Have I Spoken a Word?

In 2 Samuel 7, King David came up with the grand idea to build the Lord a house.  Nathan, by all indications a faithful servant of God, said, “Go, do all that is in your heart, for the Lord is with you” (2 Samuel 7:3).  David, a man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14), had good intentions when he proposed building the Temple and Nathan, agreeing with said good intentions, granted his blessing.  In response, God said to Nathan, “…have I ever spoken word to anyone…?” (2 Samuel 7:7).  The good intentions of both faithful men of God did not matter when God had not spoken.  What was God’s point in asking such a question? That they (the faithful) needed to adhere to the word of God rather than their own good intentions (note that neither David nor Nathan went and asked God what He wanted). 

With the age of social media came the age of “sharing” ideologies quickly.  When a 10 to 15 paragraph essay is posted (Bible passages included) and it is shared less than 3 minutes later, have we really stopped and considered the principles set forth by the author? Even if the original post is, in fact, accurate, are we truly being careful? Can we, in under 3 minutes, delve into the passages and their contexts to ensure the Scriptural validity of the post? Or are we merely being a modern day Nathan and saying “Go, do all that is in your heart, for the Lord is with you”?

If our approach to Scripture is to say that the Bible says this or that, but here are a whole list of reasons why we don’t have to be obedient to those passages, then are we being careful with the Bible? In the aforementioned example, David and Nathan realized their mistake and corrected it with God rather than digging in and trying to explain why what God said did not really apply.  Often with social media, we dig our heels in and continue to perform mental gymnastics to explain away what God has so clearly instructed.  Such argumentation was put forth by King Saul in 1 Samuel 15:15, 20-21; in that instance, Saul claimed to have obeyed the commandment of the Lord (which was clearly dictated in 1 Samuel 15:1-3), but then he made excuses for why King Agag and the best of the flocks had been spared.  Why? Because God did not really mean what He said! Again, what was the response? “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in OBEYING THE VOICE OF THE LORD?” (1 Samuel 15:22, emphasis is mine).  Intentions mean nothing when they ignore what God has actually said; we are not more gracious, nor are we more intelligent than God.  In Isaiah 55:6-9, we read:

Seek the Lord while He may be found,

Call upon Him while He is near.

Let the wicked forsake his way,

And the unrighteous man his thoughts;

Let him return to the Lord,

And He will have mercy on him;

And to our God,

For He will abundantly pardon.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,

Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

So are My ways higher than your ways,

And My thoughts than your thoughts.”

As we read posts that examine (or claim to examine) the Scriptures, we need to be careful with each and every one of them (this post included).  If the poster is explaining away what the Scriptures plainly teach, then they are not teaching the word of God.  If, however, they are “rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15) by showing how they are applicable to us (rather than claiming that they are not), then they can be accepted.  As John wrote, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1).  Although John was addressing a specific false doctrine in this instance, we would be foolish to think that we do not have to test other doctrines as well (which is a principle established throughout the New Testament, but boiled down in 1 John 4:1).  This is, in fact, part of what Paul wrote to Timothy in the previously quoted 2 Timothy 2:15.  Let us be fair-minded (see Acts 17:11) rather than simply placing our stamp of approval (such as Nathan did).