I
read a blog article some weeks ago where a Roman Catholic apologist discussed
the issue of proof texting and its uses. For those of you who may be unfamiliar
with the term, proof texting is the use of a select number of texts (usually a
verse or two each), to try and “prove” your premise. For example, we in the
church of Christ are famous for our use of Acts 2:38 to try and prove that
baptism is for the remission of sins and that, without it, no one can be saved.
Now, I’m not at all saying that such use of that verse is necessarily wrong.
Nor am I implying that there are not doctrines that are very well contained
within a couple of verses (take for example what Paul declares to be the gospel
in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4). But I am saying that we can run afoul of the truth of
Scripture when we make it a habit to develop our theology from a few isolated
verses here and there.
Well,
after all that, I finally get to the point of the article. For the last couple
of articles, I’ve been reviewing a book titled “Inside the Churches of Christ.”
And the reason I bring up the proof texting issue is that that is the subject
the author tackles in chapter two of his book. It is instructive to see how we
often engage in the very things that we accuse others of doing. I mentioned in
a previous article how the author complains loudly about the Pharisaical judgmental
attitude that the members of the CofC have, and then turns around and does the same thing in denigrating the members
of that body, going so far as to literally call them names (Pharisee being the
most frequent one). And when it comes to the issue at hand, once again our
author is guilty of the very thing he accuses others of doing.
Take
for example his claim concerning the name “church of Christ.” Now, let me say
at the outset that there are many within the CofC who are of the mindset that
unless you use that particular name you cannot be the church of the New
Testament. That obviously ignores the many names the church is referred to
throughout the NT such as the church of God, the church of the Firstborn, etc.
But our author focuses on the particular moniker found in Romans 16:16 to
lambaste the members of the CofC who want to use that name simply because it’s
in the Bible. Needless to say, I cannot see why it would give someone such
heartburn for other Christians to want to use a biblical name. Aside from the
folks I mentioned above, no one in the CofC will tell you that unless you call your
church “the church of Christ” that it cannot possibly be following true doctrine.
The
most distressing issue here, however, is the fact that our author decries the
use of proof texts by the CofC in deriving its name, but does the exact same
thing without any regard to context or situation. One of the most important rules
of biblical exegesis is the fact that we need to examine all scriptures within
their context. We run into problems every time we attempt to lift a verse or
two from their context and formulate a doctrine from them (a good example of
this is the baptism for the dead that Mormonism has appropriated from a single,
obscure verse in 1 Corinthians 15). Our author does this with John 10 and 13.
In John 10, Jesus speaks of His sheep and then says that there are other sheep
who are not of the present fold. The clear allusion is to the fact that there
would be Gentiles who would be added to the fold. Within its context, it is
obvious that this is what the passage is teaching. However, our author abandons
all such context and tells us that the passage is teaching us that “inclusion”
is what the passage teaches us. In other words, the CofC is not the only true
church because Jesus said that there are others who can also be Christians. I
think you can see that this falls of its own weight as it is an obvious
anachronistic reading of today’s standards of inclusion into the text.
He
then tells us that John 13:34-35 is a fail-safe test for those who are
Christians. How so? In a continuing attempt to prove that there are Christians
outside the CofC, he tells us that the passage under consideration points to
the fact that if we love each other then we show the world we are Jesus’ disciples.
Again, that’s true as far as it goes. But within the context Jesus was using it
he did not mean that anyone who loves others is showing that he is a Christian
any more than John telling us in 1 John 4 that if we love others that shows we
love God. Many people are very loving, but are not in Christ. To try to prove
that you’re a Christian because you love others, without regard to your belief
or relationship to Christ, is not only fallacious, but also dangerous.
In
the end, the moral of the story for us is that proof texting can be used in
some limited instances, but is a weapon that should be wielded with much care.
Many of us are not knowledgeable enough to know how to do so effectively and
often end up making matters worse rather than better. That is not to say that
people should shy away from defending the faith or standing up for the truth
until they feel themselves ready. But it is to suggest that we need to have
more than a cursory knowledge of the Scriptures in order to be effective
defenders of the faith. We do ourselves a disfavor when we simply read a
chapter or two a day and expect that to somehow make us powerful witnesses for
the truth. In an era when information is so readily available, we cannot afford
to have surface knowledge. Our Lord deserves more than the minimum!
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