FRANKENSTEIN THEOLOGIES

Tuesday 27 May

Study and be eager and do your utmost to present yourself to God approved (tested by trial), a workman who has no cause to be ashamed, correctly analyzing and accurately dividing [rightly handling and skillfully teaching] the Word of Truth. 2 Timothy 2:15 (AMPC)

And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. Acts 20:32 (ESV)

You may have seen the title of this devotion and wondered what the words Frankenstein and theologies are doing in the same sentence. I’m sure you remember the story of Doctor Frankenstein and the monster he created out of body parts that belonged to different people. Talk about re-membering.

You may not have heard this before but you can do the same thing with your theology. You can take parts that weren’t meant to go together and attach them to form something that was never supposed to be created. Let’s go a little deeper.

In our opening verse we are encouraged to ‘rightly divide’ the word of truth. The Greek word for the phrase ‘rightly divide’ is ‘orthotomeo.’ It means to ‘cut straight’ like you would if you were excavating into a mine to extract mineral deposits. There is the inference on someone having the skill on where and how to cut to achieve the correct result.

This comes under the category of innovation which when being creative in other endeavours may be useful however this is not the way to handle the Word. The first excavation of truth is the separation between Moses who represented the law and Christ who is the ‘end of the law for those who believe.’ Law from grace.

A lot of folks think that they can cut a scripture from the Old Testament, take something else in the gospels and then add it onto a verse in the epistles and ‘stitch and staple’ it all together. The idea of ‘seeds’ as an example is found throughout the Bible but it would be wrong to try to ‘bolt’ all the verses together to form one body of truth. Sometimes this is how people sermonise. Without realising it, they are creating theological monsters; Frankensteins.

Continuing the metaphor, if you cut out a leg from grace in the New Testament and the other leg from the law in the Old Testament it’s like taking two legs that are different in form and function and trying to attach them and make them walk together. Because they are by nature in opposition to each other it will most likely end in a tumble.

When you recognise the message of Christ from the teaching of Moses, you are able to put together what is Christ and therefore what is of grace and discard the wrong parts that should not be attached. This applies to the same scriptures that Jesus expounded on regarding the things concerning Himself. He left the wrong parts well alone.

Another important thing to recognise is you have to interpret the word within its correct context so what it meant when it was first written, is consistent with your delivery today. You can’t just rip out verses from their natural environment to place them somewhere foreign where they don’t belong. What happens when you put a plant on the pavement? It withers and dies right? It’s the same with scripture.

So by now it’s obvious we shouldn’t make up our theology from any old scriptural body part lying around in the Bible and think all of it going to somehow fit together and function effectively. Some concepts in scripture are irreconcilable. For example; there is a word of His grace and the commands of the law which must never go together. One is based on dead works and the other on the finished work of Christ.

The best way to apply the Bible and put together the right parts is simply let the word interpret the word. There are verses throughout the Bible that can be ‘put together’ because of content and context from Genesis to Revelation. This is where we are to ‘spoudazo’ i.e.

be diligent in studying the Word of God which enables us to be approved of Him and be someone who knows what scriptures should go together and which are not to be added.

Don’t create monsters from your theology, instead let your ‘body of doctrine’ reflect the characteristics and attributes of Christ.

APPLICATION

Be a student of the Word who understands how to cut straight and learn how to dissect the teachings of Moses from the message of Christ.