allow them and test them (v. 21), holding tightly to what is good (v. 21), but rejecting anything that is clearly seen by the Thessalonians to be evil (v. 22). 

What trips people up is the word eidous, which can mean "appearance" in some contexts. The unmarked meaning of the word seems to be just something that is apparent or seen, as in 2 Corinthians 5:7, which contrasts that which is clearly seen with that which is not seen and must be accepted by faith. The translation "appearance" does not quite capture the idea here, and is not a great translation, even though it still would not negate the meaning of the passage in the context. It would simply have to be understood that the Thessalonians are to hold onto whatever in the prophecies that are given is good and to steer clear of anything in them that is an obvious evil. In fact, this is the larger context as well, since Paul is exhorting them to not partake in anything like sexual immorality, rebellion or disrespect toward church leadership that represents Christ in its authority, not loving fellow Christians, etc. 

The point is that this is not talking about being in situations that could be tempting or suspicious to others. It is talking about rejecting anything evil in a prophecy. 

But a further comment on this verse in relation to our subject would be instructive. Notice that Paul is arguing that they should not remove all prophecy because they could be tempted by something evil in it. There is a real danger in people believing prophetic utterances that tell them to do what is evil. If Paul were a gnostic, he might just commend the Thessalonians for getting rid of prophecy. Instead, he tells them not to remove the very possible temptation of following an evil teaching by removing prophecy, but to endure all prophecy and to deal with it by being strong in one's mind to discern/test what is said, and accepting only the good teaching while rejecting the bad. That is Christian response to things/people that may tempt in the world, i.e., rid oneself of the error rather than to rid oneself of the external thing that could bring the error. One is a worldview gained from a false religion and the other is a worldview obtained by the truth of apostolic Christianity. One is a false holiness, therefore, and one genuine, biblical holiness. The regenerate Christian who is guided by the Spirit of God will be directed to true holiness when this is pointed out to him. The naturally-made "Christian" will continue in his Gnostic form of ascetic holiness because his method of addressing sin seems better to him than the one proposed by the Bible. As we can see, eisegeting Scripture in the delusion of confirmation bias is a dangerous game. If you look for another religion in the Bible than genuine Christianity, you will find it. You just can't look too hard lest that religion soon be refuted by its whole counsel of what is said.