#ReExamineSCRIPTURE
Letting Scripture Examine Our Assumptions
Are you willing to let Scripture examine what you believe, assume, teach, practice, and protect?
Scripture is not merely a source for sermon texts, doctrinal statements, inspirational quotes, or proof-points for what we already believe.
Scripture is God’s Word that reads us as we read it.
It confronts assumptions. It renews the mind. It corrects inherited patterns. It exposes cultural distortions. It calls the Church back to Christ, obedience, love, holiness, justice, mercy, mission, and truth.
Yet churches and leaders can quote Scripture while still allowing tradition, preference, ideology, fear, pragmatism, or institutional habit to shape how Scripture is interpreted and applied.
So we must ask:
- Are we allowing Scripture to examine us, or only using Scripture to support us?
- Are we reading the Bible through Christ, or filtering Christ through our systems?
- Are we interpreting faithfully, humbly, and communally?
- Are we willing to reexamine familiar passages?
- Are our applications producing obedience, love, justice, mercy, mission, and Christlikeness?
- Are we confusing biblical conviction with cultural projection?
- Are we willing to unlearn what Scripture exposes and relearn what Scripture reveals?
This pathway gathers resources for pastors, Bible teachers, preachers, disciplemakers, small group leaders, ministry teams, and thoughtful Christ-followers who want Scripture to do more than inform ministry. We want Scripture to examine and reform ministry.
Explore: Scripture — #ReExamineSCRIPTURE
Why #ReExamineSCRIPTURE?
We do not reexamine Scripture because Scripture is unreliable.
We reexamine Scripture because we are not always reliable readers.
We bring assumptions to the text. We inherit traditions. We absorb cultural expectations. We protect favorite interpretations. We sometimes read quickly, selectively, defensively, or predictably.
To #ReExamineSCRIPTURE is to return to the Bible with humility, repentance, attentiveness, and courage.
It is to ask whether our understanding, teaching, application, and ministry practice are being shaped by the whole counsel of God or by familiar fragments we have learned to manage.
#ReExamineSCRIPTURE asks:
- What have we assumed the text says?
- What does the text actually say?
- What does the text reveal about God, Christ, the Spirit, humanity, sin, salvation, the Church, and mission?
- What does this passage confront in us?
- What does this passage call us to obey?
- What have we missed because of tradition, fear, culture, or habit?
- What needs to be taught, corrected, recovered, or reimagined?
Explore: Untangle Original Intent
Begin by ReCentering Christ
Scripture leads us to Christ.
Not merely Christ as one theme among many.
Not merely Christ as a conclusion after we have made our point.
Not merely Christ as a name attached to our preferred interpretation.
Scripture reveals Christ, forms us in Christ, and sends us in the way of Christ.
Before reexamining a passage, a doctrine, a practice, or a ministry assumption, recenter Christ.
Ask:
- Is Christ praised in how we read and teach Scripture?
- Is Christ presiding over our interpretation and application?
- Is Christ preceding us into obedience and mission through this text?
- Is Christ present in the way we discuss, disagree, teach, preach, and apply Scripture?
- Are we using Scripture to win arguments, or allowing Scripture to form us into the likeness of Jesus?
Explore: #ReCenterCHRIST
Choose a Scripture Pathway
1. Biblical Authority
Are you asking how Scripture should function as authority over belief, practice, ministry, and mission?
Explore this pathway if your focus is:
- biblical trust
- the authority of Scripture
- Scripture over tradition, ideology, and preference
- obedience to the Word
- humility before the text
- teaching and preaching with faithfulness
- letting Scripture correct the Church
Begin here if you want the Bible to examine ministry assumptions rather than merely decorate ministry activity.
Explore: Scripture — #ReExamineSCRIPTURE
2. Biblical Interpretation
Are you asking how to read, study, teach, and apply Scripture more faithfully?
Explore this pathway if your focus is:
- observation, interpretation, and application
- context before content
- literary and historical awareness
- genre and storyline
- avoiding proof-texting
- asking better questions of the text
- moving from explanation to obedience
Begin here if you want Scripture to be handled with humility, care, and courage.
Explore: Guest-Post: When You #ReExamine Scripture, Accurate Application Is Crucial
3. Biblical Worldview
Are you asking how Scripture reshapes the way we see God, people, culture, ministry, mission, and the Church?
Explore this pathway if your focus is:
- worldview formation
- renewing the mind
- discipleship of imagination
- biblical categories for life and ministry
- assumptions beneath beliefs
- cultural habits that shape interpretation
- seeing through Scripture rather than preference
Begin here if you want Scripture to shape not only what people know, but how they see, think, live, love, and obey.
Explore: Biblical Worldview / Reconstructing a Biblical Worldview
4. Reexamining Familiar Passages
Are you willing to revisit passages you may have simplified, assumed, or inherited too quickly?
