A few weeks ago, I asked a series of questions that are on my mind. The second question in that series is thus:
Will we ever break away from our proclivity to proof-text our rationales for war, propagating poverty and elevating our spheres of concern over above the needs of those who fall outside of those spheres?

To me, the answer is as simple as the anwer that my friend Jeff originally provided: No. The truth is that we can pretty much use Scripture to justify anything that we want it to.

It’s been used to justify slavery, hatred and racism.

It’s been used to justify war, acts of aggression and extreme nationalism.

It’s been used to marginalize and reject people on the fringes of society who do not look like us or act like us.

The bottom line is that Scripture has been perverted, twisted and debased repeatedly, stretching back to the oral tradition of the Torah. So, the likelihood of that ending anytime soon is nil.

I should know, I’m guilty of it as well. I’ve used Scripture as a weapon in my life. I’ve used it to draw lines of distinction between those of us who “get it” and those who don’t. I’ve used it to draw walls between the “church” and those lost in a “denominational” world.

I’ve used it to carve out political ideologies, evangelistic techniques and worldviews based upon my own personal preferences and desires rather than investing myself in understanding the spirit of the message.

So, although, I strongly resist futile thinking when it comes to advancing the Kingdom of God, I must admit that the propensity for creating empires from a misunderstanding of Scripture will persist.

Unfortunately, this creates great pain and division.  I must imagine that when the Hebrew writer told us that the Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, he must have known that when you use a sword improperly, people die, lives are shattered and the perpetrators of that destruction will then seek to justify the behavior.  What has happened is 2000+ years of justifying the practice of wielding the Sword in an improper manner.

Propagating our own interests, our own advancement, our own rights became suffused with the blessing of the text.  Hence, wars, helping only those who “deserve it,” getting ahead, protecting the interests of the nation-state have become paramount and, well, blessed.

But, ultimately, where we, as Christians, must invest ourselves is in a greater attempt to understand Scripture through the person of Jesus.  He is the Word and brings how we should live into the ultimate focus. How we are to live our lives becomes much more clear when understood through the person of Christ.

If we shed the myopic habit of justifying scripture to fit our needs, we will see a Savior who was the fulfillment of all that God called us to be. He is the one we are called to follow.  He is the one that provides the understanding of the word and will of God.

What does Jesus say about war? Maybe not as much as we would like, but He did resist armed revolution in exchange for a humble surrender to the cross.  And, regardless of whether or not there have been just wars in history we must still grapple with what His example was.
What does Jesus say about poverty? He talked about giving, about caring for the least of these. He said that to do anything less than lay our lives on the altar of compassionate care for others (ie, the poor, the forgotten, the undeserving) would be tantamount to rejecting Him.

What did He say about protecting our own self-interests? He talked a lot about dying to self, picking up crosses and following after Him.  And we know where that led.

Ultimately, the word will always be distorted and manipulated to fit whatever people want it to mean.  However, the servants of the Word must commit their lives to being an embodiment of the Christ that brings a more complete understanding of the Will of God into proper view.

It’s a lot harder to misinterpret the “Word become flesh” when it is lived out than it is to misinterpet the “word consigned to text” when it is relegated to a static document.

That is revolutionary, life-changing and world shaking.

I’m trying to get there.  I’ve got a long way to go.

Am I making sense at all?