Margaret Silf [tells] a story about
a salad bowl. She tells of a friend’s induction [as a minister] and of the
feast that followed. The members of the congregation tucked into the feast, and
soon hardly anything was left … except for a large bowl of rice salad.
Eventually she realized why: someone had forgotten to put a serving spoon in
the dish. … This course is designed to provide a good spoon to begin (or continue!)
the feast on scripture, which continually renews and satisfies our appetite.
So this morning I want to help us understand how to read the
Bible, our Bible, the church’s Bible.
I begin with the kind of “principles of interpretation” that
we used to always mention. They are still true, but secondary to the main point
(which follows).
— Type of language: Pay attention to
whether a passage is ordinary speech or sarcasm or metaphor or exaggeration,
etc. Such as Jesus, “Take the log out of your own eye.”
— Type of genre: Observe whether you
are reading poetry, or theological history (not the same as reading a
newspaper), or parable, etc.
— The plain meaning whenever possible:
Don’t use “interpretation” to twist the passage into what you want.
— Interpret Scripture with Scripture: Paul
says in 1 Cor 14 that women should keep silence in church, but in 1 Cor 11 he says that they
should wear a covering on their heads a sign of their authority to pray and
prophesy (preach) in church. Listening to the whole of Scripture saves us from
many problems.
— Context, context, context! Cultural
context, historical context, literary context.
— And so on.
We can learn from some of our Anabaptist cousins, in this
case the Brethren in Christ. From a 1986 consultation on a BIC way to interpret
Scripture:
— NT
interprets OT: “The New is in the Old contained; the Old is by the New
explained.”
— Both
centre on Jesus: The disciples reinterpreted everything they knew about
Scripture in the light of the amazing discovery that Jesus was the Messiah, the
Son of God.
— Pure heart and mind: If you are in
rebellion against God, you won’t understand God’s Word Written.
— Commitment to obey: In order to
understand, you must be ready to obey what you hear God say.
— Read in community: No “private
interpretation” (an extension of 2 Peter 1:20f).
But more important than all of these, and more important than others that we
could mention, is the foundational principle: The Bible is first of all a story. In her
syllabus for the course, Reading the Church’s Bible, Lissa Wray Beal quotes
from Bartholomew and Goheen:
Many of us have read the Bible as
if it were merely a mosaic of little bits—theological bits, moral bits,
historical-critical bits, sermon bits, devotional bits. But when we read the
Bible in such a fragmented way, we ignore its divine author’s intention to
shape our lives through its story. All human societies live out of some story
that provides a context for understanding the meaning of history and give shape
and direction to their lives. If we allow the Bible to become fragmented, it is
in danger of being absorbed into whatever other
story is shaping our culture, and it will thus cease to shape our lives as it
should. … If as believers we allow this story (rather than the Bible) to become
the foundation of our thought and action, then our lives will manifest not the
truths of Scripture, but the lies of an idolatrous culture.”
We read Psalm 78 to begin with. Like Nehemiah in his prayer
(Nehemiah 9) and Stephen in his defense before the Sanhedrin (Acts 7) this
psalm tells the story of God’s people—excerpted from the great story of creation
and fall to redemption in the Christ-event. So the most important thing is that
the Bible is the story!
— Read the Bible as a story!
— Genesis to Revelation: the story of
“God’s Mighty Saving Acts”
— Genesis: the problem: God made us—we
pushed him out of our lives
— The rest of the Bible: the story of
how God tries to get back into our lives
— A story with a difference: IT’S
TRUE!
But, you may ask, “Is not the Bible full of promises of hope
and directions to follow?” Certainly. Psalm 78 says to tell the story so that
the children yet to be born will follow God, so that they will know his
promises and obey his commands. But promises and directions are like the bacon
in a wonderful casserole. No matter how much you like bacon, you don’t pick out
only the bacon and leave the rest, and then say you have eaten the whole meal. Some
might actually do this, but they would be wrong about nutrition, and if you do
it with the Bible you miss the best thing of all, the way that God wants to
transform you with divine reality.
You see, the Bible is a story with a difference. There are
many stories out there—Game of Thrones; Downton Abbey; LOTR; The Matrix; Doctor
Who—but the Bible has something more. It is true! Rooted in history, but truer
at even deeper levels than history: The Bible tells us the truth about God and
all humanity. It is the story of salvation history, what G.E. Wright calls “the
mighty saving acts of God”.
The key to this story is Jesus. The whole Bible intends to
bring you to Jesus, to “the human face of God”. In the garden the first human
pair pushed God out of their lives. The rest of the Bible tells the story of
how God seeks to get back into our lives, culminating in Jesus, the Messiah. So
1 Cor 15: I passed on to you what I received as of first importance: and then
Paul tells the story of Jesus.
A few weeks ago a couple named Peter and Liz stayed with us.
We learned a bit of Peter’s story—from a Christian home, attending a Christian
college, then he started reading the story of Jesus and met Jesus in a new and powerful
way. He changed direction to follow God’s call, eventually graduating from
college and going to Chicago to live in an intentional Christian community. Now
they live in London, England, in an apartment complex with Bangladeshi
families, building bridges between Christians and Muslims, being Christ to
their neighbours. When Peter met Jesus as he read the gospels, Jesus
transformed him completely.
The Bible seeks to bring us first of all to Jesus. When we
meet Jesus, he changes us forever!
3 comments:
You make many interesting points.
I particularly resonate with the point about reading it whole. That's one of the reasons I am not fond of people posting single Bible verses on Facebook. I ALWAYS look at the context of a verse--frequently the surrounding verses give a more full, and occasionally a different, meaning to the individual verse.
I am also reminded of what Bob Sider used to say when he was teaching a Bible course..."they never should have unchained the Bible from the pulpit." I do understand the humor of his statement--but he also was making a point that amateur interpretation can really alter for the worse some passages in the Bible.
Mind you, chaining the Bible to the experts had more negative than positive effects. An older generation, who read only the Bible, probably got the storyline right -- along with interpretations of specific passages that would have made the authors squirm. But that was my main point anyway: Read the whole story! I could give examples of how that changes reading Joshua and Judges, for example, but blogs are a poor forum, and I'm a beginner exegete.
I might add that the bacon of individual verses can still be good. Just don't mistake them for the real food.
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