Category Archives: Biblical interpretation

Dividing The Word

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saw“Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (KJV).

This verse gets used a lot to say that we need to know how to divide God’s Word into Old and New Testaments. I’ve even seen this verse used in studies in Spanish, even though the concept of “dividing” isn’t in the Spanish translations!

Paul uses a word in this verse that isn’t used anywhere else in the New Testament. It’s a Greek word: orthotomeo. It literally means to cut straight, which explains the King James translation of the term. Remember, though, that the literal translation of a word isn’t always the way it was used. That is, we talk about a man being a straight shooter, even if he’s a pacifist. We can have a workout without ever going outside.

In common Greek usage, the word came to mean to do something correctly. Vine’s Expository Dictionary says “The meaning passed from the idea of cutting or dividing, to the more general sense of rightly dealing with a thing. What is intended here is not dividing Scripture from Scripture, but teaching Scripture accurately” [p. 327]. It often was used in reference to making a straight road; that’s the usage in the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament. We find orthotomeo in Proverbs 3:6 and 11:5, referring to straight paths.

Al Maxey wrote an excellent article on this verse. There he listed some of the different translations:

  1. King James Version — rightly dividing the word of truth.
  2. New King James Version — rightly dividing the word of truth.
  3. American Standard Version — handling aright the word of truth.
  4. New American Standard Bible — handling accurately the word of truth.
  5. New International Version — who correctly handles the word of truth.
  6. English Standard Version — rightly handling the word of truth.
  7. Holman Christian Standard Bible — correctly teaching the word of truth.
  8. The Message — laying out the truth plain and simple.
  9. Lamsa’s Translation from the Aramaic of the Peshitta — one who preaches straightforwardly the word of truth.
  10. New American Bible, St. Joseph Edition — following a straight course in preaching the truth.
  11. New English Bible — be straightforward in your proclamation of the truth.
  12. The New Jerusalem Bible — who keeps the message of truth on a straight path.
  13. Hugo McCord’s NT Translation of the Everlasting Gospel — interpreting correctly the message of truth.
  14. Charles B. Williams’ NT in the Language of the People — who properly presents the message of truth.
  15. J. B. Phillips’ NT in Modern English — who knows how to use the word of truth to the best advantage.
  16. Contemporary English Version — who teaches only the true message.
  17. New World Translation — handling the word of the truth aright.
  18. Revised Standard Version — rightly handling the word of truth.
  19. New Living Translation — who correctly explains the word of truth.
  20. Darby Translation — cutting in a straight line the word of truth.
  21. Lexham English Bible — guiding the word of truth along a straight path.

Maxey also refers to some of the resource books on the matter:

The noted Greek scholar, Dr. Marvin Vincent, wrote, “The thought is that the minister of the gospel is to present the truth rightly, not abridging it, not handling it as a charlatan, not making it a matter of wordy strife, but treating it honestly and fully, in a straightforward manner” [Vincent’s Word Studies, e-Sword]. Albert Barnes (1798-1870) suggests Paul is instructing Timothy to “rightfully and skillfully teach the word of truth” [Barnes’ Notes on the Bible, e-Sword]. Dr. Henry Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the NT states that in 2 Tim. 2:15 this word means “to teach the truth correctly and directly” [p. 453]. “The context suggests that Paul is warning against taking the devious paths of deceiving interpretations” when teaching others God’s Truth [The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 11, p. 402]. Don’t wander away from Truth; stay on course with Truth; don’t take the detours of human speculation. Sophocles, a Greek writer, used this term to mean: “expound soundly” [Dr. Kenneth Wuest, Word Studies from the Greek New Testament, vol. 2, The Pastoral Epistles, p. 135].

We definitely need to know how to correctly handle the Word of God. We even need to know how to tell the difference between the covenant with Israel and the new covenant that Jesus established. But we don’t need to divide the Word, not if it means neglecting inspired words of God.

photo courtesy of MorgueFile.com

Deep answers to simple questions

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adult, child with bibleI was given a couple of articles last week by one of our members. He is concerned about some of what he’s seeing during the Lord’s Supper, so in an honest attempt to help, he brought in these articles.

I don’t like them a bit. To be honest, I saw the title of the journal they were from, and I went in with a bad attitude. I read through them, but was quickly turned off. I’ve grown tired of piecemeal theology, which seeks to find words in the Bible that say what they want said rather than trying to figure out what a passage of Scripture is actually saying.

My dilemma was (and is) how do you explain that to the average church member? How do you show them that an author’s entire approach to Scripture is wrong? The man made points, with verses to back them up. To the member’s eye, it was very biblical. To my eye, it was very human and bordering on biblical malpractice.

I don’t want to come to the “well, you just wouldn’t understand” point in talking with people about the Bible. Yet I find that many biblical questions can’t be adequately answered by quoting a pair of Bible verses. I want themes and large principles. I want a passage of Scripture that is actually addressing that topic. If there isn’t one, then you’re going to have to show me how what you’re saying fits into the overriding story of Scripture. And that’s hard to do in an elevator speech.

It’s much easier to say, “Paul told the Corinthians to lay by in store every first day of the week, so that means we should meet on Sundays and have a collection.” That’s a concrete answer that people understand. It’s harder to look at principal themes of the Bible to determine how often to meet and what to do when we meet.

