When Study Becomes Negotiation

There is a difference between studying Scripture because we want to understand what Yahweh has said and continuing to study because we are hoping to find a way around what we have already understood.

The difficult part is recognizing when we have crossed that line.

Recently, I wrote an article called What It Means to Be a Berean. In that article, I went much deeper into Acts 17 and our responsibility to examine what we are taught against Scripture. The Bereans received the word with readiness of mind, but they still searched the Scriptures daily “whether those things were so.”

They were checking Paul.

That matters to me because if the Bereans were commended for examining what Paul taught, then surely we should not hand our responsibility for knowing truth over to a pastor, teacher, denomination, social media personality, or anyone else simply because we trust them.

If you have not read What It Means to Be a Berean, I encourage you to read it because I am not going to repeat that entire teaching here. There is another side of being a Berean that I want to examine now.

It is one thing to test what someone else teaches me.

Am I equally willing to test what I already want to believe?

That question became important as I continued through the study we have been following in this series. We began with Saul in Article 1, When Disobedience Begins Calling Itself Obedience, and since then we have followed the text through circumstances, fear, pride, authority, and correction. Again and again, the underlying issue has returned to what happens when another voice begins competing with what Yahweh has said.

But that competing voice does not always belong to another person.

It can be mine.

I believe strongly in studying Scripture for ourselves. I believe we should examine context, compare passages, look carefully at words, and be willing to question teachings we have accepted simply because someone we trusted taught them to us. I have had beliefs challenged because I finally stopped repeating what I had heard and went back to Scripture to examine it for myself.

I never want to lose that.

Yet there is something else I do not want to ignore. The ability to question what other people teach does not automatically mean I am approaching Scripture without bias myself.

I can open the Bible already wanting a particular answer.

That is where the question becomes personal:

Am I searching because I want truth, or am I searching because I want permission?

There have been times when I have approached Scripture because I genuinely did not know whether something I believed was correct. That is healthy. None of us understands everything perfectly, and no matter how long we have studied, we remain capable of being wrong.

There are difficult passages. Translation matters. Historical context matters. Hebrew and Greek can matter. Understanding who was speaking, who was being addressed, and what was happening around a passage can completely change how we understand it.

Those are legitimate reasons to keep digging.

But there is another way of searching that can look almost identical from the outside.

We encounter a passage that challenges something we want, believe, practice, or have already decided to do. Instead of allowing the passage to examine us, we immediately begin looking for another explanation.

Maybe another translation words it differently. Perhaps the Hebrew or Greek allows another meaning. We may wonder whether the command applied only to the original audience or whether another teacher has interpreted the passage differently.

Every one of those questions can belong in legitimate Bible study.

The problem is not that we asked them.

The problem begins when we have already decided what answer we are willing to accept.

At that point, study can quietly become negotiation.

Instead of asking, “What does this mean?” we begin searching for some legitimate way for it to mean something other than what we do not want it to mean.

That distinction has made me examine my own approach to Scripture because I love studying. I enjoy digging into words, following connections between passages, looking at context, and asking questions. Those practices have helped me recognize teachings I once accepted without examining closely enough.

But loving Bible study does not make me immune to using Bible study incorrectly.

Knowledge can become another place for the flesh to hide.

Second Timothy 4:3–4 warns:

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”

For a long time, I mainly thought about that passage in terms of false teachers. Certainly there is a warning there concerning people willing to teach what others want to hear, but look again at what Paul says about the listeners.

They “heap to themselves teachers.”

There is something they want to hear.

That means the problem is not limited to the existence of teachers willing to distort truth. There are also listeners willing to keep searching until they find someone who tells them what they already wanted to believe.

We have more access to biblical teaching today than probably any generation before us. Within minutes, we can find sermons, articles, podcasts, commentaries, videos, word studies, social media clips, and teachers from all over the world.

That access can be an incredible blessing.

It can also make it incredibly easy to shop for agreement.

If ten teachers tell me something I do not want to hear, I can keep searching until I find number eleven who agrees with me. Then I can call that person’s interpretation confirmation without ever stopping to ask why I needed so badly to find someone who said it.

That is where being a Berean has to reach deeper than checking other people.

I have to be willing to check myself.

The Bereans were searching to determine whether what they heard was true. That is very different from searching until they found support for what they had already decided must be true.

Truth has to remain the goal.

That does not mean the majority interpretation is automatically correct. Church history should make us cautious about assuming that something becomes biblical because enough Christians repeat it. There are teachings that have been handed down for generations and still deserve to be examined carefully against Scripture.

