[From ws2/18 p. 18 – April 16 - April 22] “May [God] grant you to have among yourselves the same mental attitude that Christ Jesus had.” Romans 15:5 In summary, this is another shallow examination of the Scriptures using eisegesis (having one’s own prepared interpretation and looking for support in the Scriptures for this however slim and out of context.) As an extreme example, let us assume (very wrongly of course) for one moment that we wanted to prove Jesus was not humble and instead was proud. How could we support our erroneous idea? What about when Jesus was tempted by the Devil? We could quote Matthew 4:8-10 and say the following “Here Satan wanted a small favour in exchange for an extraordinary gift, something that Jesus’ Father had promised would one day be his. So instead of pleasing Satan, Jesus proudly refused and told him to "Go away”. “ Now we know that this is contrary to the rest of scripture and doesn’t even agree with the rest of the context, but everything above in quotes is accurate except for one word “proud” which is my eisegetical addition for the sake of illustration. So now let us examine the following: Would we consider Noah a spiritual person? Yes. Why? Because Genesis 6:8-9,22 says Noah found favour in God’s eyes, was righteous and did all that God commanded him. The account in Genesis does not mention preaching, rather it focuses on his making of the Ark. 2 Peter 2:5 is often used to try and prove Noah was a preacher, however, it is interesting that God’s Word Translation says, “Noah was his [God’s] messenger who told people about the kind of life that has God's approval.” This understanding fits well with the account in Genesis. Would we consider Abraham was a spiritual person? Yes. Why? James 2:14-26 discussing faith and works highlights, among others, Abraham as a righteous man due to his faith and works. Did Abraham preach? There is no record of him doing so. But Hebrews 13:2 reminds us that some faithful ones of old,unknown to them, entertained angels. In other words, they were hospitable even if they put their own family in danger as a result (e.g. Lot). Would we consider Daniel was a spiritual person? Yes. Why? According to Daniel 10:11-12, he was a highly desirable man to Jehovah, because he gave his heart to understanding and humbled himself before God. Also Ezekiel 14:14 links Noah, Daniel and Job as righteous people. But did he do God's will as a door-to-door preacher? The answer is no! There are many others we could mention. What was the commonality among them? They did God’s will as they were directed by Him, and put their faith in Him. So in the light of these faithful examples, how would you understand the following statement? “Are we like Jesus, ever ready to show compassionate concern when we meet people who need help? In addition, Jesus devoted himself to the work of preaching and teaching the good news. (Luke 4:43) All such feelings and actions are marks of a spiritual person.” (Paragraph 12) Did you notice the eisegetical conclusion? I am sure you would agree that it was the last sentence. We have just established by exegetical study (letting the Bible interpret itself) that what defines whether one is a spiritual person is doing God’s will, not whether one preaches or not. Both statements about Jesus are true but the conclusion is unsupported. To reason on this, all three faithful ones of old we considered (and we could have considered more with the same conclusion) are ones we all would consider as spiritual people, yet by the standards set in this article when discussing Jesus, no faithful ones before Jesus and his disciples would be counted spiritual since they did not preach. That clearly doesn’t make sense in the light of how Jehovah viewed: Noah (faultless among his contemporaries), Abraham (uniquely called God’s friend), Job (no one like him in the earth, blameless and upright), and Daniel (a very desirable man).
Premium
Plus
Comentarios