Our Frightening Capacity for Self-Delusion
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The Word of God often identifies a “hard heart” as the reason for people failing to perceive spiritual truth. This, along with its implications for Bible interpretation, is worth exploring. Since the findings are somewhat similar to what we have already discovered, however, I’ll place it in a separate webpage:
Bible Interpretation: The Heart of the Matter.
For those who wish to move on, I’ll just cite one of its conclusions: how much our eyes are filled with God’s tender compassion for those we are tempted to despise is an indication of how likely we are to see biblical truth through God’s eyes.
If part of us craves assurance that we are not disobeying God, and part of us yearns to do something contrary to God’s will, we will be subjected to strong psychological pressures to interpret Scripture in a manner that assures us that we can go our own way without displeasing God. In an attempt to silence the screams of a nagging conscience, intelligent people concoct cunning and persuasive manipulations of truth to try to pervert Scripture into excusing their sin. So if, for example, you believe you are sentenced to lifelong sexual frustration and deprivation if Scripture says a certain practice is morally wrong, there are ready-made “clever” arguments waiting for us to be impressed by their logic and references to Greek/Hebrew, rather than believe what Scripture actually says.
2 Timothy 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears . . .
Without us realizing what is happening, our yearnings, fears, prejudices and presumptions can cry so loudly within us as to drown out the Spirit’s whispers.
2 Peter 3:16 . . . His [Paul’s] letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. Truly, we need to pray:
Psalms 139:23-24 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me . . .
Our only hope is to be so aware of our potential for self-deception that we don’t trust our own perceptions and thinking processes, but instead put all our faith in God’s grace – his willingness to forgive and reveal truth to us, despite our unworthiness. To trust in our own intellect, our purity of motives, our faithfulness, or our ability to hear from God is like trusting a computer programmed to give the occasional wrong answer in an unpredictable and undetectable manner. By definition, no one knows when they are deluded.
How vital it is that we take seriously this Scripture:
Proverbs 3:5,7 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; . . . Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and shun evil.
And how important it is that this Scripture does not apply to us:
Matthew 15:8 These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
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