Awareness and knowledge of PROGRESSIVE REVELATION is a key element in Bible hermeneutics. It is a major key that helps avoid cultic interpretations, clarify ancient questionable practices and may even be key in accepting the Roman Catholic cannon of Scripture which would then respect the Septuagint as a reliable historical document for the Church as we will explain briefly in this blog.
The New Testament actually summarized progressive revelation concisely in Hebrews 1:1-2:
" 1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world."
What may not stand out with the above passage statement is the profound implication that God does not give the full revelation of truth all at once or in one sitting. In fact, he revealed truth through inspired writers NOT even in the SAME generation. Instead, he used several generations of diverse authors from different walks of life over the span of 3,500 to 4,000 years to reveal his truth. This also means that he used different flavors and nuances of language to convey eternal realities. Over the span of time, even in the same Hebrew language for example, vocabularies develop and increase, meanings of certain words may not mean exactly the same thing over that time span. Regardless, it was all within God's divine design of progressive revelation.
What this means is that TRUTH never changes regardless of time or language or context, and progressive revelation over a significant amount of time confirms that. This also means that the picture of truth is slowly confirmed or reinforced with each new revelation. This strongly implies that the next revelation should rarely, if ever, contradict the earlier revelation. Otherwise, contradictions will just muddy, mangle or distort the message. If this is the case, then God is not consistent, contradictory and has FAILED at his job of revelation. Progressive revelation also means that the final revelation(s) complete the picture of the truth or divine concept. These three principles are important to remember for the Bible interpreter to be able to divide the word of truth properly.
Many otherwise well-meaning groups of believers get into cultic interpretations just because they forget about progressive revelation. The following are typical examples:
Lying
Many Christian groups condemn any form of lying as sinful. They insist that the truth should be told or declared at all times. They believe that so-called white lies are just rationalizations for the sin of lying. They do have several examples like Ananias in Acts 5, lying as one of the seven deadly sins in Proverbs 6:17. However, they forget that progressive revelation clarifies that there are occasions where lying is necessary for the Christian to do what is right
Women in Leadership ministry
Only theologians and pseudo-theologians (those whose beliefs are second hand or hand me down from someone more vocal or charismatic) who practice and apply verbal inspiration to their exegesis with very little or no influence or knowledge of plenary inspiration and progressive revelation will declare that it IT IS CLEAR in Scripture that women should not teach men in the church.
These people rarely or even refuse to see the stark contradictions of their interpretation should they explore the plenary purpose of God in building his kingdom and especially reaching the lost. They have no convincing interpretation regarding the charismata of the Holy Spirit (in fact, most proponents do not even believe in the availability of ALL of these gifts today, like tongues and healing among others). Those of that persuasion who believe in the gifts of the Spirit cannot justify that the gift of pastor-teacher is only for men while the rest of the gifts may be for everyone else. Stark inconsistency for a verbal inspirationist to declare something that is not even hinted verbally nor explicitly in these charisma passages.
Male-chauvinist Paul nevertheless declared in Galatians 3 that within the body of Christ, there is no slave nor free, no male nor female, "for you are all one in Christ". This clear statement is the capstone of the plenary inspiration on the subject of equality of each member of the body of Christ. The prophet Joel did prophecy and Peter reiterate that "your sons and daughters shall prophecy....even my male servants and female servants ... will prophecy". Yes, isn't this what the heart of Christ and the heart of his Great Commission really envisions??? --- THE UNRESTRAINED, UNENCUMBERED, UNSHACKLED, UNRESTRICTED PROCLAMATION OF THE GOSPEL??? Slaves and servants are free to prophecy! WOMEN ARE FREE AND UNRESTRICTED TO PROPHECY AND TEACH AND DO ANYTHING TO EXTEND THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
Any interpretation that contradicts this plenary truth has to BE CULTURAL ONLY AND CAN ONLY come from the ruler of this world himself who is most clever at either distorting Scripture or distorting the interpretations of demagogues and false teachers!
Polygamy
So is polygamy a really a sin? Let us approach it using progressive revelation:
The Bible does strongly imply that God designed marriage to be monogamous. However, the plenary and complete revelation on polygamy does seem to condemn it as a sin when done in the proper context, but it is not God's design for marriage either. Not all violations of God's design are sinful but they do have negative consequences. God designed our faces but it is not necessarily a sin to put make up or to pluck some eyebrows, though they alter or violate God's original design. God designed the wife to be a homemaker whether or not she is working and the husband to be the bread winner. However, even in Christian circles, this design is not followed. St. Paul advised singles in the church of Corinth not to get married to avoid a lot of both distractions from the Lord's work as well as grief. The Roman Catholic church took this literally but it resulted in worse negative consequences like the practice of homosexuality within the priesthood and then later, child molestations although it is known to many that such malpractice dates back to the start of the Roman Catholic church in the 4th century, not to mention that historically priests in Europe took advantage of nuns, impregnated them and then aborted or killed the newborns and buried them close to the nunneries. The violation of God's design may not have been sin but it creates an environment even more conducive to sinning than before the violation.
