This precious promise should stir a lot within us as Christians: relief, joy, confidence, love. But something it also stirs for some people is what they perceive as an oxymoron -- "How can a God of Peace bruise?"

It's just my personal thought, but I think that everyone -- even the "atheists" that would never admit it to anyone -- has their own thoughts about what God is like:

*Some look at Him like He's a "mean kid sitting on an anthill with a magnifying glass", looking for the next ant to scurry out of the mound so he can turn that ant into a crispy critter.
*Some look at Him like He's a "look-the-other-way" Grandpa, turning a blind eye to the bad things the grandkids do and only looking to give them treats.
*Some look at Him like He's a stern disciplinarian, like a professor who never cuts you a break but always requires absolute perfection with no room for "grace" or "mercy".
*And some look at Him like He's the original Hippie, just "peace and love and happiness, man."

As a result of how people think of God, some people have trouble with the thought that God would bruise, harm, chastise or judge in any way -- an ironic thought since the Hebrew word Elohim which we in English translate as 'God' literally means 'judge'.

This is the point at which all those who call themselves "Bible students", "disciples", or even just "Christians" become divided into two distinct camps, not based upon theology or doctrine or denominational lines but rather based on what is called hermeneutics (hur-meh-noo-tiks).

Hermeneutics is a fancy word basically meaning "how to study the Bible". Some people study the Bible with an eisegetical (from eisegesis [ice-a-jee-sis]) approach -- boiled down, eisegesis is basically taking what you already "know" and interpreting what you read in the Bible through that lens. Other people study the Bible with an exegetical (from exegesis [ex-a-jee-sis]) approach -- basically letting the Bible do the interpretation instead of preconceived ideas. You might also hear people refer to it this way: eisegesis is reading your thoughts into the text, while exegesis is reading the text into your thoughts.

Now that we've defined the two approaches, the obvious dangers of eisegesis are pretty easy to see, yet this is -- for lack of better words -- our natural "default setting" when our brains try and process the Bible. It takes discipline to stand back and let the Bible speak for itself, and we live in a day and age where sadly many "Bible teachers" and even more "Bible students" just don't have the desire to let the Bible speak for itself; it's far easier to read into the Scriptures what you already believe (whether what you already believe is true or not) and sort of let your brain smash it all together, and the things that don't mix together usually are freely given up.

It's no surprise then to note that people with an eisegetical approach to Bible study are also many times the people who, when faced with "problem passages", have little problem just dismissing it from their mind, or worse, buy into what some conspiracy theorist says about "well that passage was just added later by someone else" or "the Bible's been re-translated so many times we don't know what that really means".

All that to get around to this: what is written by Paul as an encouraging and loving reminder of who has already won the war is taken by some to be a "problem passage" simply because they're standing on their own incorrect preconceived idea of God being this "peaceful hippie", and that just doesn't jive with the thought that God will bruise anything -- even satan.

If instead they would simply let the Bible interpret the Bible -- since the Holy Spirit authored it, the Bible's best suited for the interpretive job anyway -- they would walk away from the passage receiving what was intended to be given: encouragement and hope.

Think about all the issues that people within the Body fight about: Calvinism vs. Arminianism (aka "once saved always saved" vs. "lose your salvation"); today's application of the "Gifts of the Spirit"; water baptism necessary for salvation; the Baptism of the Spirit; consumption of alcohol; even things like women wearing pants and which translation of Scripture to read...what do they all have in common? Most of the time, people argue one side or the other of these issues (and dozens more) based more upon their own personal preconceived beleifs rather than what the Bible -- the whole Bible, mind you -- says about the topic.

It's safe to say that each of us, at some point or another, is going to have Scripture smack us square in the forehead with something that goes against what we previously thought or believed about something. What those individual things are will be different based on a myriad of variables including personal background, racial or cultural upbringing, denominational affiliation, etc., but the fact remains that everyone is gonna get smacked by Scripture on something -- no one comes to Scripture with everything (or even most everything) already figured out.

What does that mean? It means we should all come to Scripture humbly, taking it for what it is saying and allowing it to transform us instead of us trying to transform it. And if we're really the Christians, the disciples, the Bible students we say we are, we should want the Holy Spirit to be our instructor, because where He teaches and His students are learning, there is unity in the Body, and we could definitely use a dose of unity in the Body these days.

In His service, and yours,
jason