Shincheonji special lesson 62: reasons for testing

Where SCJ’s reading conflicts with the Bible

This short lesson comes right before the course’s written test, and it explains why students are tested. It says “The process of believing in God’s word involves hearing, understanding, and believing,” then acting, and uses Deuteronomy 6, 2 Timothy 2:15, 1 Thessalonians 2:4 and 2 Corinthians 13:5 to connect God’s testing of hearts to the class exam: “That’s the reason why we test.” The board says, “To pass you need 90,” and the lesson closes by praying the word will “flow out of your mouth – or, in this case, your hand and pencil.” SCJ’s The Creation of Heaven and Earth (p. viii) asks readers to “engrave the words of this book in your hearts” and says “all believers must come out of their churches, which are a part of the first heaven, and become a part of the twelve tribes of the new heaven.” Much of this lesson’s surface is good: Hearing, believing and acting on God’s word matters. But the verses it uses describe God’s examination of hearts, not a course test, and the book reveals what is meant to be engraved.

1. 1. Hear, believe, act: That part is right

   • Jesus: “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them is like a wise man” (Matthew 7:24). James: “be sure you live out the message and do not merely listen to it” (James 1:22).
   • That should be affirmed. The question is which word is being heard and acted on, and how a person’s heart is measured.

2. 2. Deuteronomy 6 begins with love, and includes family

   The lesson uses Deuteronomy 6:5-9 to say the word should be “embedded within.”

   • The passage begins: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You must love the Lord your God with your whole mind, your whole being, and all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5). The heart of the command is love for God.
   • It also says, “you must teach them to your children and speak of them as you sit in your house” (6:7). God’s word is meant to be shared at home with family, not kept from them. (Compare Lessons 16, 46 and 52, which treat family as obstacles. Lessons 46 and 52’s new sections aren’t live yet, so those links go to the lesson pages.)

3. 3. 2 Timothy 2:15: “Make every effort,” and read the next verses

   The lesson prefers the King James wording, “Study to shew thyself approved.”

   • The Greek word means “be diligent” or “make every effort.” Modern translations render it that way: “Make every effort to present yourself before God as a proven worker who does not need to be ashamed, teaching the message of truth accurately” (2 Timothy 2:15). It isn’t mainly about academic study or passing tests.
   • Paul’s example of inaccurate teaching comes three verses later:

   “Hymenaeus and Philetus are in this group. They have strayed from the truth by saying that the resurrection has already occurred, and they are undermining some people’s faith.” (2 Timothy 2:17-18)

   Accuracy matters, as the lesson says. By Paul’s own example, a teaching that redefines the resurrection as leaving one organization for another (Lesson 53; its new section isn’t live yet, so the link goes to the lesson page) is the kind of inaccuracy he names.

4. 4. 1 Thessalonians 2:4: God examines hearts, not exam scores

   The lesson uses this verse to explain the class test: “That’s the reason why we test.”

   • Paul says he speaks “not to please people but God, who examines our hearts” (1 Thessalonians 2:4). God does the examining.
   • The verses around it describe what an approved messenger looks like: “the appeal we make does not come from error or impurity or with deceit … we never appeared with flattering speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed” (2:3-5). The test Paul names is honesty, not a score.
   • “I, the Lord, probe into people’s minds. I examine people’s hearts” (Jeremiah 17:10). Paul even said, “it is a minor matter that I am judged by you or by any human court … The one who judges me is the Lord” (1 Corinthians 4:3-4).

5. 5. 2 Corinthians 13:5: The test is whether Christ is in you

   The notes admit Paul is talking about everyday life, “but we can also understand it as what is within you?”

   • Paul’s question: “Put yourselves to the test to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize regarding yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you” (2 Corinthians 13:5).
   • The test is whether Christ lives in you, not whether you can reproduce a course’s definitions. (See Lesson 52; its new section isn’t live yet, so the link goes to the lesson page.)

6. 6. God writes his word on hearts

   The lesson wants the word “embedded within” through study and testing. SCJ’s book asks readers to “engrave the words of this book in your hearts.”

   • God promised: “I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts and minds” (Jeremiah 31:33).
   • Paul: “you are a letter of Christ … written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on stone tablets but on tablets of human hearts” (2 Corinthians 3:3).
   • The word God writes on hearts is his own, by his Spirit. Engraving the words of a human book in the heart is a different thing. “Do not add to his words” (Proverbs 30:6).

7. 7. Luke 6:45: The heart shows in speech and life, not a pencil

   • “The good person out of the good treasury of his heart produces good … his mouth speaks from what fills his heart” (Luke 6:45).
   • In context, Jesus is talking about the fruit of a person’s life (6:43-44). Turning it into a prayer for correct written answers trivializes what Jesus meant.

8. 8. “We must not have weak mindset”

   The lesson calls students to fight as the martyrs did and says, “We must not have weak mindset.”

   • Scripture meets weakness with grace: “My grace is enough for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). “he knows what we are made of; he realizes we are made of clay” (Psalm 103:14).
   • A low score isn’t a verdict on a student’s heart or standing with God.

9. 9. Assurance doesn’t come from a score

   • John wrote “so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13).
   • Jesus thanked the Father for revealing these things “to little children” (Matthew 11:25), not to the best test-takers.
   • “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).
   • And Jesus warned that study alone can miss him: “You study the scriptures thoroughly because you think in them you possess eternal life … but you are not willing to come to me so that you may have life” (John 5:39-40).