Half-truth

In AWANA the other night, several of my T&T boys made it out of the "Start Zone." In order to do this, they had to complete 7 checkpoints. Most of the checkpoints had two verses that they would have to memorize and then recite to me, and if they were successful I would slap my signature on the line and send them shuffling off to work on the next pair of verses.

Checkpoint 7 didn't follow this pattern. Instead of memorizing a couple of verses, the T&T clubber had to explain what it means to "trust Christ." That's a decent question, especially when you consider that John 3:36 (one of the Checkpoint 6 verses) tells us that those who trust in/believe in Jesus have eternal life, but those who don't remain under God's wrath. In the cosmic book of questions, this is a big one.

The other verse in Checkpoint 6 was Acts 16:31:

• AWANA version: …Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved…
• NIV complete version: They replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved?you and your household."

Again, I may be splitting theological hairs here, but I thought this difference was worth noting.

For one thing, this is the first verse we've come to in the materials where only part of the verse was included. I know that the younger kids sometimes have age-appropriate paraphrases for their memorization, but the T&T club materials stress "word perfect" memorization of the entire verse, including the reference. One has to wonder why this verse, the 12th verse the boys were to memorize, was the first one that was truncated, even though several others were longer and less concise.

It also strikes me as odd that in a program that emphasizes the power of the Word of God more than anything else, they would be comfortable tampering with the content of a verse. I realize that the verse and chapter numbers are not part of the inspired Word of God, but cropping out the context of a verse because it doesn't fit within your theological paradigm is dangerous business.

For example, consider Psalm 14:1, which says "…There is no God…" Now, for Checkpoint 7 tell me what the Bible says about God. Chances are your answer will not be a good one. Of course, Psalm 14:1 does not tell us that there is no God. It tells us that a fool says in his heart, "There is no God." But, by playing with the starting and stopping points in the verse we can make it say something it does not intend to say. Committing this error in Acts 16:31 is no more excusable than in Psalm 14.

My theory is that the good folks at AWANA were a little uncomfortable with the idea of household salvation, mostly because it does not fit within their revivalistic, Arminian paradigm. They reason that since we already know that God is too nice to save anybody against their free will, certainly an assertion that households are saved is out of bounds. Perhaps he saves whole households if (and only if) everyone in them has reached the age of accountability and has chosen to "receive Christ," but in that case adding the whole "household clause" would just confuse these poor kids.

So, instead of being faithful to the scriptures as God has inspired and preserved them, we just get out the scissors and pare down the verse to go along with our theological system.

Reformed folks often take heat for thinking too much and relying on our systematic theology too heavily, confusing what we have come up with and what God himself has said. We really start causing trouble when we recite creeds and confessions that aren't found word-for-word in Scripture, or praying prayers that are written down instead of made up on the spot. "You can have your highfalutin creeds and dusty old prayers, but as far as I'm concerned, it's Me n' Jesus and Me n' my Bible."

If you ever hear someone say this, ask them which "Jesus" it is that they are referring to. Perhaps it's the good prophet the Muslims talk about. Or, maybe it is the non-judgemental "nice guy" teacher that secularists believe him to be. If not, then who are you talking about? Before long they will be espousing doctrine and theology without even knowing it. The thing is, even when we call ourselves non-denominational or Bible-only, we still have a theological system that governs the way we think about the Bible, and the God of the Bible. In this case, the AWANA people have imposed their theological system on the Bible instead of the other way around.

When Jesus came, he confronted the systems and traditions that the Scribes and Pharisees had established. They loved their own belief system so dearly that they were willing to kill the Messiah, who performed great signs and wonders in their midst, rather than abandon the religious system they had built for themselves. We are no different when we make the Bible say what we want it to rather than letting it speak as it is.