Beware theological gopher and rabbit holes

  Most conservative theologians disappear down gopher holes and
liberals down rabbit holes.                 Unfortunately, most of
these species establish theologies based on private opinions.  The
imminent danger they encounter is taking difficult to understand
verses, chapters and contexts, and import for themselves other verses
into the mix to result in their desired consensus. This is the ever
present danger of inductive reasoning. All of the new bibles have been
edited by various groups to suit their private theological opinions. I
was told one story of an old saint going to a bible study. Each person
had a different bible. When they all read several verses together, it
sounded really confusing. The elder then said “this confusion means
that my bible is the only real/ accurate one.”??   Now if the elder
had an old King James Bible, he was right. However, his comment
wasn’t.

   The Apostle Paul met with such dissention in some of his churches
that finally he threw up his hands and said “I know nothing among you
but Christ and him crucified!”

  So, let us be really careful to allow the reasonable context of the
chapter to show the meaning of it’s verses and theological
implications, and be really careful about “clarifying” verses from
elsewhere.

Lewis