And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. He answered them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” So he left them and departed. When the disciples reached the other side, they had forgotten to bring any bread. Jesus said to them, “Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” (Matthew 16:1-6)
A crisis is a ripe time for the crazies to come out. It’s not long after things begin to unravel that you hear about this Christian leader pronouncing God’s Judgment on the wider culture or that church defying the Government recommendation not to have large public gatherings. Or worse, conspiracy theories about the coming Armageddon linked with Bible verses and Scripture references.
In the age of the internet and fake news, no one is immune from hearing about the outlandish theories and predictions of all kinds. Many respond by tuning them out, others feel caught between opinions, still many others are swept up in the craze.
But the question remains, how do we interpret the times properly? How can we truly discern between all of the predictions and conspiracy theories, whether regarding this crisis or any other issue we come across?
The solution to this problem is simple, yet profoundly important. In order to interpret the times properly, we must first interpret Scripture properly. This means two things for us as disciples of Jesus. 1) This is a moment for the Biblically illiterate to become literate and 2) This is a time for sound Bible interpretation.
In order to interpret the times properly, we must first interpret Scripture properly.
Before we get into that, we first need to identify two separate groups within the church and understand how they respond to each other in opposite and equally poor ways. We could call these groups, the Watered-down and the Over-Saturated. For Jesus, these two groups were the Sadducees and the Pharisees. And Jesus warned us in no uncertain terms about the influence of both groups.
The Watered-Down
First, let’s look at the watered-down group. The Sadducees were the elite group of religious leaders in Jesus day. They held positions of power in the priesthood and were in close with King Herod. As a group, they only accepted the writings of the Torah and not the rest of the OT Scriptures. They denied and even laughed about ideas like a coming “resurrection of the dead” and thought such ideas were fanciful nonsense. Jesus said that these guys did not understand “the Scriptures nor the power of God” (Mk 12:24) and told them that they also did not know how to interpret the times.
In our church culture today, many evangelicals are well aware of the watered-down group. These are the people in the church who don’t take Scripture very seriously and water it down in many areas. In a crisis, this group is not likely to win a lot of people to the Gospel because they are not very concerned that there is anything particularly spiritual going on. This group is not looking forward to God’s kingdom to come but is trying it’s best to enjoy the kingdom right now.
Jesus would warn us not to fall into the watered-down trap. He would remind us to be watchful (Matt 25:13) and to see this crisis as an opportunity for repentance and preparation and to continue to serve others with hope of his future resurrection and kingdom (1 Cor 15:58).
The Over-Saturated
Now, let’s look at the Over-saturated group. This is the group that Jesus had the most conflicts with, and it is often the group that evangelicals are far less aware of. The Pharisees were extremely serious about obeying God’s law. So much so, that they stacked more laws on top of it to guarantee that they wouldn’t’ break God’s law. They were highly regarded by the common people and they had the reputation of being holy and committed to God’s word. But ironically, for all of their appearances, Jesus regularly condemned them and asked them if they had read the Bible (Matt 12:3, 5; 19:4). Which is quite funny!
Jesus actually went further than this and accused them of misunderstanding the whole point of the Scriptures (John 5:39) and told them that the reason was because they still belonged to their Father, the Devil (John 8:44). His entire Sermon on the Mount is basically a correction of the ways that the Pharisees interpreted Scripture and taught it to others. It is not surprising then that Jesus says that they misinterpreted the times.
In our church culture today, this group is still alive and well. Yet, in the evangelical world, we are often far less concerned with this group. And this is sad. But part of the reason is that this group is even more deceptive to Christians than the other group is. The watered-down Sadducees may deceive the masses, but many evangelicals are privy to them. However, they are often unaware of the over-saturated group because this group pretends to value God’s word, even while it mishandles and misinterprets Scripture in order to oppress God’s people.
In a crisis, this group is the most likely to go on the crazy predictions route, using all kinds of Bible verses to justify their position. They are less likely to respond with love for neighbour and more likely to warn us about God’s judgment on a sinful culture (conveniently forgetting that most judgment passages in the Bible are directed toward Israel). Jesus would again warn us to beware of this group. He would tell us to watch out for their hypocrisy, their burdensome legalism, their greed, their neglect of love, compassion and justice and their glossy outward appearance (Matthew 23:1-36). Paul would remind us of our freedom in Christ (Gal 5:1) and warn us not to fall prey to their “plausible arguments” (Col 2:4). Since this group misinterprets the Scriptures, they have no hope of making sound predictions about the current times.
The Third Option
I hope it has become clear that there are two pitfalls that Jesus is warning us against. But what exactly is the third option? How exactly are we to interpret Scripture properly so that we can understand our times and this current moment?
While we don’t have time to unpack this fully, the most important thing that we need to understand – and what will correct most poor interpretations of the Bible – is to understand what exactly the Bible is. We misinterpret Scripture and our times because we think the Bible is primarily a rule book, or a codebook dropped from heaven, or a collection of fairy-tales, mythical stories, or random prophecies.
But we must understand that the Bible is primarily a divine and human book that is revealing to us a story. And that story is all about Jesus and what he has done, is doing and will do for those who trust him. It is not a book that God dropped out of heaven in the King James Version so that America could be great again. It is not a book warning us about the dangers of Capitalism or Communism. The Scriptures are an ancient collection of God’s inspired writings that reveal the story of God’s salvation for humanity through Jesus.
We must understand that the Bible is primarily a divine and human book that is revealing to us a story. And that story is all about Jesus
We know this because Jesus told us this.
On the day of his resurrection, Jesus appeared to two of his disciples on the Road to Emmaus and he walked with them. At first, the disciples did not recognize him. But Jesus walked with them and “interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” (Luke 24:27). He was telling his disciples that the Scriptures were about him. Directly after this, Jesus appeared to the rest of the disciples in a room and showed them his nail-scarred hands and ate fish with them. Then “he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures” (Lk 24:45) and told them the OT Scriptures were “about me” (Lk 24:44). Jesus said something similar to the Pharisees (John 5:39) when correcting them about how they had missed the point.
If we don’t understand this, then we will fundamentally misunderstand the Bible and we will also misunderstand our times as well. This does not mean that Scripture doesn’t give us wisdom about a great many other things, but all of those things must be centred around Christ.
Our Current Crisis
So, when you hear someone making a prediction about this current crisis or any other crisis, and it doesn’t lead us to know and love Jesus better, don’t buy it. Or if you merely are tethering yourself to some other source of truth and information but neglecting to read deeply of God’s word and seeking to understand how God sees the world, then repent.
When you hear someone making a prediction about this current crisis or any other crisis, and it doesn’t lead us to know and love Jesus better, don’t buy it.
This is not a time for Christians to endlessly search YouTube for Bible codes and prophecies. This not a time for conspiracy theories. This is a time for Christians to rediscover their Bibles with a longing to know and love Christ and to love neighbour better (Mk 12:33) since Jesus taught us that his whole law can be summed up in this way.
This is a time for sound Bible interpretation!