Bible interpretation is often a thorny subject among people who have some understanding of The Book. My title is a direct quote I have heard from people over the years. It is a legitimate comment. Sometimes it is used by honest Bible readers who stand by their interpretation based on their own scholarly efforts. Often, however, it is used by people with scant knowledge of the Bible or proper interpretive methods.
Anyone with even passing knowledge of the Scripture realizes
that interpretation is required. This reality is recognized
by Peter when he said that no Scripture is open to private interpretation.
The implication of that statement is that interpretation will be required, but
as Peter continues, he identifies the Author of Scripture as the Holy Spirit.
The consequence is that that same Spirit must be accessed to obtain a proper
interpretation. This is largely what Jesus meant when He said that after He
left, He would send the Holy Spirit to guide His followers into all truth.
The problem arises when two sincere believers come to
different conclusions. Often, the first thing that appears is a disagreement as
to the figurative or literal nature of the passage in question. By its very
nature, the Bible is full of figurative language. It is a false argument to say
that the Bible must be taken literally to be believed. The inspired Scriptures
often use language that is either intentionally figurative or language that
borrows from the understanding of the original readers which may or may not be
literally true.
A perfect example of this is the Bible’s use of the
cosmology of the ancient audience to affirm God’s creative power and His
ultimate sovereignty. For example, the Word plainly states that the sun rises
and sets at God’s direction. We now know that that is an incorrect
understanding of how the universe works. The absolute truth we infer from God’s
statements about creation is theological not scientific. God is literally the
Creator of all, but He uses figurative language to establish that.
Knowing when to accept figurative language as bearing truth
and when to demand a literal interpretation presents the major difficulty. The
most common way to make this determination is to say that if a literal reading
agrees with the rest of the Scripture, and if it makes sense with reality as we
know it, take it literally. If on the other hand, a literal reading contradicts
another clear teaching, or if it offends our sense of what is real, assume it
is meant figuratively. A good example of this would be Isaiah’s
claim that the Messiah would be a shoot from the root of Jesse. Since Jesus
was not a tree, we know this is meant to point to the Messiah as David’s
descendant, thus fulfilling several prophecies.
Another commonly disputed literal/figurative issue is the
six-day creation recorded in Genesis. Many conservative Bible scholars insist
that the language of Genesis chapter one must be taken literally: six
twenty-four-hour periods transpired during God’s acts of creation. While I can
agree that six literal days may be the proper literal interpretation of
Genesis, I am uncomfortable with people who insist that considering any
optional interpretation damages the Bible’s credibility. I have
written previously that the Hebrew word for day used in Genesis can
properly be understood to mean time periods of indeterminate length. The Hebrew
words for evening and morning can also be understood figuratively. It is
unimportant to me whether the creative periods were exactly twenty-four hours
long; what matters is that God is the Creator, and that He established a time
ratio of work to rest. He even enshrined the concept in the Mosaic law
concerning the Sabbath.
Interpretation is also the issue when people fail to
consider how the original audience would have understood the Scripture in
question. This is an essential principle in interpretation. As an example, when
Paul told his Greek/Roman readers that there is no male or female in Christ,
they would have been astounded. In the Mediterranean culture of the day, women
were little more than property, good only for breeding and child-rearing. The
Jews were slightly less strident in this, but Paul would have struck a chord
with his pairings of Jew/Gentile and male/female; this would have brought to
mind the temple court of the Gentiles and the court of the women. Only Jewish men
could approach God at the higher levels. Paul’s assertion that men and women
were equal in Christ was unheard of.
Where some people make an interpretative error is to assume
that Paul meant there were no differences between men and women. Paul
makes it clear in Ephesians and elsewhere that women are subordinate to men
in marriage and in church offices. This has nothing to do with their equal
standing in Christ or their ultimate worth; it is simply a matter of God-given
role differences in certain areas. Radical feminism has infected the church
causing some people to ignore this differentiation in the created order
established by God.
Difficulties in translating from the original languages can
also cause interpretative problems. The long dispute over the meaning of
baptism might have been avoided had the translators of the early manuscripts of
the Greek New Testament translated the Greek word instead of transliterating
it. Translation involves finding a word in the target language that matches the
meaning of the original. In the case of baptism, the original Greek word was
baptizo (βαπτίζω). In Greek, the word clearly means immersion. Because there
was already an ongoing debate as to the method and timing of the sacrament,
translators punted by transliterating. This left the issue up to the
theologians to debate.
I believe the Roman church wanted as many converts as
possible, so they ignored the New Testament practice of believer’s baptism and
replaced it with infant “baptism,” and since you couldn’t very well immerse an
infant, sprinkling became the method of choice. In the Protestant Reformation,
Luther and Calvin kept the practice and the timing despite its dubious
Scriptural authenticity. Their defense was that baptism replaced the rite of
circumcision as a sign of the covenant, thus retaining the possibility of
bringing infants into the church. They invented the concept of confirmation
(not Scripturally based) to allow older persons to “confirm” that their infant
baptism had indeed brought them into Christ.
There are numerous other issues that have divided the church
over the centuries. The baptism of the Spirit, the practice of miraculous
gifts, the role of church hierarchy, the completeness of the canon of
Scripture, the meaning of the sacrament of communion, the necessary and
sufficient steps of salvation, the precise details of the end times, these and
many more have their basis in interpretive differences. It may sound arrogant
for me to say my interpretation of a disputable issue is correct, and someone else
is wrong. All I can do is practice the best interpretive techniques and, above
all, listen to the Holy Spirit. When that is done, I can confidently say it’s
just my interpretation, but I’m pretty sure I’m right.
Related Posts: Take
the Bible Literally; Understanding
the Bible as Literature; The
Vulture Has Landed; The
Importance of Being Right
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