Unexamined Assumptions
By Dr. Derek Carlsen
Peter, when talking about Paul’s writings, said that some things were, “hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.” (2 Peter 3:16). Peter wasn’t saying that Paul’s words couldn’t be understood.
Incompetent Interpreters
The word ‘untaught’ in the above verse, refers to people who are ‘incompetent interpreters.’ People arrive at all kinds of fantastic beliefs when they do not embrace and bow to the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of Scripture by Scripture.
Sometimes this incompetence is deliberate because people are at war with the Lord, distorting, for example, the grounds of justification and thus they face destruction. However, it is possible to be incompetent about other aspects of God’s truth, which doesn’t lead to eternal destruction, but it does hinder effectiveness for the Kingdom.
Blinded
People can be blinded by their unexamined assumptions. Many beliefs, conclusions, and traditions rest upon wrong assumptions, which are able to neutralize other details in the reasoning or information-gathering process. Any assumption that remains unexamined becomes a chink in the armor of our worldview, potentially setting us upon a course that opposes God’s revealed will.
Highest Authority
Every person begins their thinking process by presupposing their highest authority. For Christians, their highest authority ought to be God who preserved His revelation to mankind as Scripture. Christians run into problems when they treat their own mind as their highest authority and either reject or ignore something God has revealed, because they are unable to fully grasp or reconcile it, thus assuming that their minds are more reliable than Scripture.
God Knows
God is absolutely sovereign, and humans are responsible for their actions; neither of these can be compromised by the other, however, only God knows how they are reconciled with His perfect justice. God is the highest authority with respect to what is and isn’t true and our minds are to bow to His revelation. When Christians don’t do this, they find fault with anything their minds can’t reconcile and so formulate “truth” according to their own imaginations.
Other Struggles
Peoples’ minds struggle with many things revealed in Scripture. The triune nature of God, for example, must be embraced by faith because it is beyond human ability to fully explain or naturally illustrate. Likewise, the incarnation also leaves people with many unanswerable questions about how infinite God and perfect man can dwell together in the Person of Jesus Christ without distorting either nature? The just are to live by faith, believing every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, casting down every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God (Romans 1:17; Matthew 4:4; 2 Corinthians 10:5).
God’s Law
An assumption held by a majority of Christians is that all of God’s law can be placed into one bag and then when the New Testament is negative about law, it’s claimed that this is referring to the whole of God’s law, thus rendering God’s law irrelevant for Christians. Bolstering this mistaken assumption is another assumption, namely, that God’s dealings with His people must be divided into different dispensations and that He has related to His people in different ways in these different dispensations. Yet another mistake is the assumption of discontinuity between the Old and New Testaments so that only what’s repeated in the New Testament is authoritative for Christians. These unexamined assumptions greatly reduce the effectiveness of those who hold them.
Adam’s Rebellion vs Christ’s Obedience
A prevalent assumption in the modern church appears to be an unconscious one, namely, that Adam’s rebellion impacts the world more than Christ’s obedience is able to impact it. The End-Times beliefs held by the majority of Christians today, rest upon this unconscious and therefore unexamined assumption. Scripture, on the other hand, teaches that the whole purpose of the Messianic Kingdom was one of restoration (Acts 3:21), starting with John the Baptist (Matthew 17:11) and flowing through Christ’s ministry, death, resurrection, and exaltation to the position of supreme power at God’s right hand (Matthew 28:18; Acts 2:33).
Christ came to take away sin (Matthew 1:21; John 1:29); remove the curse; destroy the devil (Hebrews 2:14); free us from sin and death (Romans 8:2; 1 Corinthians 15:22); destroy Satan’s works (1 John 3:8) and the evil hosts (Colossians 2:15), thus saving the whole world (John 3:17; 4:42). Christ’s redemption is as broad as the pollution of sin, and it touches and reforms all of life. Christ’s work is able to counter the curse in every aspect of life because it is far more powerful than rebellion. Jesus’ followers are to disciple the nations because He possesses all authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18).
The Kingdom came with Christ (Matthew 4:17; Mark 1:15) and continues to grow until it fills the whole earth (Matthew 13:31-33; Daniel 2:35) and only then does Christ return (1 Corinthians 15:24,25). Christ returns when all His enemies have been put under His feet (Acts 2:34-35), in other words, Christ remains in heaven until all things have been restored (Acts 3:21).
The Sly Gag Order
Why does practically every church in the USA opt for being a 501 C-3 organization? The unexamined assumption is that that is the only way to obtain tax-exempt status. Is this assumption correct? No! Oh, the tyranny of an unexamined assumption. 501 C-3 churches give up their God-given liberty and their full commission (Matthew 28:20). These churches cannot promote any political candidate or oppose any political candidate or else they will lose their 501 C-3 status. It is assumed that churches can’t be tax-exempt unless they become a 501 C-3 organization.
The IRS tax code states that churches are, by definition, tax-exempt entities, which means that they do not need to become 501 C-3 organizations in order to receive the tax exemption, which means no gag order can be imposed upon them. When Christians stop shining the purifying light of God’s truth into the political realm, corruption flourishes. How is it possible to imagine that the redemption of Christ has nothing to do with the dusty realm of politics and the reformation of nations? How is a self-imposed gag order glorifying to Christ’s command that we disciple the nations as nations? (Matthew 28:18-20).
Don’t underestimate the tyranny of unexamined assumptions.