Interpreting Communion and Scriptures Unworthily

Transubstantiation and 1 Corinthians 11:27

Regarding "whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord,” a Roman Catholic asks, "How can eating something that isn't Jesus's body make us guilty of a crime against Jesus's body?" 

His assumption is that the bread and wine (or grape juice) must become the literal flesh and blood of Christ in order for taking communion unworthily to be a sin against Christ's flesh and blood.

First, a rhetorical question not founded on logical analysis is not an argument, it is merely a whiny protest. Never accept a question as a substitute for logic.

Second (I can't believe I have to explain this!), when you insult a symbol, you insult the thing it represents.

"Mama" is a word that symbolizes a person, and if I insult "Yo mama...," I insult your mother and may receive a bloody nose for it. There's no question that insulting the symbol insults the thing symbolized. Likewise, if you insult the symbols of Christ's body and blood, you insult Christ's body and blood.

The childishly literal person might object that desecrating a symbol does not physically desecrate its antitype. Irrelevant. In the spiritual dimensions that God occupies, the thought is as real as the physical, so presumptuous sacrilege toward a symbol of Christ's body or blood constitutes a real crime against Christ's body or blood.

You will find dozens of nations wherein insulting the symbols of the state, rulers, or dominant religion can earn you the death penalty. How much more, if you desecrate a symbol of Savior God?

You don't have to be a grammar nazi or to impose Catholic superstition upon the words for the verse to make sense. Just let it say what it says. Unworthily eating symbols of Jesus's body or blood is a crime against Jesus's body.

And unworthily interpreting the scriptures is a crime against the Spirit Who inspired them.


Since I first posted this on Facebook, I cannot claim copyright. I will trust anyone who copies it to give credit where credit is due.

Anoint Yourself with Olive Oil

Someone asked, 

What does the Bible say about anointing yourself with olive oil?

after a preacher used Matthew 6:16-18 as the basis of a sermon telling people to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Being anointed was a cultural act that had several meanings in the Bible. Most references to anointing with oil denote a ceremony that gave authority to a prophet, priest, or ruler. Oil symbolized the Spirit of God blessing the person with His presence, so the ceremony symbolized God giving the person gifts such as authority to mediate between men and God (priesthood), the ability to speak with God-breathed words (prophecy), or power, wisdom, skill, or discernment.

Cultures around the Mediterranean Sea practiced anointing with oil. It was part of grooming, similar to using gel to make hair stay in place. Some aromatic chemicals in plants dissolve in oil (and not in water), so oil might be perfumed. Omitting oil from grooming could indicate poverty, grief, or a religious reason for self-deprivation such as fasting.

It was also a health practice similar to applying hand or body lotion to skin and a medicinal practice similar to applying salve to a burn or cut. Here are two such references:

• The Good Samaritan came to a wounded man and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them; and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn and took care of him. (Luke 10:34, NASB) (Luke 10:34, NASB) The wine prevented infection and the oil promoted healing and reduced pain caused by exposure to the air.
  
• Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord… (James 5:14, NASB). The anointing here conveys the medical sense, rather than the ceremonial sense, as is commonly misunderstood — although the treatment is to be done in the name of the Lord and with prayer. Note in the following verse that any supernatural healing effect results from the prayer, not from the anointing.

The grooming and skin-care practices are referred to in several passages.

• You shall have olive trees throughout your territory, but you will not anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives will drop off [the trees without ripening]. (Deuteronomy 28:40, NASB) This was part of a warning that listed several ways Israel would suffer if the nation departed from serving the Lord.
  
• Wash yourself therefore, and anoint yourself and put on your best clothes, and go down to the threshing floor; but do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking. (Ruth 3:3, NASB) The meaning here was like saying, “Put on your makeup to make yourself presentable and attractive.”
  
• In Matthew 6, Jesus talks about doing things out of sincere caring instead of to be seen and praised by others. Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face so that your fasting will not be noticed by men, but by your Father… (verses 16-18).

The Bible nowhere commands anointing oneself in the sense of taking on authority or the power of the Spirit of God. God delegates authority. Seizing authority without God’s having granted it would be an act of rebellion. Similarly, the power, wisdom, or joy of the Spirit is a gift, and it is a sin of presumption to claim such a gift and give it to oneself.

The Bible does command walking in the Spirit and being filled with the Spirit — that is, living in obedience to what God has already commanded in the scriptures. We are to walk in accordance with scriptural principles such as purity, honesty, love, service, and a thirst for more knowledge of, and deeper relationship with, God and each other. But we are to receive such things as gifts, in dependence on God, not to confer them on ourselves as though we had the authority to do so. 

Preaching a message, based on Matthew 6:16–18, about being filled with the Spirit is like telling a child not to run with sharp scissors because the vitamin A in carrots is good for your eyes. The lesson is good, but the reason given has nothing to do with it. A pattern of such poor logic is reason to seek a different church because, eventually, poor logic will lead to lessons that are bad.

Copyright 2018, Richard Wheeler

Subtle Distinctions between Interpreting and Twisting the Bible

Commentary on

3 Subtle Distinctions Between Demons and Fallen Angels

Charisma Magazine

8:00AM EDT 7/25/2016

David Diga Hernandez, "marked by a distinctive presence of the Holy Spirit, miracles, healing and salvation..., a unique and emerging spiritual leader...."

I assume you've read at least the first section of Evangelist Hernandez' article, linked above. Otherwise, my comments won't make much sense.

Evangelist Hernandez' first point reasons that because a demon desires something, he needs it, and because he needs it, he must have a nature that differs from that of a fallen angel who does not need it. (Cough! Cough!) Drug addicts think they need drugs, but does that mean they are not homo sapiens? (Sounds a lot like the left-wing idea that "identifying" as something turns you into that thing.)

Most of the arguments for the first difference rest on the conclusion the author draws from his first scriptural argument, so let's look at that more closely.

First, Genesis 6:4 simply says giants existed; it does not say that the former giants or the latter giants came from the unions of "sons of God" and "daughters of men." That is something the author reads into it. If giants had already come into being without the mixed unions, then mixed unions were not necessary for the giants to continue existing later.

Second, if giants lived earlier and we assume they reproduced, doesn't it make sense that they would live later? So again, it is not necessary for the giants to have come from the mixed unions. Third, the children of mixed unions are called "mighty men which were of old, men of renown." The text does not call them giants. One has to add preconceptions in order to read the text the way the author does.

The author then equates the "sons of God" who "came in unto the daughters of men" with those in Jude 6 -- the relevant parts of which he conveniently does not quote. Jude 6 refers to "angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling...." It takes an enormous leap to equate leaving the "proper dwelling" (probably heaven) with taking on human form and reproducing with women. Regardless of whether the author is right, it would be wrong to base further doctrine on such weak inferences.

What the author claims could have happened (I doubt it), but it takes a lot of leaps and insertions to force the biblical testimony to support it. The plain sense of the association between giants and mixed unions is that they happened at the same time. When we read, "In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah," we do not infer any cause-and-effect relationship between Zechariah's priesthood and Herod's kingship. Neither should we infer such relationships in Genesis 6:4.

I find such sloppy interpretation to be rampant in the church, concerning far more critical topics, especially among the movement that claims superior "leading" and that substitutes such "leading" for reading. Praise God for his mercy and grace when we stray off the hermeneutical trail and ride our hobby horses across the pages of His word.