Part 3 | Reading the Bible

May 2020 Reading the bible with the head But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:14-17) The Bible is ‘breathed out by God’ in a way no other writings are. ̶ As ‘sacred…Scripture’ it deserves our reverent attention and wholehearted response. ̶ God speaks through it to bring us to salvation through faith in Jesus, and then to train and equip us for godly living and good work. The purpose of listening to God’s word in the Bible is our transformation, not just our information. ̶ For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12) In view of this, it makes sense to do our best to understand what the Bible says as accurately and fully as we can, in order that we interpret it appropriately (rightly handling the word of truth, 2 Timothy 2:15) and apply it intelligently (in your thinking be mature, 1 Corinthians 14:20), so that its transforming power can have full effect. ̶ What writing could be more important than the word of God, or more worth our best efforts to understand? The bible contains 66 individual books written over several centuries by many authors in different languages and cultures, including kinds of writing as diverse as prayers and poems, histories and allegories, laws and lists, visions and prophecies, proverbs and love songs, gospels and letters. ̶ Much of this is readily intelligible to an attentive reader with minimal background knowledge, but much of it is not 1 ̶ All of it can be understood and appreciated in much greater depth and accuracy if we use the commentaries, study guides, background information and explanations available at every level in written, spoken and visual formats. There is a danger of reading Scripture as a merely academic exercise and not thinking for ourselves or hearing directly from God because we are passively dependent on the views of ‘experts’ – and how can we be sure whether these are reliable guides? ̶ Jesus encountered biblical scholars whose hearts were turned away from God (John 5:39-40) and warned his followers more than once about such ‘blind guides’ (Matthew 15:14; 23:16, 24). And the apostle Paul warned that the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. (2 Timothy 4:3-4). But there are dangers, too, in ignoring the wealth of helpful and reliable resources to aid our better understanding of the meaning of the Bible. ̶ It could be rather naïve, even arrogant, to think that we are more likely to gain an accurate and adequate grasp of Scripture by relying on our own insight, inevitably limited and personally skewed, however devoutly and prayerfully we approach it. ̶ Perhaps we feel we are relying not on our own insight but on the Holy Spirit’s illumination; but, again, does that require us to ignore all the illumination that the Holy Spirit has been bringing to the church for the last two millennia? The fact is, people sometimes use bible texts to support all kinds of odd ideas, either because they are not properly paying attention to what it actually says, or because they chose an interpretation that fits better what they would like it to mean. From Paul’s encouragement to Timothy to continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, we may perhaps take two useful criteria for discerning which guides to biblical understanding may be more trustworthy. 1. It helps to know something about the person offering the interpretation/explanation (knowing from whom you learned it): ̶ whether they hold to the basic, orthodox Christian faith (as expressed, for example, in the historic creeds and confessions of the church); ̶ whether their lives and characters give evidence of devotion to Jesus (who himself said that false prophets can be recognised by their fruits, Matthew 7:15-20); 2 ̶ whether they are held in esteem as trustworthy by the wider Christian community (3 John 10-12). 2. It is wise to be wary about novelty (rather than what has been long recognised, in Timothy’s case from childhood) – that is, novelty in interpretation and explanation of what the biblical text means. ̶ When Jesus was asked for interpretation of religious law about divorce or Sabbath, he took his hearers back to God’s original intentions as set out in the earlier parts of the Bible, by contrast with the additional regulations that people had added. ̶ When the apostle John was dealing with false teaching he commended his own teaching as something we have had from the beginning, whereas everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God (2 John 5,9). Novelty of application is an essential and valuable thing – asking how what the Bible says applies to us individually, and in our own particular culture and context. But novelty of interpretation and explanation calls for caution, especially if it touches on central aspects of Christian faith and practice: ̶ Perhaps it is the Holy Spirit guiding us into more accurate and adequate understanding; but perhaps more likely it should be tested against the guidance which the church has believed the Holy Spirit to have brought for a very long time. ̶ Even at those times in history when reformers like Martin Luther challenged interpretations of Scripture widely held by the contemporary church, their challenge was not based on novelty so much as recovery of an original understanding that had been lost. In case all this sounds overly complicated or demanding, a good place to start is to use