No, I’m not talking about physical shape, though I have much to do to improve in that area. :) In fact, I was just bemoaning how hard it is to lose the ten pounds that keep clinging to me no matter what I do! But that’s another topic.

I’ve been thinking a lot about God’s Word lately. I did some research yesterday on the gender-inclusive or gender-neutral Bibles out there. In the process of this study, I was reminded anew of something that we humans are easily persuaded to do, and that is–

–Instead of shaping our lives to the teachings of Scripture, we tend to shape the Scripture to fit the experience of our lives.

That’s not a good idea, folks. When God commands us to obey His Word, He means it.

But too often men and women either twist the Word of God to mean something it was never intended to mean, or they assume that it doesn’t mean what it says, or they decide that it doesn’t apply to them – that the author meant it for someone else in a different time, in a different culture.

Some of the new gender-neutral translations or paraphrases change whole passages of Scripture so that in some cases what is clearly called sin in the original versions is glossed over or changed entirely to mean something else. And when pastors start preaching from these versions, whole congregations are going to think that God’s Word actually said something that it didn’t. Scary thought.

What happens a lot with us as human beings is that we tend to place far too much importance on our life experiences.

I have a neighbor who teaches a false doctrine – uses the Bible but denys the basic doctrines of salvation evident within its pages. They teach a works-based salvation and deny the Trinity.

One day I spoke with this woman about her faith, and the thing that stood out to me most was that she continually used the experience of people she knew to support her beliefs. She tried to convince me to agree with her by saying, “If you had only seen these things happen, you would be convinced that they are true.”

That is a clear example of people twisting Scripture to fit their life experience, rather than allowing Scripture to change their life.

If God’s Word is true in the original languages and the accurate translations taken from those original texts, and if we believe the it is truly God-breathed (inspired) and inerrant (without error), then we need to obey its message.

It’s easy to give in to something we want to do and then ignore or shape Scripture to fit that desire. Verses, taken out of context, can be used to justify anything – even self-maiming or murder. But what kind of spiritual shape will we be in if we turn the Scripture to our liking? Instead, we must let the Scripture shape our thinking, not the other way around.

Our experiences alone cannot be trusted.