Believe the Bible, Not Preconceived Opinions

1 Samuel 11:6 KJV

And the Spirit of God came upon Saul when he heard those tidings, and his anger was kindled greatly.

Here is an example of how we tend to interpret events of life and even the very Word of God off of our own preferences and background. We fail to see that there may be validity in another side because we don't want to see that validity. 

This passage clearly says that the Spirit of God came upon King Saul and that he was also filled with anger. The objections to Saul's anger here are a few:

• We know that he was chosen by a God rejecting people
• We know that Saul would soon reject God himself

Therefore we cannot use anything in the life of Saul as a positive example of a Biblical truth. 

I will give that Saul was chosen to be king after the insistence of a people who had rejected God from being their king. I will also give that Saul quickly turned from being a king after Gods heart. 

However the passage is clear; the Spirit of God here came upon him and his anger was kindled greatly. 

That a preacher would fail to see this as an instance of righteous indignation practiced by a man other than Jesus Christ can only be attributed to bringing a preconceived opinion to the passage. And that a congregation would hear and agree with his tainted interpretation, yea that preachers would follow such a tainted interpretation, can only be explained by their own preconceived notion that anger is a bad thing. We have all witnessed the devastating effects of an angry person. We may have been that angry person. And, having experienced that anger is most often a negative emotion; we look to mortify anger by calling it a sin. When, as in this case, a passage shows up which seems to teach against our preferred position, we accept any interpretation of the passage that reinforces what we already believe, namely that anger is a sin. 

But we do this in a dozen other ways as well. We want to believe a thing is either good or bad, right or wrong, because our experience has led us to see that thing in a particular light. We therefore look for ways to justify what we want to believe. Rather than accepting the Bible for what it says and approving of preachers who preach what it says, we tend to gravitate to preachers and churches that reinforce what we want to believe regardless of what it says. 

Gods Word is true. We must accept it for what it says rather than heap to ourselves to contortionists who make it say something entirely different and thereby appease the people.