one of the many study bibles available, which provide for each chapter a simple explanation of the background, context, type of writing, meaning of obscure terms, and perhaps links with other chapters. If this is all we use, it should go a long way to keep us from misinterpreting as we read. Understanding the text with our minds as well as we can is not an end in itself, but a means of engaging with it at a heart level – for transformation of our lives in every part and the development of lived relationship with God. 3 But it is an important preliminary; how can we expect God to bring his word to bear on our lives in a transformative way if we are interpreting what he says in a way quite different from what he meant? PART 1 – QUESTIONS What steps am I taking, or will now begin to take, to understand what the Bible says with my mind as accurately and adequately as I can? If I notice a resistance within me to doing this, what might that resistance be about? How can we listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying to us through Scripture in such a way that: - we honour what the Holy Spirit has been saying through Scripture to the whole church for a long time; - we relate this to our own specific lives, cultures and contexts in ways that are novel in application; - we neither get stuck in our heads, nor bypass our minds, but are guided through mature thinking into wholehearted devotion to Jesus? 4 Reading the Bible with the heart It might seem obvious that reading to understand the text of Scripture with our minds is a necessary first step towards engaging with it at a heart level. And never before has the follower of Jesus been able to learn so much about the language and grammar of the text, the historical and cultural background, the literary types and techniques. It might be surprising, therefore, to realise that the blessings of all this analytical biblical scholarship carry also some dangers to be wary of. In Western culture and education, we have been used to the idea that what we think and what we do may be quite separate. ̶ In some areas of public life and professional work, this appears to be common, and in some sections of the Church the gap between understanding Christian faith and practising Christian discipleship has been often lamented. By contrast, in Eastern Orthodox tradition the trusted interpreters of the Bible are the people whose lives are marked by devotion to God: the scholars are the saints. The assumption is that: ̶ the Bible is more than just a text to be analysed, but a text through which God communicates with us; ̶ understanding truth requires the right heart attitude as well as the right intellectual approach; ̶ human reason is limited in its ability to grasp God’s revelation; that when we try to fit all the Bible says into neat rational systems of explanation we tend to distort it and to eliminate aspects of paradox and mystery; ̶ we need to read the Bible with the heart not just after we have understood it correctly but in order to understand it correctly. The Bible itself underlines the importance of both head and heart. ̶ We considered earlier the importance the apostle Paul attached to rightly handling the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15) and applying it intelligently (in your thinking be mature, 1 Corinthians 14:20). 5 ̶ But the same apostle also had little patience for merely human wisdom or intellectual cleverness (1 Corinthians 1:17 – 3:4), since the things of God are spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14). ̶ Jesus attributed people’s failure to understand him to hardness of heart rather than slowness of mind (Luke 8:9-15; Mark 8:17). All this suggests that we need to read the Bible with more than just our rational faculties, and that it conveys more than just rational meanings and truths about doctrines. ̶ Not ‘less than’ – not becoming irrational, or reading into the text interpretations and applications that are not legitimately there or even quite contrary to its plain meaning – but ‘more than’ one-dimensionally analytical. There is a very long history of interpreting the text of the Bible in more-than-rational ways, and there is good reason to suppose that until recent centuries most people read it less to study its meaning than to encounter God through it. From the early centuries of the Church’s history, people were encouraged to discern the moral and spiritual meanings of a text as well as its natural and historical meanings. Sometimes the moral meanings and implications of a text are explicit (such as the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament or the love commandments in the New Testament). At other times, the text provides clues by which to interpret the moral implications. ̶ For example, the sometimes bizarre behaviours evident in the Book of Judges are to be interpreted through the moral key that frames the book, that in those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes (Judges 21:25). ̶ Both Jesus and the apostle Paul taught that the Old Testament Law of Moses was a provision to restrain human wrongdoing rather than a description of ideal moral behaviours (Mark 10:5; Galatians 3:19). Frequently, the New Testament brings out the moral implications of Old Testament texts that transcend their original meaning. ̶ Paul says that the law about not muzzling an ox when it’s treading out the grain was written for our sake because it implies the moral principle that if we have sown spiritual things among you … we reap material things from you (1 Corinthians 9:11). ̶ The accounts of the failures of God’s people in the days of Moses are to be read as an example … written down for our instruction so as to avoid in our own day the same kind of idolatry and complaining that they fell into in theirs (1 Corinthians 10:612). 