Explore this pathway if your focus is:
- familiar texts
- misread passages
- overused verses
- under-examined contexts
- sermon assumptions
- ministry slogans
- texts that challenge our categories
Begin here if you suspect a familiar passage may have more to say than your usual interpretation has allowed.
Explore: Text. Context. Pretext.
Explore: #ReExamineSCRIPTURE: John 10:10
5. Scripture and Discipleship
Are you asking how Scripture forms people into followers of Jesus rather than merely informing church participants?
Explore this pathway if your focus is:
- biblical formation
- obedience to Jesus
- discipleship of the mind and life
- Scripture in homes, groups, and daily practices
- teaching for transformation
- equipping the saints
- forming Christlike people
Begin here if you believe discipleship must be Scripture-formed, Christ-centered, and obedience-oriented.
Explore: Discipleship — #ReThinkDISCIPLESHIP
https://reimaginenetwork.ning.com/forum/topics/reimaginescripture-text-context-pretext
6. Scripture and Church Practice
Are you asking whether your church structures, habits, programs, and leadership patterns are actually being shaped by Scripture?
Explore this pathway if your focus is:
- church practices
- ministry systems
- worship, fellowship, discipleship, stewardship, and mission
- leadership and authority
- program assumptions
- congregational culture
- the difference between biblical faithfulness and familiar church habit
Begin here if you want Scripture to examine what your church protects, repeats, measures, and assumes.
Explore: Church — #ReSetCHURCH
7. Scripture and Mission
Are you asking how Scripture sends the Church into gospel witness, compassion, justice, cities, and everyday mission?
Explore this pathway if your focus is:
- biblical mission
- gospel witness
- kingdom language
- compassion and justice
- community engagement
- evangelism shaped by Scripture
- mission shaped by the way of Jesus
Begin here if you believe Scripture should not only be studied in the Church but embodied through the Church in the world.
Explore: ReformatEVANGELISM
Use This With Your Team
This hub can help pastors, Bible teachers, preachers, elders, boards, small group leaders, disciplemakers, ministry leaders, and congregations ask:
- What does Scripture actually say?
- What have we assumed it says?
- Where have we confused interpretation with tradition?
- Where have we confused biblical conviction with cultural habit?
- What familiar passage needs fresh examination?
- What ministry practice needs to be reexamined by Scripture?
- What assumption beneath our teaching, preaching, or planning needs to be named?
- What would change if Scripture examined us before we explained Scripture to others?
- How can this text lead us into obedience, formation, mission, and Christlikeness?
A simple team process:
Read: Choose one Scripture resource.
Plead: Pray for humility, discernment, courage, and obedience.
Heed: Ask what the Spirit may be showing you about your assumptions, interpretations, applications, and ministry culture.
Seed: Decide how this insight should be shared, taught, preached, discussed, or planted in your ministry life.
Proceed: Identify one next step of obedience, then assign who will do what, when, and with whom.
Move From Proof-Texting to Scripture-Shaped Ministry
Do not begin by asking only: What verse supports what we already want to say?
Ask deeper questions:
- What is the text saying in context?
- What does this reveal about God and His purposes?
- How does this lead us to Christ?
- What does this confront in our assumptions?
- What needs to be unlearned?
- What needs to be recovered?
- What obedience does this require?
- What ministry habit must change because of this text?
- What should be taught, preached, discussed, or practiced next?
Scripture-shaped ministry is not built by quotation alone.
It grows as leaders submit to Scripture, teach with humility, apply with courage, listen with others, and act in obedience.
The goal is not merely to know more Bible.
The goal is to be formed by the Word into people who live the way of Jesus.
Go Deeper / Further
Continue this pathway through:
Scripture — #ReExamineSCRIPTURE
#ReExamineSCRIPTURE: John 10:10
Biblical Worldview / Reconstructing a Biblical Worldview
Discipleship — #ReThinkDISCIPLESHIP
Leadership Formation & Learning
Curator’s Note
Scripture is not one ministry category among many.
It is the God-given authority that examines every category.
> Scripture reshapes prayer.
> Scripture reforms discipleship.
> Scripture clarifies the gospel.
> Scripture corrects church practice.
> Scripture sends us into mission.
> Scripture renews the mind.
>Scripture forms the people of God in the way of Jesus.
#ReExamineSCRIPTURE is an invitation to
read again, listen again, repent again, obey again, and teach again with Christ at the center
Find your question.
Ask. Seek. Knock.
ReCenter Christ.
... Then reimagine the way forward.
____________________
The Reimagine.Network
Serves pastors, prayer champions, evangelism catalysts, disciplemakers, church planters
{Permission granted to post, print, project, promote with attribution}
Access and content are free. * Contributions are welcomed @ √PrayerINC.org * Help us reach more "reimagineers!"
