Yeah, But What Does the Bible Actually Say?

Whether you watched it or not, one of the coolest aspects of the Tucker Carlson/Ted Cruz debate was that later that evening, social media was flooded with people digging into their Bibles who clearly hadn’t done so in ages.

Regardless of your take on the issue they discussed, if you’re a Christ follower that’s big news. It points to a monumental shift in our national discourse. Historically we’ve shied away from even discussing the Bible at the highest levels of media, but now it’s front and center. And what the Scriptures actually say about a hot button issue is a question we habitually gloss over, if we even consider it in the first place. People are no longer satisfied with surface slogans and drive-by scripture; they want truth, God’s truth, unfiltered and unleashed.

Our Great Debates

I used to work with a guy who disagreed with me on most things political. He went to a black Baptist church and referred to himself as a Jesus Liberal. Back then, I went to a large, mostly white, non-denominational church and called myself a Christian Conservative.

Over the years I supported Bush, McCain, FoxNews, and killing terrorists at will. He supported Obama, CNN, and universal healthcare. But we both love Jesus (and we were both Kansas City Chiefs fans way before it was cool), so despite our politics we were still pretty good friends.

We’d get into almost weekly discussions on a host of topics, things that HR would have burst a coronary had they known we were discussing while on the job—religious doctrine, abortion, politics, war, history...you name it. These weren’t flippant snipes, they were substantive discussions pieced together over several hours and sometimes days.

I once cornered him into thoughtful reflection on how he could support a political party that espoused abortion on demand. He admitted he was completely against abortion and struggled with that.

Likewise, he once cornered me on how I could support a party that cheered torturing prisoners of war. I wrestled with the lame, neocon excuses for that over many years before finally admitting it was an evil I should have opposed at the time.

We disagreed about a lot (police tactics, welfare, foreign entanglements, subsidies...) but the thing we always came back to—and this is the key ingredient—is that since we both acknowledged Jesus as our Savior and King, we were constantly forcing one another into the scriptures to formulate our worldviews.

That recognition causes (or should cause) all Jesus’ people to stop and check themselves frequently about every hill they’ve placed doctrinal flags on:

What does Jesus say about this?
What do the scriptures (all of the scriptures) say about that?
Am I in alignment with His Spirit on this topic?
Am I making agreements with the enemy out of tradition, bad theology, ignorance, or lack of discernment?

Had I honestly asked those questions in the early 2000’s instead of merely gobbling the tripe dumped into the cultural trough, I might have been less gung ho about the stuff the Conservative Christian Intelligentsia told me I had to support.

I might have been more discerning about a host of topics, from war to nutrition to the environment. It likely would have changed how I viewed history, and may have informed how I instructed my kids on all of it. I might have saved myself years of intellectual gymnastics in trying to square my political support for things Jesus is pretty clearly against, things like:

Murder is murder, regardless of who’s doing it or why.

Lying is a sin, even if it’s for temporary political expediency; those who do it are not to be trusted, nor respected.

Lives matter, all of ‘em, regardless of the country they reside in.

Don’t be an ass. And especially don’t be an ass if you proclaim Jesus as your Lord.

Teach humbly, inform gently, and listen attentively, because you might be wrong some of the time.

Out of Context

One of the most profound phrases I learned as a new Christian was this: Any text out of context is pretext.

Basically, that means picking random texts out of the Bible and wrapping a doctrine out of it is foolish. That text is merely one piece of a much larger instruction manual; the full message of Scripture must be taken into account. If we’re serious about being in alignment with the Holy Spirit and seek to act in adherence to what He teaches, we can’t settle for for cultural Christianity. We need to become lifelong students of the Word.

When Tucker Carlson pressed Ted Cruz on his out-of-context assertions, it was one of the first times millions of culturally Christian Americans—and by that I mean the kind who attend church a few times a year, or who consume simplistic, recycled sermons—had considered that topic in light of scripture in its totality.

I read dozens of posts on X and elsewhere quoting Bible verses and so many pleas of “don’t take my word for it,” encouraging everyone to take deep dives into the Word.

That. Is. Awesome.

But Christ followers need to do that continually, on every issue, especially the issues where being wrong means subjugation or death for millions of people. That means reading our Bibles daily, or at least several times a week.

It also means studying it, and discussing what it says with others, even (especially) those who hold differing points of view. The worst thing we can do is conceal ourselves within comfortable echo chambers that merely reinforce false assertions. That might even put us at odds with our pastors or elders — but if they’re wrong, it’s better to find out sooner than later. Go to the scriptures together and ask the Holy Spirit to guide you both.

Engaging those who oppose you will either sharpen and reinforce your position, or expose it as false. I’ve been on both sides of that equation and have always been grateful that I took the time to examine it. And yeah, sometimes I had to eat crow and repent. It happens. Reflection, repentance, and repositioning ought to be a lot more common than it is, especially among Jesus’ people.

Gabbing With Weirdos

Of course, engaging contrarians becomes difficult when you’re dealing with lost people who do and say lost people things; there are good reasons to utilize the block button on social media from time to time. But most people we encounter aren’t overt racists, sexists, or jihadists. Most people are just normal folks who’ve been taught differently.

Unless our teaching has been grounded in proper application of all of the scriptures, bathed in prayer and the Holy Spirit’s discernment, it may be wrong. Perhaps wildly, dangerously wrong. And dangerously faulty worldviews are abundant — even within the church, as millions of churches that closed their doors at the behest of secular authorities proved not too long ago.

Some pastors, media influencers, and even historians continue to promote faulty justifications for misguided wars, celebrate death or persecution depending on who it’s being foisted upon, or teach nonsense unsupported by the totality of scripture. The enemy wants to fool us, and he’s adroit at using our own Bibles and those who don’t fully understand them to do so.

But the scriptures are not confusing when we ask the Holy Spirit to guide our understanding of them. Our conversations with others need not be testy if we agree from the outset to admit we might be wrong about an issue, and remain civil while jointly staking out our positions. We need to learn how to learn again, and it begins by laying everything at the feet of the only authority that matters: Jesus Christ.

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