I know, I know… I already posted this week. But a lot of people were confused at just what I was getting at in last week’s post. John Dobbs just posted on the same subject and explained it so well.
Give it a read:
Ruminations on the Pattern
Sophomore English, Central High School. Above grade level, I might add. I sat near the back on the right, with “the guys.” Not the nerds (they were at the front). The guys. Football players, basketball players, swimmers… We weren’t the coolest at school, but we were on the fringe.
And we liked Encyclopedia Brown. Every week our teacher gave us some sort of Weekly Reader, and it always had a case from the files of Encyclopedia Brown. We would read them carefully, trying to see who could pick up the hidden clues that would lead us to the right answer. It was never obvious; you had to piece together different sets of facts to solve the case. Sometimes we got it, sometimes we didn’t, but it was always fun. My feeling was that the author wrote in a way to make them difficult, but not impossible, to understand.
Did the author of Encyclopedia Brown write the New Testament? Is it intended to be some sort of mystery that must be pieced together, uniting half a verse here with the Greek definition of a word from here in order to come up with what isn’t obvious? My belief is that it isn’t and that it can’t be. Partly for some of the reasons I’ve discussed in my last several posts. If people didn’t have their own personal copy of the Bible, if they depended on hearing the Word rather than reading it, then the message could not be based on nuances, inferences and word studies.
Look at the Old Testament Law. God goes to great lengths to explain exactly what He wants. More than 600 commands, explicitly stated. Some would argue that God replaced this inferior law with a superior one, one which is not always directly stated but is sometimes taught through “necessary inference” and “approved examples.” In other words, God went from being a God who spoke clearly to one who spoke in the genre of Encyclopedia Brown. “You missed the fact that John 13 says the Last Supper wasn’t on the Passover, therefore we shouldn’t use unleavened bread. And Paul says we all eat of one loaf, so we can’t use those individual matzah crackers anyway. And that grape juice had better be non-alcoholic because the Greek word actually means…” Folks, I just don’t buy it.
I believe that God speaks clearly. If something is truly necessary, it will be specified in the New Testament. I don’t have to piece verses together. I don’t have to fill in the gaps nor connect the dots. If the New Testaments plainly teaches something, I will teach it. If God has bound something, I will teach it as bound.
I still enjoy Encyclopedia Brown stories (I was pleasantly surprised just now to find out they’re still being published). But that’s now how I’m going to read God’s Word.
“So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” (Is 55:11 KJV)
This verse is sometimes used to say that giving people a Bible is enough, for it is God’s Word and God’s Word will not return void. Personally, I don’t think that’s what this verse is saying. I think that “my word” here refers to God uttering a decree; when God says something it will happen.
Still I have long held to the belief that anyone can and should be able to understand the Bible on their own and, through that understanding, learn the truth and become a Christian. While still believing in the power of God’s Word, I have some doubts about that exact process. Here’s why:
Look also at the eunuch’s words in Acts 8: “So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.” (Acts 8:30-31 ESV) Philip didn’t reprimand him saying: “Of course you can understand. Anyone can.” He taught him.
God works through people and through relationships. He always sent a prophet. He didn’t just hand Moses a book. Jesus wrote no book. People need God’s Word, but “Bible-only” evangelism isn’t God’s way.
We’ve been looking at the idea that the Bible was written to be heard and that it wasn’t written originally in the book form that we have now.
As always, such comments deserve a resounding “So what?”. I see several implications, one of which is the need to trash our concordances. Well, OK, that may be a bit strong. But I’ve found that the misuse of the concordance can be a great hindrance to effective Bible study. We piece together verses and phrases from here and there, creating entirely new “biblical passages.”
Let me give you an example. When studying the subject of elders in the church, many take 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 and create a list of “requirements for elders.” The problem is, the resulting list isn’t what is in Timothy nor what is in Titus. It is a new hybrid, one which the Holy Spirit didn’t create. It’s probable that Timothy didn’t have a copy of Titus and Titus didn’t have a copy of 1 Timothy. So, if the only way to have the full list of requirements is to combine the two passages, neither of them had the list. Or at best, one of them had an incomplete list. The truth of the matter is, if God had meant those passages to be used together, He would have given them to us that way! We need to learn to respect the integrity of the biblical books, and read each of them as the early readers would have read them.
Now in this example the lists are very similar. The one in Timothy contains “should not be a recent convert,” because the church in Ephesus had been established decades before. The one in Titus doesn’t have that requirement because Titus was working in more of a mission setting. The list in Titus contains a warning about love of money because that was a common problem in Crete, according to historians. The lists are different because the needs are different. If there had been one list for all congregations, Timothy and Titus would have received the same list, and we would have it as well. As is, when we cut and paste the two together, we create something which God did not! When it comes to Bible study, that’s a dangerous practice.
When we study a passage, we must seek to study it as the early listeners would have, not as modern readers who have 66 books rolled into one.
I’m going to leave the discussion on principal themes of the Bible, not because I feel that I’ve exhausted the subject but mainly because the subject has exhausted me! Well, actually, I think that at some point such a discussion can be counterproductive. If you lay out too many rules, passages that don’t fit under any of them suddenly become “unimportant.” As was pointed out by several along the way, we are to look to the weightier matters without neglecting the others.
I also think that we can become too scientific in our Bible study, too logic bound, too mathematical. We want to apply formulas and matrices to the text in order to systematize our beliefs. While we can find guidelines to help us, I think that, in the end, Bible study is a spiritual activity. That may be a bit “touchy-feely” for some, but I honestly think that a scientific approach to Scripture can sometimes get in our way.
I’m not often inclined to quote Alexander Campbell or other leaders from the past, but Mr. Campbell said something very interesting about Bible study (yeah, I know… he said a lot of interesting things). In his Christian System, Brother Campbell wrote:
RULE 7. For the salutary and sanctifying intelligence of the Oracles of God, the following rule is indispensable: We must come within the understanding distance.
There is a distance which is properly called the speaking distance, or the hearing distance; beyond which the voice reaches not, and the ears hear not. To hear another, we must come within that circle which the voice audibly fills.
Now we may with propriety say, that as it respects God, there is an understanding distance. All beyond that distance can not understand God; all within it can easily understand him in all matters of piety and morality. God himself is the center of that circle, and humility is its circumference.
Within understanding distance. Campbell goes on to describe the need for spirituality in Bible study. He says “the philological principles and rules of interpretation enable many men to be skilful in biblical criticism, and in the interpretation of words and sentences, who neither perceive nor admire the things represented by those words.” Put another way… rules alone won’t get you there. It takes humility, it takes prayer, it takes spiritual discernment.
Scientific Bible study can only take you so far. Without a pious spirit, all the rules in the world are inadequate. You’ve got to be close to God to be able to really hear His voice. We’ve got to draw near to Him if we want to understand His Word.