The following is taken from the teacher's book, The Calling: What the Lord Intended. The material is copyrighted and may not be used without permission.
"There are a number of principles I’ve found helpful to me as I study the Word of God today. As slaves, seeking to understand the Master, maybe you’ll find them helpful to you as well.
We need to understand the culture of the Bible. What was written was written by Easterners to Easterners. By better understanding the culture and mindset of that day, we can better understand what was being said. Superimposing our culture on the Bible doesn’t make it more relevant; it modifies and changes the message. Once we understand the message, then we need to make consistent and proper application to today. An accurate picture of what a slave of Christ is begins with an understanding of the word within the culture of that day. Obviously, the same is true of more than the slave issue.
We need to be objective. We need to put aside our personal prejudices and desires. We need to understand what the Word of God is saying, not what we want it to say. Actually, we sometimes need to be careful about what the Word of God is saying. For example, as mentioned earlier in the book, the word doulos is used repeatedly. However, it’s fairly consistently rendered servant instead of slave in most translations. Again, there’s a difference between a servant and a slave, but we’re much more comfortable with the position of the one as opposed to the position of the other.
We need to take the Word of God literally (naturally) unless so indicated otherwise in the context. It’s hard to imagine a slave saying to his master: “I know you said I was supposed to be faithful to my wife, but I thought you meant I was supposed to find another woman who would make me happier.”
We need to understand the difference between principle and cultural application. In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul is dealing with the principle of submission. Length of hair was one way of culturally demonstrating submission. Obviously, a person today could refuse to cut their hair, have extremely long hair and not demonstrate submission in any way. In doing so, they would have missed the whole point of the chapter.
We need to understand the difference between principle and scruple. A principle is a basic truth from the Master that transcends time, culture, nationality, or location unless otherwise specified. It has a clear Biblical basis. A scruple is an uneasy feeling an individual has that may or may not be shared with others. As a slave of Christ, they would feel hindered by doing the scruple. They would feel they had personally displeased the Master, but they have no strong, clear Biblical basis for saying the Master demands or forbids it. We need to be careful that we don’t impose our scruples on others.
We need to realize that we’re fellow slaves of other believers. We’re not their masters. The Lord is Master. That seems so simple but we frequently try to move out of the fellow slave position into the Lord Master position.
We need to study the geography and importance of the geography of the Bible. For example, the two main highways connecting Egypt with the rest of the world (Via Maris and King’s Highway) converged in Damascus. Pretty much everything, of importance, that was happening in the world was discussed in Damascus and scattered elsewhere. Think of the implications of Saul/Paul’s conversion near Damascus. An accident? I don’t think so. Jesus could have confronted Saul anywhere along the way, but waited for him to near the crossroads of the world.
We need to be careful to observe time frames. For example, the statement about no tears in heaven (Revelation 21:4) refers to a time yet to come. Remember, John wept in heaven (Revelation 5:4). Remember, too, there’s yet to be a war in heaven. The day will come when there will be no weeping in heaven, but we’re not there yet.
Any text has to be kept in its context. Romans 6:23 is frequently used to prove that unsaved people will go to hell. Certainly it’s true they will, but that’s not what the verse is saying. If we read each verse (starting with chapter six verse one, we’ll find that Paul is speaking to believers about believers. The same is true through the rest of the chapter after verse twenty-three and into chapter seven. (Actually chapters five through eight deal with believers.) It doesn’t make sense that Paul would sandwich a statement to and about non-Christians in the midst of it all. Though Jesus has paid the debt for believers, He hasn’t collected all the wages. There’s a vast difference between debt and wage. The statement of verse twenty-three is a warning to believers.
Words need to be studied to find their meaning and sometimes their variance of meaning. Because the word “death” appears in Romans 6:23, we tend to think it has to be referring to hell. But it isn’t. Death in Scripture can be a quality of life that’s less than the Lord intended. As the Lord told Adam in Genesis 2:3, KJV, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” At the very moment of the first bite, death (a quality of life that was less than the Lord intended) came to Adam and Eve.
We need to accept the fact that what we thought we knew may not be true. For years, I thought Satan was in hell and God couldn’t be there. However, Psalm 139:8, KJV says “If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.” If God is truly omnipresent, He has to be everywhere, including hell. Revelation 12:9 also makes it clear that Satan is in heaven accusing the brethren. He’ll be there until midway through the Tribulation.
We need to be careful about imposing poetic license. I grew up singing the old hymn, The Old Rugged Cross. It’s a part of my rich spiritual heritage; however, it’s not correct. Nowhere in the Bible does it say Jesus was crucified on a hill. Logically, it wouldn’t have made sense. The Romans crucified people in public settings where they could and would be seen by others as a warning. It’s far more likely that Jesus was crucified at the bottom of Golgotha, not the top. That’s where the public highway would have likely been. It may seem to be a little thing, but we need to try to get the truth of Scripture right.
We need to understand the difference between Israel and the Church. They’re not synonymous. The demands and promises given to one don’t necessarily apply to the other. That doesn’t mean the Old Testament is irrelevant. It isn’t. As Paul said in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works” (KJV).
The Word of God is the final authority. It’s the word of the Master. Our opinion, majority thinking, time and cultural changes don’t matter. The Lord is still Lord.
There’s no new revelation. I can’t begin to tell you how often I’ve heard people say, “God told me.” They’ve claimed the right to do all kinds of things. They’ve placed the responsibility on the Lord for decisions of all kinds. In other words, God has become the scapegoat for anything that’s crossed someone’s mind. Certainly, the Word of God speaks to our heart as we read and study it. But what God says in one place has no more or less authority than what He says elsewhere. Genesis has no more or less revelation authority than the book that’s called Revelation, etc. When we claim new revelation, we elevate the new revelation to the level of old revelation, Scripture. That’s what cults do, not what the Lord’s slaves are supposed to do.
God’s will isn’t as mystical as we tend to make it. The will of God is the Word of God. Nowhere, in the Bible, are we told to hunt for the will of God. We’re just told to do it. As slaves, we need to stop searching and start doing.
When it comes to our belief system, we need to prove it or drop it. What we believe is important, but it needs to be firmly anchored in the Word of God. As Jesus said in Luke 16:8, the people of the world are sometimes wiser than the children of light. It’s OK to be counter cultural. Jesus was. The Word of God is. As Paul says in Romans 12:2, we’re not to conform to the world. But sometimes, those who claim to be under the authority of the Master are just plain goofy. They do things and say things that have no basis in the Word of God at all."
