Beware of the dogs (He did not say cats)

WARNING - The following article contains wacky, wierd, ridiculous dry English humor and exceedingly poor biblical exegesis. Hopefully, a resumption of normal sound doctrine will follow in future articles. Cute cat video though.

Here at the reformation theology blog we take biblical interpretation seriously. This is fueled not by some intellectual desire for "one-up-manship" or elitism - no, rather we take biblical interpretation seriously because we take God seriously. Our attititude to God can, in truth, rise no higher than our attitude to the God breathed word He has revealed.

But what if we get biblical interpretation wrong? Well lets see what crazy ideas we can come up with if things like word meanings and context are abandoned. (Hopefully, everyone will see not only the humor, but also the point about how important true exegesis and biblical interpretation really is). On some issues, people's eternal destinies hang in the balance. We must know the difference between true and false doctrine concerning the Deity of Christ, the atonement of Christ, justification by faith alone, the meaning of repentance, etc. and much of this hangs on the right interpretation of biblical words in their context. But on other issues, we can be wrong, and, though it is still very important, well, it does not matter quite as much. For instance, what if someone takes words out of the context and ignore their meanings entirely?

Well it is certainly serious business - we should not mess with any part of God's word. Yet at the same time, it can at times be harmless, unless of course, you happen to like dogs! What do I mean? Well, just for humor's sake let me try to come up with a ridiculous idea (by abandoning sound interpretation.. just for a moment.. and let me say that God loves cats but hates dogs? Yes, yes!!! Where did I come up with this silly idea? Well.. because God has nothing bad to say about His feline creatures anywhere in scripture, but ohhhh, have you seen what He says about dogs? Scripture says "Beware of the dogs..." (Phil 3:2). There we have it. What could be more clear! God commands us to stay clear of dogs. I rest my case! :-)))

(Of course, the dogs here are a reference not to the four legged variety of animal, but to Judaizing heretics seeking to clean up the church through circumcision of Gentile converts to Christianity - but lets take the ignorance further by saying that for all dog lovers out there, there is some small comfort to be found in the words, "even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!" Ecc. 9:4). :-)

So in that God obviously has little tolerance for dogs, lets now turn to the subject of cats (again let me be ridiculous here again, abandoning all sound interpretation principles and.... ). Let me tell you here all that the Bible says about cats. "_______________________________________"

Yep.. you guessed it, cats are never mentioned! But this silence is pregnant with meaning. God's love for cats is obviously so much greater than dogs. This is so obvious in fact, that He did not feel the need to say anything about it. It is something clearly revealed and apparent to all because of just how amazingly cute they are. With this in view then, lets all watch a short video showing the nature of the these lovely furry animals so loved by God.

And remember, "Beware of the dogs!" :-)