All rights reserved. Recently I helped my boss decode a rather obtuse document, in which the writer had used obscure words instead of plain language. This is, I said, an example of what happens when people go to the dictionary for permission instead of guidance, and my boss thought that was an astute observation. Just because the word chiaroscuro is in the dictionary, for example, it doesn t mean that anyone is edified or informed when you use it in a sentence. I m sure you ve read documents where it seems the writer s primary purpose was not to convey a message, but to see how stupid he could make you feel.
Some people seem to use the Bible for permission instead of guidance.
Instead of learning what the Bible has to teach them, they use the Bible to justify their pet notions. They say their ideas are biblical, and in an invalid sense they are right, but their notions are read into the Bible rather than out of the Bible. Here some of my personal standards for making sure that a biblical teaching is in truly biblical. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will overcome it for a while, but in the nineteenth century it will be restored. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it.