So much comes down to the way we view Scripture and what we consider to be an appropriate use of Scripture. Any suggestions on how to communicate such things in a way that people can understand? How do we lead people down a road that’s taken us years to travel? Should we even try?

Sharing our faith or imposing our beliefs

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Bible studyI recently read a very interesting article by Dyron Daughrity in Missio Dei, a missions journal from the Stone-Campbell Movement. Here’s the abstract of the article:

This paper looks at problems that have occurred in Church of Christ missions by focusing on a case study in India called the Arise Shine Church of Christ Mission. The paper argues that paternalism in a cappella church missions has led to a “time capsule effect” wherein churches in India have become stultified. Indian Church of Christ members have developed a hybrid identity. They try to be faithful to the sending churches—in this case Canada’s valiant missionary J. C. Bailey—but they have to balance it with faithfulness to their own culture. Several issues are brought forth such as Bible translations (especially the use of the King James Version), contextualization and indigenization, and the unfortunate dependency that often arises in Church of Christ missions efforts.

In the article itself, Daughrity says:

The Church of Christ in India, however, has not turned into the fused symbiosis that Walls witnessed in Africa. Rather, the time capsule would be a more fitting analogy. And major challenges loom because of this theological and cultural stagnation. Members remain deeply loyal to the form of Christianity brought to them decades earlier by stalwart missionaries.

I have seen the same thing throughout Latin America. I remember having a discussion about a controversial topic in the church in Córdoba, Argentina. We had discussed for nearly an hour, when one member who had been converted 20 years before said, “You can say what you want; I know what the missionaries taught me.” She then pronounced a stance on that issue. No appeal to Scripture or biblical principles. This was what the missionaries had taught, and that was good enough for her.

You don’t have to go overseas to see similar things, of course. People will hold to what granddad taught or what their favorite teacher taught, even if they may not understand the reasoning behind the teaching.

I’m not sure how we avoid this. I have some ideas. One thing that I try to do in my ministry at Herald of Truth is focus on teaching people how to study the Bible rather than on the content of the Bible. That can be a scary thing, for you run the risk of people reaching different conclusions than you have. But if they reach those conclusions based on the Word of God, is that such a bad thing? Isn’t there a chance that they’ll reach right conclusions on subjects where we’ve missed the mark?

What are your thoughts? Is this sort of thing avoidable?

Frameworks and outcomes in Bible study

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I’m not sure that I know how to build off of yesterday’s post and explain what’s going through my mind. I’ll try.

When we go out to teach people about the Bible, we are also teaching them a philosophical approach to the Bible. Part of conversion has to do with them accepting our theoretical framework.

People who present commands, examples and necessary inference as a hermeneutic framework need to find people who accept that framework. When they do, they have a much better chance of convincing them via their syllogisms. If not, people won’t be moved to change their lives based on arguments they don’t understand or don’t agree with.

Once you find such people, you can then continue to shape them using arguments based on the same framework. In the same way, any challenge to that approach to the Bible is a major threat, for it removes the way these teachers know how to instruct and motivate. If I accept that 1 Corinthians 16 is not laying out the universal mechanism for churches to take weekly collection, then how am I going to get people to give money to the church, if I only know how to work off of the commands, examples, inferences framework?

Going way back to the discussion that started all of this (instrumental music), it’s easy to see why our approach to the Bible is so important. If we can’t agree on the process, it’s going to be hard to agree on the outcomes.

The Bible as books

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I appreciate the good discussion yesterday. Some seem to suspect that I have some plan for building off of what I presented yesterday. Sorry to disappoint… the questions I ask are serious requests for input. These are issues I’m working through, not issues for which I’ve discovered some secret solution.

I know that many of the ills that I see can be solved by an emphasis on context. I’ve never heard someone say, “His problem, he’s using that verse in context.” A basic grasp of context won’t cure everything, but it goes a long way toward a healthy understanding of the Bible.

One solution that occurs to me is to quit presenting the Bible as a book. Instead, present it as an arsenal of books. You go to a business seminar, and the speaker recommends multiple books. This one will help you with time management, this one with communications, this one with employee relations. The speaker may quote a thing or two from each book, but you come away understanding that you need to read the whole book to grasp what the author wants to communicate.

What if we taught the Bible in terms of books? (Or sets of books, in some cases… you can’t really separate Leviticus from Exodus, for example) When teaching a general Bible class at Abilene Christian (“Christianity in Culture”), I emphasized chapters. I made them learn what chapter in the Bible contained certain ideas. Now I’m thinking that may not be big enough. I understand that we can’t present a whole book of the Bible in one lesson, at least not books like Isaiah or Genesis. But maybe it would help to remember that neither chapters nor verses existed in the original; the ancients worked with books.

So you take a new Christian and you say, “Here’s sixty-six books that will teach you about the Christian faith. They’ve been conveniently bound into one volume.”

No, I haven’t thought of all of the practical ins and outs of this. Frankly, this idea was born after reading yesterday’s comments, so it’s fairly young and fragile. Be gentle with it, like you would a newborn. :-)

Is there any value in changing this perception of the Bible? Even if we don’t radically change our teaching, if we can get people to think in terms of books, maybe it would help them wean themselves off the “verse by verse” approach that distorts the Bible’s message.

Looking forward to the discussion.

photo by Jane M Sawyer