Facing Our Traditions | Highlight

John 3:16 and the Danger of Reading Traditions Into the Text

And you may say, well, Leighton, don't you have presuppositions? Yes, but I don't have to get my presuppositions from Augustine. I don't have to get them from even Paul, or a Calvinistic reading of Paul.

I can get them from the book of John. Because you know what my three presuppositions are?

Okay, here we go.

So ready?

Leighton makes a claim here that I'm not reading my presuppositions into the text. I just have presuppositions that are just from the text. Okay, so he says he can get them from John. Let's see if he's doing that.

Let's see if he's just letting the text feed what presuppositions he's committed to.

Here we go.

John 3 .16. God loved the world and everyone in it.

Stop.

Now I'm reading from the English Standard Version.

Sorry, that got me.

I'm not sure what version Leighton is reading from. But the whole contention here is that I've got presuppositions, but I'm just letting the text make my presuppositions. I'm not reading something into the text.

For God so loved the world. And what? Everyone in it?

Wait a second.

It sounds like you've got a system and you've got a tradition about what the word world means there. And you just literally extended it into the text.

Yeah, I took some liberties there.

You took a lot of liberties. And everybody who has this memorized from every football game that there is knows that's not how I memorized it. I think the text says for God so loved the world.

Here we go.

Christ came to die for the sins of the world and everyone in it.

Christ. I'm not sure which version of the Bible we're reading, but that's not what the text says. He's literally, look, brothers and sisters, I'm going to show as much respect to the man as I possibly can.

The point he was making is that James is reading his system into the text. And Leighton saying, I don't do that. I just get it from John. And as he quotes from John 3 16, everybody that hasn't memorized is squinting right now going.

That's not how I have it memorized, because what's actually happening is he's displaying in his rebuttal as he makes an accusation against Pastor James, that it's actually Leighton who's doing that with the text.

He's literally reading his presuppositions and traditions into the text and going so far as literally to add words to the text as he's quoting it.

Maybe he's reading conflating 316.

Yeah, LFV.

That anyone, whoever can believe so as to be safe. Those are my presuppositions.

Except in this very debate, you were corrected, Professor Flowers, when you tried to accuse Pastor James of how did he? How did he say it? Like reframing John 3 16.

I was thinking about it.

And then Pastor James corrected you and said, no, I'm just accurately translating the Greek. It's every believing one so that every believing one would have everlasting life. And so actually, this is the most spectacular example of a person who is projecting.

You are saying this guy is doing this when in the debate, nobody can find an example of Pastor James and Pastor James is not perfect, man. He's not the perfect debater. He's a fallible human being. No one's saying that at all.

But you're projecting saying this is what he's doing. But if everyone watches the debate, they'll see that actually Pastor James is trying to fight very hard to make sure he's just going to the text and drawing from it.

But in that very example, Leighton, you do the very thing you're accusing James of doing. And that's a problem. That really is genuinely a problem. You made some mistakes here in your rebuttal. Look, we all do.

We're all fallible human beings. But Leighton, you made mistakes here with a lot of confidence and you made some serious mistakes of misrepresentation. And at this very stage here, you demonstrated that actually you are the one that's tradition driven.