Understanding the Bible More Deeply: Investigation

As I pointed out in the last article, the Bible wasn’t written in our cultural context. It was written by and to a people long ago with a different culture. They had different practices and routines, different political situations, and different popular philosophies. No doubt as we read the Bible we will encounter many references to things that are unfamiliar to us.

Also, as I pointed out in the previous article, reading the Bible over and over will result in noticing things we didn’t notice before. In early readings of the Bible, we will have a tendency to skip over things that we don’t recognize when they appear in the midst of things we do recognize. As we read through the Bible, it is likely that new things will strike us as something we need to investigate in order to understand the passage better.

Fortunately, we are blessed in these days to have rich resources for investigating these kinds of things. There are Bible handbooks, Bible dictionaries, commentaries, etc. I recommend checking more than one. Different aspects of information might be available in the work of different scholars.

Don’t be alarmed if you find that they don’t agree. You will be able to get a fuller view of uncertainty in scholarship that way. If the observation is related to a theological point of view, you will be able to see why something either supports or undermines your own point of view and you will be able to refine your thinking.

So you grow more deeply in your understanding as you gain more information on what you are reading. You also grow more deeply in your understanding as your own previous beliefs are challenged.

Hiding Place: Deliverance from Sin or a Prison

Linda

Years ago I was friends with an elderly lady who sang baritone with me in the choir at one of the base chapels at Camp Lejune, NC. Her name was Linda. She died over a decade ago.

Linda’s parents were German musicians who were killed in a train accident just before WWII. Linda spent the next few years in a Catholic school in Berlin during the war. She would take bread to the French prisoners of war.

She invited me to a thanksgiving dinner one year where she had some Austrian friends from the old country coming to visit. The dinner was lovely and I enjoyed the cultural experience. After her friends left, Linda sat down with me and told me of the old days. She told me how she saw the propaganda of the Third Reich and how deeply it influenced her thinking. She also told me how wrong it all was, but how hard she struggled against her indoctrination. She told me how she knew it was wrong to hate Jews, but that she wrestled with her training as a young child to hate them.

She told me other things as well about how brutal some of the Allies were, particularly the Russians. She told me how she came to America and took speech lessons to remove the German accent, How she married and remarried. How evil her second husband was and how he was spending time in Leavenworth prison. Even colonels with spotless records can commit crimes. She told me of her hidden son who lived, yet as little more than a spectre, after a serious automobile accident cause by his use of drugs.

In all of this, she left the Roman Catholic Church and found solace in the gospel of grace. A military wife, she stayed close to the base and the transient families she knew there.

Her story is an echo of many. I’ve been fascinated with how such deceit as what was propagated by the Nazis can affect entire populations of people. Last night I watched a documentary following the children and grandchildren of Hitler’s top men as they fought against the dark legacy of their infamous fathers. It reminds me of the warnings in Exodus where the iniquity of the fathers will be visited on their children and grandchildren. Although their descendents did not commit the crimes of their fathers, they bear the weight of guilt among those who survived their father’s sins.

I’ve also watched Lore recently. It’s a German movie about children of Nazi parents who fled across country to their grandmother’s house when their parents were taken prisoner in the Allies’ invasion of Germany. Many of the reviewers noted that the kids acted like brats. Frankly, they aren’t any worse than the kids Hollywood portrays. It’s odd that we are quick to judge Nazi kids while giving the kids on, say, Home Alone, a pass.

(Note: Being a foreign film, Lore isn’t rated. It should be rated R. There are adult themes and images. Beware if you plan to watch this.)

But I compare this also to the 2009 portrayal of the Diary of Anne Frank. My favorite portrayal was the 1980 version. After watching this one, I see how filtered the 1980 version was. The 2009 version showed a bit more the bratty side of Anne Frank. Are victims less sinful than their murderers?

On the one hand, we would note that a murderer committed a crime. It is no crime to be victimized. However, the nature that rises up to fuel a murderer is shared by all people. We are all products of a fallen world and subject to the dubious information that colors it darkly. It is perhaps more apparent to those with murderous parents, such as the offspring of Himmler, Goering and Goeth. They are more able to recognize the evil in their own hearts because of the astonishing sins of their fathers because of the difficulty in coming to terms with sins they did not commit. For that matter, think of the Jews born in captivity during the exile in Babylon and Persia. They didn’t commit the sins that sent their parents into exile, yet they must bear the burden of those sins.

