A Can of Worms Works Out For Good

Last Friday I began teaching the Study and Teach the Bible class at Calvary Docklands, in the Canary Wharf area of London. It's a big financial district, with skyscrapers and lots of money.

Getting there was a bit of divine preparation. The previous week I had gone with Dieudonné Lumbi to his practical exam in ophthalmology at City University, located in a part of London called Angel. In so doing, I learned Dieudonné's travel secrets. I would have gone to Sunbury to catch a train; he goes to Feltham. The trains are faster and the travel card is cheaper. He parked his car on a certain street in Feltham with free parking. When he returns to Feltham he waits for the bus to take him to his car because with a travel card the bus is free. I watched and learned from a pro commuter.

So on Friday, when I was short on time and had to get going quick to Canary Wharf, I realized that now I knew a faster, cheaper way. I remembered the best place to park my car. The train skipped a lot of stops, getting me to my destination quickly. I thought, "God has even equipped me to get to this class." I made it to Canary Wharf on time.

For the first hour I introduced our objectives to the class: accurately observing the text of the Bible and interpreting it, and accurately delivering it to people. We took a short break.

In the second hour I wanted to demonstrate how we can go from lesser to greater knowledge by observing the text of the Bible, by asking questions of it and letting the text answer them, and by looking up words in lexicons and dictionaries.

Over the years I have learned to not prepare for this part of the class, but just to have a student suggest a scripture and then demonstrate the process by doing it on the spot. This is a risky venture. Students can do the unexpected. I need God to help me and make the point He wants to make.

As soon as I asked for a verse to study, one man immediately said, "Hebrews 6:6."

Here is the text: "…if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame."

This is definitely a can of worms. I asked him, "Are you serious? Why this verse?" He said he was struggling with it and people that he taught were struggling with it and he wanted to see what I did with it. O------kay, I thought. Here we go, Lord.

So I began noticing that the verse starts in the middle of a sentence, and we have to notice where it starts and what the context is. We observed that there are five clauses that precede verse 6. The sixth clause, in verse six, is in the same grammatical form as the others. It is not a conditional statement, but a statement of fact. All six clauses describe a person. The writer is saying if all six clauses are true of someone, there is no way for that person to turn around from that. The language also shows that the falling away is a deliberate choice, not a whim or a mistake or a goof. So I concluded that the writer is saying this is a road of no return. One practical application of that could be: avoid that road. Make sure you don't go there.

At least three people objected to this, saying if you are saved, you are always saved. You cannot lose your salvation. I answered this is not saying you can lose your salvation like it was a mistake or you goofed. This is saying there is a road a person can choose. That person can get what he chooses. This indicates that we as believers make choices and we are responsible for those choices. We may not live any way we want and not reap the consequences. The objecting students still didn't like that. I said this is a warning, and God's warnings are not fakes. But if we have the proper fear, we will never go there. I went over the language again, what it said and what it didn't say, emphasizing that the correct interpretation has to take into consideration the whole context of Scripture. That guards our interpretation from being subjective.

Then I applied the relevance of this controversy to our course. We have a responsibility to accurately get the message from Scripture and accurately deliver it. We can't change the message or back off from it just because it conflicts with some people's theology. They might have a defective theology that allows them to live a defective life, that will endanger them when they stand before God. Our job is to know what it says and teach what it says and let the chips fall where they may. Our authority comes from knowing what the Scripture says, in the immediate context and in the overall context of Scripture. If somebody doesn't like that, they don't have a problem with us, they have a problem with God.

The need for the controversy became clear after the class. The man who suggested Hebrews 6:6 admitted he has been changing his teaching because he feared the backlash he knew would come from certain people. "I can't do that anymore," he said. "I have to be true to what it says."

The Lord took a can of worms and addressed an issue I knew nothing about. I am so glad the Lord made even that work out for good. I trust the Lord will continue to speak in the class through His living word. I will greatly appreciate your prayers for this course.