You Mean…, That's Not Biblical?

I remember hearing a sermon in high school or college chapel on a perfect text for some typical preachers. The text had only six words. Three parallel commands. Three sets of two words. Actually, only four words total because one of them was repeated twice. So with the repeated words comes the parallel poetry of the three points. Three things we must NOT do!

Touch not, taste not, handle not. Colossians 2:21

The theme of this sermon was to give us biblical reasons NOT to touch, taste, or handle certain things. It was a typical litanny of “do’s” and “don’ts.” Of course, with this text, it was mostly the “don’ts.”

Please forgive me. I don’t remember any of the details of the message. I don’t remember the particular illustrations. I don’t remember the particular applications. I don’t remember the explanation of the text (except that if there was any, it couldn’t have been legitimate).

All I remember now is that the whole message was NOT biblical. Oh yes, it was moralistic. Yes, it contained many truths. Yes, it probably convicted some. But it was NOT biblical.

If you will look at the immediate context of this verse, it should be easy to see that Paul was fighting against those that would say “touch not, taste not, handle not!” He was not commanding us to not touch, not taste, or not handle.

This experience of mine never fails to be an illustration of how not to preach. It is a non-biblical sermon. The preacher had something he wanted to preach to young people about, so he made up an outline and looked for a verse to “back it up.” He may as well have looked up some poetry, conservative commentary, or statistics to “back it up.” Because the verses he picked are in direct opposition to what he was trying to preach!

This practice is deplorable. Yet it is often practiced among those who claim to be Bible preachers. Too many preachers know already what they are going to preach when they go to open their Bibles. Rather, let us have preachers who open their Bibles to see what God would have them deliver to His people.