For others, who have lived in relative peace by parents who are relatively decent people, sin seems to be more of an abstract thing. In this case, fairness becomes the arbiter of sin. It is easy to believe that which is fair is good and that which is unfair is evil. It is easy to arrive at the conclusion that being fair makes one a sinless person.

So it is hard for such people to understand that God is not fair. Jesus, the only truly innocent man, paid the price for the sins of evil people. That’s not fair. It can only be fully understood by people who truly see the depths of their own sin, whether that sin has resulted in action or harbored only in the mist of dark thoughts and desires.

Linda knew the sin she was capable of and fought against it while all around her swarmed the stench and decay of death in the sins of others. Let us not treat slavery to righteousness as a prison when we are hidden from our destruction as Anne Frank and her family was for a time. Let us regard our hideaway in Christ soberly and not despise it. Let us not be brats in the Body of Christ.

5. I acknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not cover my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah

6. Therefore let everyone who is godly
offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found;
surely in the rush of great waters,
they shall not reach him.

7. You are a hiding place for me;
you preserve me from trouble;
you surround me with shouts of deliverance. Selah (Psalm 32:5-7, ESV)

Understanding the Bible More Deeply: Additive Reading

One key area where education practitioners test students to indicate development in verbal skills is reading comprehension and retention. If everyone were the same, they wouldn’t need to test students to see what their current abilities are. The fact is that none of us have perfect comprehension and retention. When we read something for the first time, we don’t fully apprehend its meaning. I have email replies from people asking questions that I answered in my original email. I know for a fact that they didn’t get it.

The Bible is no small tome. Its material is typically referentially anachronistic from our point of view. That is to say that it wasn’t written by or to people with our cultural sensibilities. It can be difficult reading and it can be easily misunderstood if care is not taken to understand what is written in the various contexts.

It is common for pastors who have been well trained and have already read the Bible through many times to read a passage over and over before they develop a sermon on it. If pastors have a need to do this, how much more do the rest of us need to read passages multiple times in order to understand the full import of the meaning?

The reason is because there is a principle where reading some over again allows us to notice things that we missed or don’t remember the first time. Unless we re-read the Bible many times we cannot claim to have much of an understanding of it. Some people may require fewer readings to understand it deeply. Others may need to read the Bible more in order to understand it more deeply. Regardless whether your comprehension and retention is better or worse than others, we all need to read the Bible over and over again to understand it more deeply.

“Not Everyone Agrees” – A Bad Argument

There’s an argument that I hear or read more often than not. It’s used typically by people who have a theological view that differs from the predominant view. A discussion will arise about some point regarding the predominant view and someone will step in with a view that disagrees with the predominant view. After a couple of arguments or explanations are bandied back and forth, if the person lobbying the opposing view senses that the argument is going badly for them, then they make this argument to give some sense of legitimacy to their position.

Now they don’t typically state the argument as a dry proposition.  Usually it will be worded something like this:

“All I’m trying to say is that there are people who disagree that this biblical passage means what you say that it means.”

Or:

“My point is that not everyone agrees on this theological issue.”

The argument that is insinuated is that the case for the legitimacy of a position is made by trading on the fact that people don’t agree. This argument assumes that the disagreement doesn’t include heresy. It also fails to make the observation that only one mutually exclusive truth is possible. Therefore, only one view can actually be true.

Now there are areas of theological disagreement that are legitimately subject to uncertainty based on different hermeneutical presuppositional structures. That’s a mouthful for most of you so I’ll break it down. Hermeneutics is the area of theological discovery that applies principles for understanding written text. This is where you investigate the writer and the audience, the sentence structures, the cultural context, figures of speech and idiomatic expressions, etc. When using these kinds of principles you often find a variety of possible meanings depending on how you apply the principles. Some passages are simply clearer than others. In order to understand more difficult passages, it helps to use facts learned in clearer passages to shed light on which meaning is most possible. As the Bible is studied and various facts understood, it helps to arrange these facts in logical associations to see the larger truth. Some facts depend on other facts and ultimately a small set of related facts will form that foundational truth for how you understand the rest of the Bible. This is your presuppositional structure.

