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Beware of Picking and Choosing

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“Your Words were found, and I did eat them; and Your Word was unto me the joy  
and rejoicing of my heart: for I am called by Your name, O Lord God of Hosts.”
(Jeremiah 15:16 KJV)

Beware of picking and choosing in God’s word. It is a very dangerous symptom when there is any portion of Scripture that we are afraid to read. If there is one single chapter in the Book that I do not like, it must be because I feel it accuses and condemns me, and my duty ought to be to face that chapter at once and answer its accusation, and endeavor as far as possible to purify myself by God’s help from that which the passage of Scripture condemns. Brethren, read that passage most which stings you most.

(excerpted from a sermon by Charles H. Spurgeon on Jeremiah 15:16, titled “The Secret Food and the Public Name”)

[Click here to read and study Jeremiah 15 at Blue Letter Bible.]

Comments

  1. Amen,
    Many Christians today suffer from this, and misrepresent God, and put His great name in vain. We must be able to face our sins, confess them and know we are forgiven as 1John1:9 tells us. This is aso a point nonbelievers try to use is the picky choosy parts of scripture and they only trip up and reveal their own guilt. God is the only God of forgiveness and grace, no other can say it. We must take God’s word in full as spoken in 2Timothy 3:16.
    Keep the faith, run the race, and love the Lord Jesus
    J III

  2. My dad, a preacher, left a church 2 years ago because they decided they were a “new testament” church. Apparentley they got offened by something from the Bible studies he held or the messages he preached from the old testament. When we study God’s word we do it like he told us to in
    Isaiah 28:9-10 Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? [them that are] weaned from the milk, [and] drawn from the breasts.
    For precept [must be] upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, [and] there a little:
    he preaches his sermons as God gives them to him harsh or not. Well they didnt want to hear it so it was either preach what they told him to or leave…so we left.
    They’ll regret the rejection of His word in the very near future and so will anyone else who rejects truth. Jesus said He is the way the THRUTH and the life and that anyone who denies Him, he will deny before the Father in heaven.

  3. The holy word of God is not to be used for one’s personal gain, but the hope that it brings to believers and the salvation it offers to non-believers. From start to finish, whether the old testament or new testament, is God-breathed for which each of us is to nourish ourselves spiritually, and share what we learn with those who do not know or understand the wisdom & unfailing love of Christ Jesus. Many people, believers, want to hear only the good stuff and not feel convicted by the holy spirit. This is stunting the spiritual growth of the church, as we are the church and what we need to grow must come before our “feelings”. A wise preacher from our church said the other day that moving from an “ownership mentality” to a “stewardship mentality” changes everything! It makes life less complicated. I think a lot of good people are misled into believing that what they have belongs to them, and if you preach the truth of what is really written in the holy scriptures, then you are exposing this “ownership mentality” and they only want to hear feel good sermons instead of facing facts. It is a growing concern in many churches that the preachers only preach what they think will bring in more people, only they are not giving them the truth to help them grow spiritually, but are instead merely ‘tickling their ears’. Sad but true.

  4. There is a danger in reading the Bible. I say that because you have to do more than just read. You have to dig in and study. It is disturbing to me to see someone take one verse and use it to make a point and they use that one verse completely out of context with the rest of the passage around it. You have to look at the verses before and after and take them in their proper context.

    • And the studying can take us the rest of our lives to fully understand what we unearth! I recently was in a Bible-in-Context seminar in which the geography and topography of Israel and each place where a person said each phrase was significant. It’s when we start to see the multi-dimensionality of Scripture that we start to truly understand how unsearchable are His words and ways. The entire Word is truly living and active!

  5. Thank you for this blog post and the most recent ones about the nature of God. They have been really inspiring and encouraging and helping me to remember the fundamentals of the faith.

    This blog post about not picking and choosing God’s Word is very relevant. Whenever I get that feeling to avoid certain Scriptures, I make it a point to read them to expose my heart to the truth of the word of God. There is probably unconfessed sin or guilt in my life and I want to get that out the way so I can get on with God.

    The Bible in Hebrews 4:12 is true when it says:

    For the word of God [is] quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and [is] a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

    When we pick and choose what to listen to, we are basically saying that certain parts delve too deeply into our hearts and expose things we’d rather not deal with. That’s not a good way to get along with God at all.

  6. “If there is one single chapter in the Book that I do not like, it must be because I feel it accuses and condemns me…”

    I know this feeling. Reading some portions of the later letters, from Hebrews onward can be troubling. I have heard the book of James described not as a letter to condemn a lack of works, or the occasions of sin, but a letter to simply encourage a greater effort to improve ones moral life. Nonetheless it’s language seems (is?) severe. It seems to me that without losing any sense of God’s hatred of sin we must really believe that His entire plan and powerful desire is to bless us, deliver, heal, and save us to the uttermost.

  7. I found this on the link “Know God” and I think this is a classic case of picking and choosing…

    You can receive Jesus Christ right now by faith. “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart, one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made to salvation” (Romans 10:9-10).

    If you now believe on God and place your faith in His Son, congratulations — and welcome to His family. We, all being His children, share in a heavenly inheritance! We are heirs to heaven and are promised the eternal pleasure of glorifying God.

    When you read the Bible what makes you think that this is how you are saved. Why are millions of people choosing to choose one scripture over the other? Why is there poor exegesis? If you read Acts you will never find a convertion that someone believes or says a prayer to be saved. It is ALWAYS Faith Repentance and Baptism!!

    Let us not choose the easy way of salvation..rather the complete way.