Category Archives: Biblical interpretation

Not everything in the Bible is true

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That’s right. You heard me. Not everything in the Bible is true.
I believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. I believe that it faithfully reports the events it reports. It also faithfully reports the words of uninspired men. Because of that, just because it’s in the Bible, doesn’t mean it’s true.
Ex.—The devil tells Eve that she won’t die if she eats the forbidden fruit. That statement isn’t true.
We understand that about Genesis 3, but we can forget that when it comes to other books. For example, the vast majority of the statements in the book of Job are the statements of uninspired men, especially Job and his friends. God later says that the friends had spoken falsely, and Job repents of the things he has said. Yet I hear people say, “God says in Job 12…” No, he doesn’t. God reports for us what men said.
I see the book of Ecclesiastes in this way. Much of the book is the record of a man’s faith journey. All of what is said in the book has to be evaluated based on what is said in the last chapter. Many of the Psalms do the same thing. They are a faithful record of men’s emotions and men’s reactions to what God is doing.
An example from the New Testament is the statement of the man healed of blindness when he says, “We know that God doesn’t hear the prayers of sinners.” God doesn’t say that. John doesn’t even say it. He quotes what this uninspired man said.
Gamaliel, in Acts 5, says that if a movement is not of God, it will soon disappear on its own. Fact is, that’s not true. Look at the false religions of this world that have been around for years. But we shouldn’t be troubled by the fact that it’s not true. God didn’t say it. Luke didn’t say it. Luke reported what Gamaliel said.
Be careful when you say, “The Bible says…” or “God says…” There are parts of the book that aren’t true. They are faithful representations of uninspired, false statements. Keep your eyes open!

Bacon on the side

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I’ll share with you some insightful words that I read the other day. John Mark Hicks is doing a study on biblical interpretation in Churches of Christ (hermeneutics is the scholarly term). In the third post in this series, as he discussed the use of Baconian logic in our hermeneutic, Hicks stated:
The irony, of course, is that the Bible as a narrative of redemption is no longer the ultimate truth here. Rather, it is the systematic conclusions of an inductive-deductive method that finally gets us to the truth–it collects the scattered truths (facts) of the Bible, unearths what the Bible only implies, assembles together, collates them, orders them and produces a system (”sound doctrine”). The truth as given to us in the form in which Scripture offers it is thereby insufficient. We need to induct the facts, deduce the new truths, arrange them, systematize and order them into a presentation of the Truth.
Is it any wonder, then, that though Scripture never offers us the “five steps of salvation” or “five acts of worship” members of Churches of Christ in the mid-20th century were as certain about these as they were that Jesus died for their sins. Their certainty was derived from their confidence in the method–generated by the Enlightenment, popularized by natural science and applied by human wisdom. And, at the same time, they thought their method was “common sense” or even the Biblical method itself.
Wow! That perfectly describes my experience. Our divisions aren’t about what the Bible says; they are about what we say about what the Bible says. At some points the conclusions became what mattered. Vary from the brotherhood approved conclusions, and you’re a liberal at best, a heretic at worst (not sure where “change agent” fits on that sliding scale).
In the beginnings, the Restoration movement was about NOT dividing over inferences, about letting the Bible be our only guide. At some point, we decided the Bible wasn’t complete enough as written; we felt the need to cut and paste and fill in the gaps with syllogisms, proof texts and “necessary inferences.”
Maybe it’s time for us to have a back to the Bible moment.

The Fishbowl Revisited

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“Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.” (Luke 15:13-16)

“Why did this young man in the Parable of the Prodigal Son become hungry?” A university professor asked this question to his students here in the U.S. [Note: No, I don’t think this is crucial to understanding the parable, and I actually think focusing on such details hurts understanding.] The students here in the U.S. knew the right answer: He was hungry because he had squandered all of his wealth.

The professor then traveled to the ex-Soviet Union to teach a class. While there, he had the opportunity to ask his students the same question. Once again the response was almost unanimous. But the answer was different. These students knew the right answer: He was hungry because there was a severe famine.

The same professor also traveled to Africa and had the same opportunity. As in the other two cases, the students were generally in agreement with each other. They knew why the young man was hungry: No one would give him any food. He had left the area where God’s people were and lived among people who would not help him.

Feel free to think about your own answer to this question, but also take time to recognize one thing: like it or not, our culture influences the way we see things, even “obvious things” from the Bible. Can you think of other possible examples?

Are you ready to exegete?

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I want to a little something different this week. I have a few days off for “professional growth,” so, in an attempt to grow professionally, I’m going to create several posts studying the most-read portion of Scripture in our churches today.

What is that passage, you ask. (Go ahead, humor me. Ask.)

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

Actually, I want to look at this whole discussion of the Lord’s Supper from 1 Corinthians. We’ll try and look at the context of the book, as well as the immediate context. There are various points I want to bring out, so I thought I’d take it in several smaller bites.

So if you thought visiting the kitchen once a week was bad, just wait! We’re going to have a multiple-post week. Come on, join the fun. You know you love it.

Basketball & Bible

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It’s that time of the year. There’s only one team in the league with two players from Argentina, so all I can say is “Go, Spurs, go!”

During the NBA playoffs in 2006, my family and I moved from the heart of Spurs country (Stockdale) to a city in enemy territory (Abilene). Suddenly I was surrounded by Mavericks fans. Right in the middle of the Dallas – San Antonio series.

It wasn’t just a change in geography; it was a change in perspective. Listening to San Antonio sports announcers, I was fully informed of the league-wide conspiracy against the Spurs. I knew all the things that the officials were doing to insure that the Mavs came out on top. I knew that the Spurs were the better team, and the victories that had been won by the Mavericks were totally undeserved. Besides the Mavericks’ owner was loud and profane, having cursed at a Spurs player following a game because the player had played well, having led his fans to boo an ex-Mav star who had joined the Spurs when the owner refused to pay to keep him in Dallas. It was obvious that no true Christian could consider backing the Mavericks.

Funny thing was, people in Abilene didn’t see it that way. They talked about a league conspiracy against the Mavs. They thought all the calls were going against the Mavs and that the only reason the Spurs were still in the series was because of luck. And the Christians thought the Mavs owner “colorful.”

It’s amazing what different perspectives can do. Just wondering… do you think anything like this ever happens when we talk about Christianity?