6 In a similar way, Biblical texts and events often point to a spiritual meaning beyond the immediate literal ones. ̶ Jesus often drew spiritual lessons from material observations, such as the implications to be drawn from birds, field flowers and normal parenting for the character and care of God (Matthew 6:25-34; 7:9-11). ̶ In a world in which nature reveals something of God (Romans 1:20; Psalm 19:1) and in which language is richly symbolic and metaphorical much of the time, it is common for words and events to have multiple layers of meaning. ̶ One reason for the power of Jesus’ parables (‘parable’ literally meaning bringing one idea ‘alongside’ another to illumine understanding) is that they are not merely clever analogies but they illustrate the real and meaningful connections between the material and spiritual aspects of life. Biblical prophecy frequently has multiple levels of meaning and fulfilment ̶ The apostle Paul interpreted the promise of offspring to Abraham to refer not just to his son Isaac but to his distant descendant Jesus, and Abraham’s two wives Sarah and Hagar to refer to two covenants (Galatians 3:16; 4:24) ̶ The prophecy of Joel about a locust swarm referred to a limited historical fulfilment and an ultimate ‘judgment day’ fulfilment ̶ The prophecy of Isaiah about a child to be born to a young maiden was fulfilled in ways beyond his own horizon in the virgin birth of Jesus. The Bible makes substantial use of allegory and typology to illustrate the spiritual meaning of material things and events, and the deeper spiritual reality underlying the whole of the Bible’s storyline which is that everything points towards or away from the central figure of Jesus. ̶ The New Testament book of Hebrews is largely an outline of how the Old Testament law and religious practices were types and symbols of the greater spiritual reality to be found in Jesus – a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities (Hebrews 10:1). ̶ As Paul told the Colossian church, in reference to Old Testament practices relating to meals, festivals and sabbaths, these are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ (Colossians 2:17). ̶ In all this, the New Testament authors were following the example of Jesus himself, who beginning with Moses and all the Prophets … interpreted … in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself (Luke 24:27). 7 How, then, does this recognition – that the Bible needs to be listened to for its moral and spiritual meanings as well as its literal and historical ones – affect the way we read it beyond just rational study and analysis? 1. It encourages in us a greater humility. ̶ We come not so much to evaluate and scrutinise, and to decide what we can agree with or how we can fit it into our own worldview. ̶ Rather, we come to be scrutinised and evaluated by God’s word – standing under it rather than over it – to receive reproof… correction, and… training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16), and to hear God’s response to the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Hebrews 4:12) so that we can fit our worldview and way of living into God’s truth, will and order. 2. It encourages in us a greater engagement of our emotions and imagination – important aspects of our heart, mind, soul and strength with which we are to love God (Mark 12:30). ̶ As with praying, so with reading Scripture, it is not irrational to engage the nonrational alongside the rational (1 Corinthians 14:15). ̶ Receiving God’s word is not a ho-hum exercise of bookish comprehension, but a soul-stirring response to something living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit (Hebrews 4:12). ̶ Receiving God’s word brings joy and delight (Jeremiah 15:16), and warms the heart (Luke 24:32); it also delivers hammer blows (Jeremiah 23:29), bringing us to silence or repentance (Job 40:4-5; 42:1-6). ̶ The imaginative visions and prophecies of biblical authors like Ezekiel, Daniel and John give evidence of deep and prayerful meditation on earlier Scriptures. Author David Gibson suggests some emotional attitudes that can help us listen with our hearts to the moral and spiritual meaning of the Bible: - Expecting to be surprised, to learn, to hear something new. - Looking for how the text addresses our needs and desires, concerns and confusions; how it guides, comforts and reassures us. - Letting the text confront, challenge, offend and discomfort us; letting it humble our pride, reverse our expectations, upset our priorities, offend our behaviour, challenge our thinking. 8 You may be able to add to this list. What steps am I taking, or will now begin to take, to approach what the Bible says with a heart attitude that enables me to be enriched, challenged and changed? If I notice a resistance within me to doing this, what might that resistance be about? How might journaling or spiritual conversation with another Christian help me to read the Bible with heart and head? 9