What and Who are Killing U.S. Citizens in Such Great Numbers?

While there is a great argument about whether or not the annual death rate due to medical errors is one number or another, estimated by some collegiate and other studies at between 250,000 to 440,000 deaths per year, virtually all those numbers being debated are significantly higher, if not almost double, than the numbers of people who have died, to date, based on the Covid-19 virus numbers being reported and issued here in the USA. That contrast between who and what are killing our citizens should raise all sorts of alarms about our U.S. government agencies and the very profession that is claiming to help us through this "pandemic". By contrast, special interest groups blame inanimate guns for killing tens of thousands per year, but none of those compare with the hundreds of thousands deaths of unborn children that the government sanctions and encourages every year. Still, we see panic and emotional furors about gun violence and Covid-19, but we see no proportionately aggressive responses to medically negligent error or abortion. This alone should scream in the ears of every U.S. citizen that we are way off base when it comes to our disregard for human life and God's ways, for which we shall give account before Him, as a nation. We must repent of our evil or be damned.

Good? Wicked? Who Shall? Who Will? Oh, The Things We Say!

Languages have tended to slowly change over time. American English is no exception. It grew out of Old, Middle, and Modern British English, and became mixed with a host of influences from other languages. Language change took a quantum leap of acceleration, with the advent of the printing press, power driven transportation modes, and especially electronics. Once on foot, words and connotations now move instantly around the world.

Today, all too often, people forget, ignore, or deliberately confuse the real meanings of words. Some folks are exceedingly skilled at equivocating over the meanings of words, so that they introduce doubt and error, over denotations of words that historically were clear in common usage. Some deliberately twist meanings for their own evil purposes.

In the study of words there are denotations, which are the historically used meanings of the words, the long-standing cultural custom of the words. On the other hand connotations are the ways that the words may be used in certain applications, irrespective of what the words really mean. Some words have been co-opted by special interest groups, to serve that group, irrespective of what the historical usage has been. Sometimes those new connotations are antithetical to the original or historical denotations, illustrating a willful ignorance or deliberate corruption on the part of those who coin or use the new forced connotation of the word, corrupting its denotation.

There are many such alterations of language in today's American English, as with the word "wicked" and other words that originally were used only for describing evil things. In today's language, the Bible's prophecy has been fulfilled, that says that the day would come wherein evil would be called good and good would be called evil. (Isaiah 5:20, Malachi 2:7, 1 Corinthians 15:3). No wonder that so many people are confused when they read the Bible, now, for it defines goodness and evil. The sin-driven cultural experience of people has been to intermix and confuse those two meanings. People must will themselves (choose) to discern the difference, or else they shall continue to live in linguistic and spiritual darkness as they neglect God's call to shun evil and embrace good.

Any respectable dictionary will tell the reader that "good" is a state of character of a person or thing, and "well" is a state of being, as with a person's health. Likewise, the word "will" is a matter of personal cognitive choice, a decision to do a certain thing. Similarly, that same dictionary is going to tell us that "shall" is a matter of duty, law, ordinance, obligation, or command on which one follows through or is compelled to perform. 

We can will ourselves to perform that which we shall or should do, but shall we will ourselves to do that which is against our will, or will we not do that which we should not do? God's Word is emphatic that we know and practice the difference between "will" and "shall". Our eternal destiny depends on our will to read, study, accept, receive, and practice the will of God in our lives. If we will to accept and receive His Word and salvation in Christ, then we shall live with Him eternally in His Heaven, for we shall have chosen, or willed ourselves, onto His will's path for our lives. Read the Bible, especially John and Romans, to see what God's will is for your life, joy, peace, and eternal destiny.

What or Who is Supposed to be THE Guide of Christian Bible Study and Understanding?

Regarding Reliance Upon Commentaries, Instead of Trusting God's Word & Spirit

Please, test and prove this by God's Word! 

Have God's Word and His Spirit become boring or untrustworthy to believers? Many say they believe God's Word, yet they hunger and thirst after commentators, on which they feed and nurse? Aren't real believers indwelt by God's Spirit of promise? Are believers unable to read the Bible and understand sound doctrine, without reliance on commentaries? Believers with appetites for human commentaries are easy targets for false doctrine (2 Timothy 4:1-4). Believers, who distrust their God-given ability (John 16:13) to "rightly divide the Word" as the Holy Spirit tries to lead their biblical studies, shall always prove their distrust by their reliance on human commentaries instead of allowing God's Spirit to lead. They distrust God's Word and quench His Spirit's (1 Thessalonians 5:19) attempts to guide them into all truth (1 John 2:27), as they rely on commentators to sort out God's Word for them. Why pray for and trust Holy Spirit guidance, when doubt is so easy?

The Bible says of itself:

Ecclesiastes 12:12-14:
¹²  And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
¹³  Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
¹⁴  For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

2 Peter 1:20-21
²⁰  Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
²¹  For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

Psalm 12:6-7
⁶  The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.
⁷  Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever. 

God gave us His Word and Spirit to prove all things (Romans 12:2, 2 Corinthians 13:5, 1 Thessalonians 5:21). Only God's Spirit and Word can lead us into God's pure truth.

IF one puts more faith in commentaries than in God's promised Holy Spirit guidance, then one makes commentaries an idolatrous substitute for the Word of God. Those who trust commentaries, more than the Holy Spirit, become as the false religions and cults they denounce, seeking answers from idols. Doctrines based on commentaries can quickly weaken and corrupt formerly sound churches.

The Bible says there is safety in many counselors (Proverbs 11:14, 24:6), IF we discern whether those counselors lead us astray from the cover-to-cover record of God's Word and the leading of His Spirit. Believers are NOT called to trust anything above God's Word and Spirit. When we read comments about the Bible, how many of us believe the word of commentators instead of prayerfully researching those verses within their full biblical chapters, their whole biblical book, or whether the alleged doctrine holds consistently from cover to cover?

Jezebel had a host of false prophets. Their relied on idolatrous religious doctrine, but they were defeated by the singular faith and obedience of God's Elijah, who relied solely on the Word and Spirit of the LORD. Likewise, the highly educated Pharisees and Sadducees were at each others' throats doctrinally, and could not agree about eternity or the doctrine of Christ, who He was, or what He was there to accomplish. The baptist, John, knew. Neither bad counsel nor education were sufficient. Only the Holy Spirit is always sufficient to teach believers about "rightly dividing the word of truth".

There is only one Spirit whom we can always trust. God's. There is only one book that we can always trust. God's Bible. IF we read commentaries, we must always read them through several times and test what they allege by the full biblical context in which they claim to gain their knowledge. God keeps His Word, and wants us to seek His face about His Word, so His Spirit can teach us. Amen.