1 Corinthians 4:6 (ESV)
[6] I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your
benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond
what is written, that none
of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another.
The
Corinthians, in their assessment of church leaders, were not to go beyond that
which Paul, as an apostle of Jesus Christ, had written. Neither are we to
exceed that which the scriptures dictate. We have been taught to apply the
Bible to our lives. We do that, but that often results in two errors. First, we
read the Bible for application first. By doing that we fail to pay attention to
context and purpose. Whenever we read the Word of God we must first pay attention
to what it actually says, to the context in which it is written, and to the
original audience and purpose. Good Bible application must build on good Bible
observation, interpretation, and correlation. Application never stands alone.
If we do not observe well, asking what the text actually says; if we do not
interpret well, asking what the text means; if we do not correlate well, asking
how the text relates to the rest of Scripture, and to me and my world, then we
will not apply well. The first error we make when we are primarily focused on
application is that we fail to pay attention to what the text is actually
saying.
The
second error we make is that once we have settled on an application, we assume
the application is what the text says. Application is just that. It is
application. The meaning of the text never changes, but the application may be
different for each individual. We cannot equate our application with the text
itself. In doing so we have done exactly what Paul warned us not to do. He warned
us “not to go beyond what is written” (1 Cor 4:6). Once we equate our
application with the text we then judge others by our application. We have gone
beyond what is written. The Spirit of God and the uniqueness of our spiritual
gifting come into play when determining a proper application of Scripture to
our lives. We need to leave room for the possibility that the Spirit may direct
another believer to apply the text in a way different from us.
We
are called to worship, but worship looks different in different cultures and
even with different personalities. When we equate our preferred style of
worship with biblical truth we have gone beyond what is written. We are called
to make disciples, but there are many ways to go about that. When we take our
preferred approach to evangelism and assume that all truly committed believers
will evangelize just like us, we have gone beyond what is written. We are
called to prayer and meditation on the Word daily. When we assume that means
that people need to read a text from the Bible the first thing in the morning,
and then spend a certain amount of time in prayer, we have gone beyond what is
written. The idea of a “Quiet Time” is an application, not a clear textual teaching.
To question a person’s commitment to God based on whether they have a “Quiet
Time” with God the same way we do is to go beyond the Word.
A
focus primarily on application without good observation, interpretation, and
correlation of Scripture leads to error and division. As believers we need to
make sure that we are not going beyond what is written. We need to leave room
for the uniqueness of each individual within the Body. We need to judge less,
and pay more attention to what is written. We need to learn “not to go beyond
what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against
another” (1 Cor 4:6).
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