Ideally, a presuppositional structure is formed by hermeneutical principles consistently applied to the scriptures. Unfortunately, most people will have a set of ideas already in place as their initial presuppositional structure and they will apply hermeneutical principles in such a way as to reinforce it rather than to change their presuppositional structure as consistently applied hermeneutical principles contradict their presuppositional structure. So where one presuppositional structure is suggested by the Bible, many people end up with different presuppositional structures.

Let me pick one of the less-controversial conflicts to use as an example. The Bible doesn’t say that the pets we have here in this world will be resurrected in the next. In fact, as far as the Bible is concerned only humans will be resurrected. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be animals of some sort in the hereafter. The Bible simply doesn’t focus on this. It’s not important. This is a consistent way of approaching the Bible. I’m looking at what the Bible views as important. I have pets that I enjoy as companions but I don’t expect to have them with me for all time and it’s not important to me because it’s not important in the Bible.

However, it is important to some people. They are particularly attached to their pets. Instead of letting the Bible guide their thinking on this, they import ideas that are foundational to understanding the Bible so that the Bible ends up meaning what the Bible never teaches. These ideas are things like, “God just wants me to be happy,” “Fluffy and Fido make me happy,” and “God gave me Fluffy and Fido to make me happy.” Therefore, they conclude, “God will give me Fluffy and Fido in heaven to make me happy.” So they read the Bible with this logic in mind as to how they should apply hermeneutical principles to understand the Bible. Since they don’t see a passage that specifically says that pets won’t be in heaven, they dismiss the passages that when taken together logically won’t allow that conclusion.

So let’s say there’s a discussion about animals in heaven. These passages are brought up. But the person who holds the pet-friendly hermeneutic is upset because people are saying that pets we have today like Fluffy and Fido won’t join us in the resurrection and be our companions for all time. They jump in with a contention against this. When the consistent hermeneutic is explained, they retreat to the argument I spelled out in the beginning of this article.

Believing that Fluffy and Fido will be resurrected isn’t specifically a heretical idea. It’s a bad one and an erroneous one, but we know that we have some church members who insist on these kinds of errors for their own reasons.

But there are people who espouse heresy who resort to that same argument. That’s why it’s important to point out that it’s a bad argument. Just because people disagree within the realm of orthodox Christianity doesn’t mean that both are true. Only one is true. The other is in error although not in a bad way. Dr. Al Mohler has developed his theological triage and wrote about it 8 years ago. It’s an extremely helpful tool for analyzing theological error.

Just because people can disagree on one level that carries some legitimate uncertainty doesn’t mean that people can disagree on another level with the same legitimate uncertainty. If the Bible is clear about a matter, it’s not open for debate within orthodox circles. It’s clear heresy. Today orthodox Christians have the sensibility that no one is going to be killed for being a heretic. That unfortunate historical approach in itself should be considered heretical. However, it is academically and pastorally necessary to point out mistaken beliefs among people who profess to be Christians. That includes pointing out the error in this kind of an argument.

Is Love Powerful?

In watching a video of Ken Meyers delivering a keynote address at Hope College, he quotes literary and social critic, Marion Montgomery, as saying, “The opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is power.” (HT: Justin Taylor)

Quotes like this in their brevity require a bit of interpretation. On the surface, this idea seems curious. What did Marion Montgomery mean by this? I’m not very familiar with Marion Montgomery. Is he a Christian? A quick glance at Wikipedia indicates that he was perhaps Roman Catholic. How faithful he was to that is anyone’s guess. I suspect that most people who would read this don’t have a clue.

So we first contemplate the most reasonable possible meaning of this statement by asking the question: In what ways is power antithetical to love? Perhaps Montgomery was thinking about the tendency of people to seek power over other people in the ordering of lives for the sake of enhancing the quality of their own life at the expense of the quality of another’s life. Given the Montgomery was a social critic, this makes sense. Perhaps one could draw some distinction between this kind of power-seeking and hatred, although the two overlap in some ways.

Does this make sense theologically? Jesus told the disciples in Mark 10:42ff that rulers of the Gentiles lord it over people, but that it should not be so among them. The idea of power-hunger is in some significant way not the way leadership should be carried out among Christians. This seems reasonable.