In a previous blog, I discussed the context by which polygamy is not a sinful practice. Outside of such context, polygamy deteriorates to adultery, even if it is "legalized adultery", and nothing else.
Note that even the Torah gives clear conditions in the practice of polygamy, thus implicitly condoning it.
Alcohol and Marijuana
Prohibition in the United States actually resulted in the USA producing the more alcoholics and more DUI cases -- another stark example of negative consequences from imposing moral values on an unredeemed populace.
Until Marijuana stopped being a banned substance in the US, the drug trade was very lucrative to criminal minds -- still another example of negative consequences of imposing moral values on an unredeemed world.
Cannon of Scripture
[to be continued]
The New Testament actually summarized progressive revelation concisely in Hebrews 1:1-2:
" 1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world."
What may not stand out with the above passage statement is the profound implication that God does not give the full revelation of truth all at once or in one sitting. In fact, he revealed truth through inspired writers NOT even in the SAME generation. Instead, he used several generations of diverse authors from different walks of life over the span of 3,500 to 4,000 years to reveal his truth. This also means that he used different flavors and nuances of language to convey eternal realities. Over the span of time, even in the same Hebrew language for example, vocabularies develop and increase, meanings of certain words may not mean exactly the same thing over that time span. Regardless, it was all within God's divine design of progressive revelation.
What this means is that TRUTH never changes regardless of time or language or context, and progressive revelation over a significant amount of time confirms that. This also means that the picture of truth is slowly confirmed or reinforced with each new revelation. This strongly implies that the next revelation should rarely, if ever, contradict the earlier revelation. Otherwise, contradictions will just muddy, mangle or distort the message. If this is the case, then God is not consistent, contradictory and has FAILED at his job of revelation. Progressive revelation also means that the final revelation(s) complete the picture of the truth or divine concept. These three principles are important to remember for the Bible interpreter to be able to divide the word of truth properly.
Many otherwise well-meaning groups of believers get into cultic interpretations just because they forget about progressive revelation. The following are typical examples:
Lying
Many Christian groups condemn any form of lying as sinful. They insist that the truth should be told or declared at all times. They believe that so-called white lies are just rationalizations for the sin of lying. They do have several examples like Ananias in Acts 5, lying as one of the seven deadly sins in Proverbs 6:17. However, they forget that progressive revelation clarifies that there are occasions where lying is necessary for the Christian to do what is right
- Abraham lied to Pharoah and Abimelech but instead of God censuring or condeming the liar (Abraham), God actually threatened both Pharoah and Abimelech with curses or death!
- Isaac followed Abraham's example and also lied to Abimelech with the same results. God said nothing against Isaac but threatened Abimelech instead.
- Jacob lied to Isaac to get the Isaac's blessing after grabbing Esau's birthright but Jacob got it anyway!
- The midwives in Egypt lied to Pharoah because they feared God and God blessed them instead of condemning them
- The Ten Commandments condemned bearing false witness and NOT lying as a whole
- Rahab lied to her government to protect Israel's spies and saved her life and family and was blessed by becoming an ancestor of both King David and the Lord Jesus Christ
- The New Testament condemns lies especially among Christians where personal integrity and trustworthiness are degraded.
- Christ and James both declared, "Let your yes be yes and your no be no" at least twice.
So the plenary and complete revelation about lies is that not all lies are sinful and it seems that lies done out of true biblical love or true biblical faith are even to be commended. In the exegesis of lying, one should consider that what God condemns in the Ten Commandments was bearing false witness, or lying to hurt or destroy your neighbor. Also, the exegete needs to interpret what kind of lying is one of the seven deadly sins in the book of Proverbs and why liars cannot enter the kingdom of heaven according to St. Paul. NONE of these passages are contradictory, they cannot be or we insult God's ability to reveal truthfully and clearly which reduces our confidence in the rest of Scripture.
Women in Leadership ministry
Only theologians and pseudo-theologians (those whose beliefs are second hand or hand me down from someone more vocal or charismatic) who practice and apply verbal inspiration to their exegesis with very little or no influence or knowledge of plenary inspiration and progressive revelation will declare that it IT IS CLEAR in Scripture that women should not teach men in the church.
