“You are to write on the stones all the words of this Torah very clearly.”-Deuteronomy 27:8
Do you remember studying about the European inquisition in school?
What happened was that certain lay folks outside the established church authority began to get a hold of Scripture for themselves.
The reason they did this was because they no longer trusted the church.
As a result, these people were branded as criminals because it was only the church authorities who were allowed to possess the Scriptures.
Why?
Because they wanted to promote the false idea that they were only ones who possessed the divine knowledge and authority to interpret God’s words.
If common folks actually got a hold of the Scriptures and read it for themselves, it would be much more difficult to control them.
This was a horrific time in history when literally thousands of believers were burned at the stake if they owned even one small piece of a page from Scripture.
What’s ironic is that in our modern times the exact opposite but equally dangerous phenomenon has occurred.
It is no longer illegal to own the Bible (in most countries anyway) and one can easily access God’s Words by going online but it seems like people have lost interest in studying Scripture .
Instead of taking the time to study and meditate on God’s Word, people have resigned themselves to just accepting a denomination’s articles of faith or doctrinal statements.
Speaking on this phenomenon, I can do no better than sharing this quote from the highly esteemed scholar D.L. Christensen.
He said…
”One of the curious features of modern worship within the evangelical churches today is the absence of public recitation of the Scriptures as an end in itself. Much time is given to singing songs of praise, many of which are simply biblical texts put to music. But very little time is given to hearing the Bible read, other than perhaps the typically very limited text on which the Pastor’s sermon is based. We need to find ways to expose our people to the WHOLE of the Bible in public worship in the manner that ancient Israel experienced Deuteronomy on Mt. Ebal.”
Gosh darn, I couldn’t have said that better myself.
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