## If members of the WBC are in Christ whether one approves of them, & whether they are living as they ought to, become secondary issues. One can disagree with them & their works, yet regard them as our brothers & sisters in Christ. Whether they regard other Christians as Christians can't be decisive for how others behave to them. And I've seen quite a few of their videos. STM that their pastor is trying very hard to do the same as many other Christians - that is, to have (force ?) the morals of others conform to the Bible; & ISTM that he can't see people as people, unless they agree w. him.
The relation of Christians to the Bible is more complicated than some allow; those people may see no problems in applying ancient words to new situations; if so, fine. But other Christians do; & in seeking to obey Christ - not to get away from Him - they try to understand the Bible as fully as possible; & this can mean coming up w/ interpretations that are new, even shocking. This has happened in the Church many times - a NT example is Paul's relativisation of the Law & circumcision. The opening of the Church to Gentiles is another. Words in the Bible were over-ridden, & the Apostles "denied the Bible" & showed they did not "believe the Bible", by disobeying Gen. 17 in the most blatant way possible. God commanded circumcision - Paul said it was nothing.
As He "went around doing good", Jesus behaved very unlike many of His followers, then or now. He often told stories, instead of teaching from the Bible like the scribes; despite His familiarity with it. His parables often depend for some of their effect on the hearers' knowing that an OT passage is at the root of the parable - the Parable of the Lost Sheep seems to be based on Psalm 119:176. What He does not do is, to confine his ideas & words to those in the OT - the OT shapes His thinking, but is not its boundary. There are boundaries, & they are not the Biblical books, but (among others) the Will of His Father & the Kingdom of God. He could have quoted the Law to condemn those who came to Him - nowhere is He found doing so.
His opponents OTOH are very Biblically concerned - so much so, that they put the Law above human need. And why not ? They could have used many of the arguments on this forum & others: they wanted to obey God,they followed Scripture & tried extremely hard to be guided by the Bible - but the Pharisees & scribes, who were so zealous for the Law, are the one group whom Jesus attacks. He attacked the righteous people, the "Separated" (= "Pharisee"), not the "ungodly". He called no one "ungodly", but He called a lot of religious people "hypocrites".
Not the Samaritans, not the Gentiles, not the tax-collectors, not women, but the very people who couldn't see the wood for the trees because they were so concerned to be godly. They had Scripture - but they did not see Him, when He was right among them. Or they did, but only as a threat to the Temple, a liar, & seducer of the people. One of the saddest parts of the NT is the place describing how they were scrupulous to avoid being unclean, just after His crucifixion. And if they could do that - why should Christians be different ? Not only are Christians not different - they have repeated that very mistake, time & time again. If this is not proof that zeal for obedience to the Bible & to God's Will can become its own worst enemy & defeat its purpose - what is ? The Bible cannot rescue us from the mistakes it leads to; for that we have to say "Lead thou me to the Rock that is higher than I", the Rock that is Christ.