These people rarely or even refuse to see the stark contradictions of their interpretation should they explore the plenary purpose of God in building his kingdom and especially reaching the lost. They have no convincing interpretation regarding the charismata of the Holy Spirit (in fact, most proponents do not even believe in the availability of ALL of these gifts today, like tongues and healing among others). Those of that persuasion who believe in the gifts of the Spirit cannot justify that the gift of pastor-teacher is only for men while the rest of the gifts may be for everyone else. Stark inconsistency for a verbal inspirationist to declare something that is not even hinted verbally nor explicitly in these charisma passages.
Male-chauvinist Paul nevertheless declared in Galatians 3 that within the body of Christ, there is no slave nor free, no male nor female, "for you are all one in Christ". This clear statement is the capstone of the plenary inspiration on the subject of equality of each member of the body of Christ. The prophet Joel did prophecy and Peter reiterate that "your sons and daughters shall prophecy....even my male servants and female servants ... will prophecy". Yes, isn't this what the heart of Christ and the heart of his Great Commission really envisions??? --- THE UNRESTRAINED, UNENCUMBERED, UNSHACKLED, UNRESTRICTED PROCLAMATION OF THE GOSPEL??? Slaves and servants are free to prophecy! WOMEN ARE FREE AND UNRESTRICTED TO PROPHECY AND TEACH AND DO ANYTHING TO EXTEND THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
Any interpretation that contradicts this plenary truth has to BE CULTURAL ONLY AND CAN ONLY come from the ruler of this world himself who is most clever at either distorting Scripture or distorting the interpretations of demagogues and false teachers!
Polygamy
So is polygamy a really a sin? Let us approach it using progressive revelation:
- There is no record of Adam or Noah being polygamous.
- Abraham was polygamous
- Isaac has no record of being polygamous
- Jacob was polygamous with 2 wives and 2 concubines
- David was more polygamous with lots of wives and concubines
- King Solomon whom God has honored as the greatest human king of all time had 300 wives and 700 concubines
- The book of Proverbs supposedly written mostly by Solomon or during his reign always mentioned wives in the context of MONOgamy.
- Polygamy was a common practice of the kings of the divided kingdom.
- Every time Christ and Paul discussed marriage, it was mainly under the context of MONOgamy.
- When Paul outlined the qualifications for deacon and elders, he mentioned that they should be the husband of "only one wife" implying that the church had born-again polygamists in their midst
- The New Testament, in fact, the whole Bible NEVER condemned polygamy
- The church in succeeding generations encouraged monogamy but did not condemn polygamy
- The Roman Catholic Church in the succeeding ages up to the present condemned polygamy but practiced a lot of adultery, fornication, sodomy among the cardinals and pope (go figure!)
It seems that the well-meaning intent of very conservative Christians through the ages, especially fundamentalists today, to condemn polygamy, smoking, drinking alcohol, drugs, night clubs, casinos are basically reactionary but not really the biblical approach to these "cause of vices" (they are not vices until they are out of control). They become unbiblical because they forget that sin is an issue of the heart of man and not necessarily the action. They forget that spiritual things cannot be forced on anyone because it does not really affect the heart.
The Bible does strongly imply that God designed marriage to be monogamous. However, the plenary and complete revelation on polygamy does seem to condemn it as a sin when done in the proper context, but it is not God's design for marriage either. Not all violations of God's design are sinful but they do have negative consequences. God designed our faces but it is not necessarily a sin to put make up or to pluck some eyebrows, though they alter or violate God's original design. God designed the wife to be a homemaker whether or not she is working and the husband to be the bread winner. However, even in Christian circles, this design is not followed. St. Paul advised singles in the church of Corinth not to get married to avoid a lot of both distractions from the Lord's work as well as grief. The Roman Catholic church took this literally but it resulted in worse negative consequences like the practice of homosexuality within the priesthood and then later, child molestations although it is known to many that such malpractice dates back to the start of the Roman Catholic church in the 4th century, not to mention that historically priests in Europe took advantage of nuns, impregnated them and then aborted or killed the newborns and buried them close to the nunneries. The violation of God's design may not have been sin but it creates an environment even more conducive to sinning than before the violation.
In a previous blog, I discussed the context by which polygamy is not a sinful practice. Outside of such context, polygamy deteriorates to adultery, even if it is "legalized adultery", and nothing else.
Note that even the Torah gives clear conditions in the practice of polygamy, thus implicitly condoning it.
Alcohol and Marijuana
Prohibition in the United States actually resulted in the USA producing the more alcoholics and more DUI cases -- another stark example of negative consequences from imposing moral values on an unredeemed populace.
Until Marijuana stopped being a banned substance in the US, the drug trade was very lucrative to criminal minds -- still another example of negative consequences of imposing moral values on an unredeemed world.
Cannon of Scripture
[to be continued]
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