But disagreeing with the majority does not automatically make someone more discerning either.

Truth does not become true because everyone believes it, and it does not become deeper because almost nobody does.

The question remains: What does Scripture actually say?

That requires humility in both directions.

I need to be willing to question what I have been taught, while remaining equally willing to question what I have taught myself.

This connects directly with Article 4, What Correction Reveals About the Heart. There we looked at Uzziah receiving true correction, Job receiving false accusations, and the responsibility to test what is said rather than automatically accepting or rejecting it.

Scripture itself corrects us too.

Hebrews 4:12 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.”

I think we can become so accustomed to thinking about ourselves as students of Scripture that we forget what that verse reveals.

While I am examining the Word, the Word is examining me.

It reaches beyond the question I am asking and into the reason I am asking it. It can expose why I need a particular verse to mean something different, what obedience may cost me if my understanding is correct, and whether there is something I am trying to protect from surrender.

That is much more uncomfortable than doing a word study.

I can spend hours researching what a Greek or Hebrew word means and still avoid asking why I desperately need it to mean something other than what is sitting in front of me.

There comes a point where I have to allow Scripture to search the person doing the studying.

James 1:22 says:

“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”

Those final words matter: “deceiving your own selves.”

Self-deception is possible even while hearing the Word.

James continues by comparing the person who hears the Word without doing it to someone looking at his face in a mirror and then walking away, forgetting what he saw.

I cannot think of a better picture for what can happen when study becomes negotiation.

The Word shows us something.

We see it.

But instead of responding to what has been revealed, we begin trying to change the reflection.

There are things Yahweh has shown me in Scripture that I did not particularly enjoy discovering.

I have had beliefs challenged. I have realized I was repeating things because I had heard Christians say them rather than because I had actually studied them. There have been passages that forced me to reconsider what I thought I understood.

That is part of why being a Berean matters so much to me.

But I cannot use the Bereans as justification for endless questioning when the real problem is that I do not like the answer I found.

There has to be a point where study produces submission.

That brings me back to Saul.

In Article 1, we looked at Saul standing before Samuel claiming, “I have performed the commandment of the LORD,” while the evidence of his disobedience could literally be heard around him.

Saul had an explanation.

The animals had been spared for sacrifice. The people had been involved. His reasoning contained enough religious language to make what happened sound understandable.

Samuel kept bringing him back to what Yahweh had said.

That same question has to remain underneath our study.

What has Yahweh actually said?

Not what do I wish He had said, what interpretation makes my life easiest, or what allows me to preserve something I do not want challenged.

There are places where the answer will require more study, and we should have enough humility to admit when we do not know.

But uncertainty cannot become something we manufacture simply because certainty would require obedience.

If Scripture exposes unforgiveness in me, I do not need to search until I find someone who explains why my situation is the exception.

If it exposes dishonesty, pride, bitterness, greed, sexual immorality, hatred, or anything else

Yahweh has clearly addressed, deeper study should help me understand His truth more fully. It should not become a tool for discovering a loophole that permits me to keep what He is confronting.

That is where surrender has to remain underneath study.

Yeshua said in John 14:15:

“If ye love me, keep my commandments.”

We need to know His commandments in order to obey them, which is one reason studying

Scripture matters so much.

But once truth becomes clear, knowledge creates responsibility.

Another commentary cannot obey for me. A teacher cannot surrender for me, and no amount of information can repent on my behalf.

Eventually I have to decide what I am going to do with what Yahweh has shown me.

That is where Bible study moves beyond gathering information and becomes part of discipleship.

I still want to ask questions. I want to examine doctrine, study context, dig into words, compare Scripture with Scripture, and test what I hear. As I wrote in What It Means to Be a Berean, that responsibility cannot simply be handed over to someone else because I trust them.

But neither can I use that responsibility as a shield against surrender.

I want Yahweh to search the reason behind my questions.

If I am confused, I want understanding. If I have been taught incorrectly, I want Him to correct me. When there is more to uncover, I want to keep digging until I understand what the text actually says.

But when the truth is already clear and I am simply searching because I want another answer, I want Him to show me that too.

Because there is a point where searching for truth can quietly become searching for permission.

And I never want to become so skilled at studying the Word that I learn how to use the very

Scriptures meant to transform me as a way of negotiating my way out of surrender to the One who spoke them.

God’s Princess Warriors Ministries
Phone: (936) 402-3124
Website: gpwministries.com
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