TRUST NO MAN
When religious people think about trusting others, they typically think in terms of trusting with matters related to everyday life (e.g. finances, personal safety, relationships, health, jobs, etc.). They will also think in terms of their life after they die physically. This thinking is the curse of interpreting the Bible literally instead of symbolically.

STUDY TIP: See Death, Resurrection, New Life, Salvation, Forgiveness, Heaven and Hell and Eternal Life.

Fortified by this thinking, they say “trust God” whenever a difficult circumstance arises. This religious language sounds good and seems to agree with scriptures that tell us to trust God, but these life situations are not the circumstances that God is referring to in scriptures that encourage us to put our trust in God.

There are two problems with this kind of thinking:

• • • It is impossible to live in a community of any size, large or small, without trusting others to one degree or other. Every human transaction and relationship includes a measure of trust. Religious people believe, therefore, that they obey God’s command not to trust man, but the reality is that all of their relationships, whether close and intimate as in a family, or distant as in government, all involve trust.
    • The other problem is that God’s focus on trust is not on trusting in everyday relationships or in the business of our natural lives. It is a nice, religious thing to say that you trust God for everything (e.g. money, wealth, health, safety, weather, etc.)  but God is not impressed with such talk. Others may be impressed, but God is not.

God’s focus regarding trust is on who you listen to in your search to know him. Do you listen to Trees of Life, or do you listen to Trees of Knowledge of Good and Evil. This basic trust is introduced in Genesis 3 where Adam and Eve chose to trust the words of the serpent rather than God’s words.

Trust comes down to this choice:

• • • Do you trust God’s voice spoken by him directly and/or through those he sends to speak for him (i.e. true prophets, angels, messiahs, high priests, witnesses, and warriors), who speak out of the overflow of their hearts?

Or,

• • • Do you trust (i.e. listen to and obey) the voices/writings of False Prophets, Pharaohs, Judas, Balaam, Kings, Queens and Princes, Pharisees and Scribes, Serpent, Devil, Satan, Adversary, Demons, Evil Spirits, Anti-Christs, foolish, worthless, stupid shepherds who speak out of the deceptive visions and imaginations of their minds.

Religious people who interpret the Bible literally do not understand that they are, in fact, putting their trust in the scribes/authors of the Bible. To restate that fact bluntly, it can be said that they are trusting man. They do not understand that God’s spoken word and the literal Bible are not the same thing. For them, Bible study is an intellectual exercise in which they use their eyes and mind to gain intellectual knowledge which they use to impress other religious people with Bible quotes.

New Covenant disciples, on the other hand, always listen for God’s voice while reading/studying the Bible. For them, Bible study is a spiritual activity in which they use their eyes, ears and heart to gain spiritual wisdom and knowledge that they share with others as God directs them to speak.

Because man has always changed God’s spoken word when translating it into human words, it it is impossible for any Bible version to claim that it is an accurate translation of what the original authors of the Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek scriptures thought they heard God say. The Bible has evolved. It is the written version of the Telephone Game. It gets distorted a little every time someone rewrites it.

This reality should be a caution to Jews and Christians of any denomination who say that they categorically believe what their version of the Bible says. They may make such a claim with all sincerity, but their sincerity does not insure the truth of their claim.

So, what should any religious person who wants to trust in scripture do? Is there any part of scripture that can be trusted? Is there one Bible translation that is more accurate than others?

The answers to these questions are no and no.

These negative answers should not discourage anyone who wants to know what God said. Instead of trying to find perfect truth in words written by humans, they should do what God always said they should do: Listen to his voice.

God said “listen to my voice” because he knows that faith comes by hearing — not by reading. Religious people, however, believe that they will acquire faith by simply reading the Bible using their natural eyes and human intellect. They believe that because that is what their religions have taught them.

God’s spoken words are the only words that do not change or evolve. That cannot be said of any Bible written by man. God’s laws (i.e. his spoken words) are true and perfect. Because God does not change, his spoken word does not change. That is a statement that cannot be made regarding any Bible. The written Bible has been changed many times, but God’s spoken word is eternal.

What we have is a situation where people sincerely want to know what God “said” in Bible times, but do not know enough to listen to what God “says” to them today. Lacking understanding that God will actually speak to them today, they hopelessly try to discover what God and/or Jesus said thousands of years ago by reading lifeless Bibles written by other humans. Thus the Bible is little more than a history lesson of what God might have said (according to the opinions of Bible scribes/authors and preachers), and is never current, applicable and alive to them today.

When God said that his word is living and active, he was referring to his spoken word today — not to words on paper. People who read the words on paper without listening to God’s spoken voice receive only a shadow of God’s voice — not the real thing.

And the following remedy is available to people who want to know God but do not trust the Bible: Listen to God’s spoken voice.

This is probably not a very satisfying suggestion for people who are more accustomed to listening to, and reading the words of religious leader. Because they have never been taught how to listen to God’s spoken voice, to suggest that they all of a sudden start listening to God’s voice is not helpful or encouraging. Lay people have been taught that it was only the religious leaders who had the ability to hear God’s spoken voice. To suggest that they, who have no calling and no special training, can hear God’s voice would seem to require more faith than they have. Indeed, this is the exact kind of response that God expects. Some faith is required for trusting religious leaders for instruction, but that minimal kind of faith is not the degree of faith that God wants in his people. He wants the kind of faith that says “God will speak to me and I will be able to hear his voice.

While some people may be willing to stop listening to religious leaders, and they might accept that God will give to them the kind of faith they need to actually hear his spoken voice, they are probably not willing to give up reading their Bibles. This is a good and appropriate response. God does not want, nor does he expect that his people would give up reading their Bible.

Giving up listening to religious leaders is an absolute threshold for hearing God’s voice. But, it is not necessary or desirable to give up reading the Bible. Even though the Bible is not perfect because so many people have had their hands (i.e. minds and religious biases) in it, it is still the best tool available for learning how to hear God’s spoken voice.

STUDY TIP: See LISTEN FOR GOD’S VOICE WHILE READING.