"Common Sense: A New Approach to Understanding Scripture" by David Bercot, Chapter 1, The Mad Philosopher. As the morning sun rose over the cobblestone streets of ancient Athens, a strange figure climbed out of a giant water urn where he had spent the night. Clothed in a dirty ragged gown, he tramped through the narrow, crooked streets of the city. As he walked, his white hair and flowing white beard reflected the morning rays of the sun.
Although it was broad daylight, he carried a lighted lantern as he doggedly plodded through the streets, jostling his way through the milling crowds. Making his way to the noisy, crowded marketplace, he approached one man after another, holding his lantern up to their faces and scrutinizing every line of their countenances. Amid the clatter of the horses and the shouts of vendors hawking their wares, onlookers stared curiously at this crazed eccentric.
"What are you doing, you madman?" someone shouted sarcastically from the throngs. "My name is Diogenes," he replied testily, "and I'm searching for an honest man." If Diogenes carried his lantern into today's churches, would he find an honest man or woman? The reason I ask is that this is primarily a book about honesty. By the term "honesty," I'm not referring to restraint from stealing or lying.
Rather, I'm speaking of intellectual and spiritual honesty—that is, the willingness to be totally objective in the pursuit of God's truth. Intellectually honest Christians have the desire and the ability to see all sides of a spiritual or theological issue. They are far more concerned about finding out what is true than they are about defending their personal positions or the positions of their denomination or church. Actually, spiritual and intellectual honesty should come naturally to all Christians.
Scripture tells us that God is "a God of truth" (Psalm 31:5). A person who is truly reborn of God intensely desires to imitate his Father. As Jesus stated, "Those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth" (John 4:24). So if your burning desire is not for truth, I'm afraid you have wasted your money in purchasing this book. If you desire simply to find support for your personal or denominational interpretations of Scripture, then there is no point in reading any further.
Your desire will be much better satisfied by reading only the literature published by your church or denomination. However, if your heart aches for truth—if your fervent yearning is to worship God in spirit and truth—then I ask that you prayerfully and honestly weigh what I have to say. But let me say at the outset that this is not a book about David Bercot's interpretation of Scripture. I'm not saying that if you are interested in truth, then you must follow my personal interpretation of Scripture.
In fact, the message of this book is just the opposite. I'm saying that what David Bercot thinks Scripture means is totally irrelevant. I'm in no better position to accurately understand Scripture than you are. If the choice is between your interpretation and mine, you might as well keep your own interpretation. First subheading: Why this book is needed. So what am I saying? I'm saying, quite frankly, that the approaches to Scripture that we Bible-believing Christians have taken do not work.
Not one of them has provided a realistic means for all Bible-believing Christians to become one body again. Despite all the systems of biblical interpretation that have been promoted since the Reformation, each century has found the body of Christ further and further fragmented. Today, professing Christians are divided into over 22,000 different denominations and sects, with an average of 5 new ones organized every week. That 22,000 was written—that was in 1992.
And generally speaking, none of these denominations and sects are answerable to any of the other groups. Furthermore, nearly all of these denominations have been established since the Reformation. If you think that Christ doesn't object to his body being fragmented into thousands of schisms, think again. The primary thing on his mind before he was arrested was the unity of the church.
He prayed: "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word, that they all may be one, as you, Father, are in me, and I in you; that they also may be one in us" (John 17:20-21). Yet we Protestants think nothing of tearing off another chunk of flesh from Christ's body. We don't recognize factionalism for being the perilous sin that it is.
Paul lists it as one of the "deeds of the flesh," of which I forewarn you, just as I forewarn you that those who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God (Galatians 5:19-21). He told Titus: "Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition, knowing that such a person is warped and sinning, being self-condemned" (Titus 3:10-11). Perhaps that Scripture condemns all of us Bible-believing Christians today. We are divisive men and women.
We are warped and sinning, and we and our predecessors have made a mess out of the body of Christ. Throughout this book, I will be using the term "Protestant" rather loosely to include all professing Christians who do not belong either to the Roman Catholic Church or to one of the Orthodox Eastern churches. In other words, when I use the term, I'm including mainline Protestants, evangelicals, charismatics, Anabaptists, and other non-Catholics.
I realize that many of these groups don't consider themselves to be Protestants. I don't particularly consider myself to be one either, but this book will read a lot more smoothly if you will allow me to use the term "Protestant" in such a loose, collective sense rather than individually naming all of the non-Catholic groups each time I address them. And to one degree or another, nearly all of us Protestants have done our part to splinter the body of Christ even further.
Not only are we not repentant over our sectarian spirit, we even want to make God an accomplice in our sin. How often I have heard evangelical Christians say, "It's important to go to the church where God wants you." In other words, God wants John Doe to go to one certain church, Mary Jones to go to another, and Bob Smith to go to still another. We delude ourselves into thinking that Christ "wants" a divided body, despite his specific prayer to the contrary.
Despite its shortcomings, the Roman Catholic Church has at least been able to remain a single body. In contrast, from the very beginning the Reformers were divided against each other. The passage of time has only made those divisions worse. Even false religions have a better track record than do Bible-believing Christians. Islam is far older than the churches that have come out of the Reformation, yet it is divided into relatively few groups.
And even those groups will normally worship together at the same mosque when in a foreign country. Though it's not normal for a religious group to fragment into 22,000 sects in a period of less than 500 years. It is something bizarre, and when Christians do it, it is something quite sinful. "But what can I do about it?" you may ask. "It's not my fault that there are so many denominations and divisions." And in a sense, that is true. Most of us are not the ones who started the various denominations and sects.
Yet most of us share the same mentality and spirit of those founders. And if we aren't working toward a solution, then we are part of the problem. Make no mistake about it: there is a solution to the problem of division. Bible-believing Christians who truly love God can all be one. And I'm not talking about ecumenical unity based on compromising foundational Christian truths and commandments.
Rather, the message of this book is that, to a large degree, our divisions are a result of our illogical approaches to Scripture. So the solution is a new approach to Scripture. By "new," I'm not referring to some strange or esoteric system of Bible interpretation. I'm speaking of just the opposite. This "new" approach is so obvious and elementary that it's simply common sense.