Buffet Culture

We live in a buffet culture.  Pick and choose.  Look at something and call it good.  Take and eat.  No one walks alongside of us telling us what is good, what we should take, and why it might be the right choice.  In the buffet culture, it is all about me.  Some folks take their buffet culture mentality to their practice of reading the Word.  We pick and choose and what is good is determined not by some absolute truth or centuries of historical tradition, but by me and my personal choice.  The buffet culture gives us all sorts of choices and we are the ones in charge.

 

Such a mentality gives rise to all sorts of scriptural heresies, misinterpretations, and misguided applications.  Perhaps, we embrace this buffet culture mentality when reading the Word because it provides for us a sense of being in control of our own truth and not having to be dependent on anyone or anything else to point out truth to us.  In Biblical circles we sometimes hear the word exegesis which means getting at what the Word is saying.   Another word which is used less frequently is eisegesis which means what the Word is saying is determined by personal bias or opinion.  Eisegesis does not demand anyone else's agreement.  The interpretation and application is all about me.

It is not hard to figure that the buffet culture mentality is a like a slippery road on a rainy day.  We are likely to end up in the ditch thinking that is where everyone else is traveling as well.  In a day when churches are crying for autonomy instead of connectionalism, when popular opinion always prevails over outdated tradition, and when the deciding vote belongs to me instead of God, it is no wonder there is such chaos in the church.  The Scripture has been around for a long, long time and has proven to be a faithful guide for churches and believers of every generation.  While we may not always like what the Word is saying, it has far more value than what you and I think the Word is saying.