Now there are Christians who think this way fundamentally. If we love God, we should submit to him. That is, our love for God is to give up power over ourselves. But they apply the same thinking to God. Since god loves us, he’s a “gentleman”. That is, he doesn’t try to control us. If the opposite of love is power, then God cannot be both loving and all-powerful.

The problem is that this is not what the Bible teaches. Not only is God loving and all-powerful, he is love and power.

Now the observation that people who are hungry for power are sinfully hateful in doing so does not negate that power used righteously is loving. Think of a person who lacks the ability to care for himself. It is loving for someone who is able to exert power over that person in order to seek the best interest of the one who is incapable.

This concept plays into the debate over Reformed theology. Those who oppose it say that man is capable of choosing Christ on his own. Therefore, it is not loving for God to exhibit power over men. Those who are Reformed in their thinking say that man in incapable of choosing Christ on his own. Therefore, it is loving for God to use his power to give him the ability to make that choice.

There are more refined nuances that I won’t go into regarding different strains of Reformed thinking. However, I will note that if Montgomery were steeped in Catholic thinking, this would comport with the idea that power is the opposite of love.

We all have some power over other people. Just by saying hello or ignoring someone on the street has some effect on the people we encounter. Actions that are truly loving in nature are powerful. My fellow Christians, let us conduct ourselves in such a way as to convey the love of Christ that people will be warmed to his message. That we can give the gift of the Holy Spirit who raised Christ from the dead and can resurrect the souls of those we meet.

That’s the power of love.

God’s Calling To Ministry

Dr. Al Mohler has reposted an article online regarding discerning a call to ministry. His focus is geared particularly to preaching. However, he opens up the call at the end of the article to other servants.

My first response is always that my heart leaps at this kind of message. On some deep level I personally would love to be a pastor. I never turn down an opportunity to preach if I’m available to do so.

My second response is content resignation that I’m not called to be pastor. I recognize a deficiency in my gifting at present that would make me a substandard pastor. If called upon to serve, I would probably prayerfully accept. However, I would be utterly dependent on God for carrying me through the task of ministering to the spiritual condition of a body of believers. Dr. Mohler indicates an outward call. It’s likely that my weaknesses are evident enough that there is little confirmation from others that this is something I’m called to.

I’m not bad as a preacher. On the other hand, I’m not that great either. I need a lot more practice. I have a heart for teaching, but preaching, while relying on a good part of teaching, is geared toward a supernatural persuasiveness that reconciles people with God, sanctifies believers and unifies them under a common ideology and purpose that we know as the gospel and the great commission. I’ve experienced the moving of the Holy Spirit in the pulpit to accomplish what I cannot on my own, particularly at times on the mission field. What most strikes me at the times when I have entered the pulpit is a chilling sense of imminent danger for the people before me. No matter what expectations they have, they must encounter the living God and I am responsible if I succumb to some temptation to teach what isn’t true. It is incumbent on whoever stands before the Body of Christ and presumes to preach to faithfully convey what has been given to us to know from the Bible and nothing else. Lives hang in the balance and there is a spiritual battle for them.

Although I’m not called at present to be a pastor, I am nonetheless a Christian. If you truly trust the work of Christ on the cross, you are a Christian also. As part of the Body of Christ we are all charged with ministry. The Pastor is only one of many kinds of workers in the Kingdom of God. While I think Dr. Mohler is primarily focused on the call to full-time ministry, all of us are ministers. The call to be a pastor seems rather clear and I envy those who have such a clear call. For most of us, I think we don’t have a call to a particular function with such clarity. It can be frustrating to want to minister to people so badly it hurts and simply don’t know what to do. Nevertheless, we must diligently seek to apply what gifts we have.

Finding True Love In Your Marriage

Mike Leake graciously asked if I would write a guest article to be posted on his site, which I was more than happy to do. The article is entitled "Love in the Trinity" and introduces the basis for a lesson I plan to teach at Equipping University Wednesday night at 6:30 at Western Avenue Baptist Church. That lesson will be entitled "Finding True Love In Your Marriage". If you are looking for true love in your marriage and are in the vicinity of Statesville, NC, come in and learn what it's all about.