Arthur Pink on Doctrinal Error and the Scriptural Truth Perverted, Wrongly Divided, Disproportionately Held and Taught
2 Timothy 2:15 says, "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth." The keywords are "study" and "rightly dividing the Word of truth." Many people do not study their Scriptures diligently but instead, they have the bad habit of cherry picking which they take one verse out of context and pervert its meaning. That is what can be called as eigesis which means mishandling of the text, it is only concerned with making a point at the expense of the meaning of the words. What might be a real fact is that eisegesis is usually done on purpose because cult founders or leaders know many people are too lazy to study the Bible in context. When people do not study their Bibles, I expect them to just fall for almost anything at all.
When the Scriptural truth is taken out of context and not into context, doctrinal error happens. For instance, we have the misapplication of 1 Corinthians 6 and Ephesians 2 by both the Antinomians and the conditional security crowd. When Antinomians wish to justify their sinister living after they have had a false conversion, they quote 1 Corinthians 6:11 without considering the words, "And such were some of you." and "sanctified" meaning that the former lifestyle has been eradicated. What is also misquoted is Ephesians 2:8-9 is also misused to say, "We are already saved by grace." to justify the doctrine of the perpetually carnal Christian. On the other hand the conditional security crowd would misquote 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 to show you can lose your salvation or Ephesians 2:10 to add works to salvation plus they have misquoted some verses in James 2 to justify faith plus works salvation.
Cults are inevitably born because of the prevalence of doctrinal error as a result of eisegis and not out of Scriptural exegesis. What can be funny is that some of these so-called Christian cults have called the true born again Christians as "cults" and they are the "true church". For instance, the Papists have misquoted Matthew 16:16-18 to prove that Jesus made Peter the first Pope without knowing the context of it. Some so-called last messengers have misquoted verses from the prophetic books to prove their denomination was the "prophesied one" but when taken into context, it was addressing to the people of Israel and not to some Gentile nation. Cults hate the idea of expository preaching because it exposes them to be wrong even if they are not directly mentioned or attacked because they love to pervert, wrongly divide and be disproportionate about the Scriptural truth. If people knew the truth for themselves then the cults will run out of business as a result.
See also: