“It Means What It Says . . ,”

A LOOK AT A “CHURCH OF CHRIST” SHIBBOLETH
by ROBERT R. MEYERS

Imagine a sailing ship trying to escape a crowded harbor for the wide sea. but running repeatedly into a huge rock blocking her exits. The ship is sea-worthy, her sails are generous, the wind blows in the right direction. But she cannot get out upon the open sea because each time she begins to move she smashes into the rock.

The rock that keeps so many of us in the Church of Christ from sailing out of the close harbor is the fallacy that we do not interpret the Bible. We are seaworthy people, with generous impulses and good hearts. The wind is blowing today in the right direction. But every time someone tries to get us to face the open sea, and the life of freedom we were meant for, the rock rears up.

It works this way. We are convinced that while others may interpret the Bible, and get it wrong in the process, we never do so. “We do not interpret it,” we say. “We just let it mean what it says, and we do it.”

Until this barrier is out of the way, it is almost hopeless to try to tell people that God has not elected our own small group to be the only wise readers of his word. We cannot even talk about the impossibility of our being “infallible interpreters” because the reply comes back at once, “God’s word does not have to be interpreted. It means just what it says.” After this, it is useless to say that we ought to remember that our interpretations could be wrong, or that the interpretations of others may at least be of equal validity.

What Is Interpretation?

I am persuaded that until one can get a man to see that any attempt to under-stand a spoken or written word is an interpretative act, it is almost hopeless to talk with him about whether his views can bear close scrutiny. As long as he equates his understanding of God’s word with that word itself, he is immune to open discussion. Without meaning to, he makes himself equal with God, since only the speaker of words can be expected to be absolutely positive about every nuance of meaning which they may carry. To attack such a man’s interpretation is to him like attacking God, or God’s word itself, and this he cannot permit. His emotions surge and swirl, and reason is blocked. The good ship flounders again upon the rock.

No one has stated this more succinctly than Carl Ketcherside, who pointed out in his February ‘62 Mission Messenger that our people cannot distinguish between revelation and interpretation.

“Revelation is what God has said. Interpretation is what men think he meant by what he said. Revelation is divine. It is the disclosure of the infinite mind. Interpretation is the application of the human mind in an attempt to fathom the divine disclosure. We are bound to recognize revelation as our source of authority because of our relationship to God. We are not bound to recognize the interpretation of any man as authoritative to us unless it commends itself as truth to our own mind and conscience. We are not to be judged by any man in that realm because in it no man is master of another.”

This is so important that I should be happy to think that my readers would pause right now and read it again, carefully. The interpretive act is constantly required of us. Every utterance, oral or written, is interpreted before it communicates anything. A girl walking home with her boy friend says, “Oh, you’re a crazy thing!” From context — from her eyes, voice tone, facial and bodily carriage, comments before and after that remark — from all these, he will make an interpretation of her words.

If his interpretation is extremely literal, and he trusts her absolutely, he may leave at once to apply for admittance to an asylum. If his interpretation is figurative, he may understand the remark to mean, “I don’t like you at all,” and he may give up this courtship as a hopeless one. Or, if his interpretation is figurative, he may understand the remark to mean, “I adore you, but I won’t be sugary about it,” and in this case he will thrill with happiness about the arch declaration she has made.

Since the boy will probably be acutely sensitive to context he is likely to make the right interpretation. Yet all of us know that in the history of such relationships, people do constantly misunderstand one another. Two friends discuss, alone, what a third said when they were all together. One is angry, having understood a remark in such a way as to arouse his resentment. The other says, “Oh, I didn’t understand him to mean that at all. I thought he meant this.” He may win his unhappy friend to a new interpretation of the absent man’s remark, or he may not. But the point is that we are constantly involved in putting an interpretation upon people’s words, actions, and even upon their silences.

“It Means What it Says”

It would be nonsensical for the two men described above to argue in such a fashion that one says, with red face and bulging neck muscles, “He meant just what he said!” While the other replies with equal fervor, “That’s right, he meant just what he said!” as both of them insist that he said completely opposite things. They are going in a circle. The very question to be settled is, What did he “say?” His words may have seemed quite literal, but how much did context modify them? Did he perhaps use irony, intending to be understood exactly opposite from what he said? Did he use hyperbole, intending his hearer to discount a large part of his over-statement? Did he use litotes, intending his hearer to make up for all that was unsaid in his utterance?

How many of us are really aware that the Bible is filled with just such literary devices as are named above? It has simile and metaphor and a host of other non-literal expressions which have to be “interpreted” before the verse can make proper sense. There are places where one who reads woodenly will simply misunderstand, yet he might well argue that any attempt to make him understand was an interpretation and that God’s word doesn’t have to be interpreted, since it means what it says.

The Bible uses litotes (understatement) and hyperbole (overstatement). It uses anthropomorphism and anthropopathy (the ascription of human form and feeling to God, Who is pure Spirit). It uses oxymoron and irony, personification and satire. It employs so many single and double puns that this writer has attempted an essay on that subject alone. Every one of these devices calls for interpretation by the reader, lest the point be lost. If one writes irony and a reader fails to interpret ironically, a completely opposite point may be made from the one intended.

The truth is that the act of understanding any word or series of words is an act of interpretation, and the sooner we can stop saying that “we do not interpret,” the sooner we will be able to understand our religious neighbors who differ with us. And when we understand them, we will be able to talk with them much more effectively about whose interpretation seems most likely to be right.

The only reason that it is convenient for us to ignore this truth is that when we admit men interpret, and interpret honestly in different ways sometimes, our theory about the Bible is spoiled. We prefer to think of it as a very simple book which all men could see exactly as we do, if they were only honest and sincere. We are not deterred from this view even when we see all our college bookstores offering shelves upon shelves of commentary upon every page of that “simple” book. We are led to write little essays about How We Can All See Alike, ignoring the massive weight of evidence provided for us by the early church, by centuries of Christian experience, and by our own daily experience in every walk of life.

There is no difference between the communication of God to man, and that of man to man, except that God communicates in order to help us have wisdom, happiness and salvation, and we may trust Him to have perfect motives. There is no word in the Bible which does not require interpretation before it communicates. This may sound like overstatement, because we do not commonly recognize it. The interpretive act is often automatic. Thousand of words, and hundreds of simple statements, are used repeatedly until we have stock responses to them. The interpretation has become so automatic and subconscious that we are unaware that it is being made. Wiser students learn to reexamine even the stock responses, however, because they have a way of turning out to have been made too easily. This is why students often say, “Oh, I see!” about a verse they have read a hundred times before. Suddenly, they glimpse an understanding of that verse which had never occurred to them before. Their interpretation of it has now been modified. But before this discovery happens to people, they may find it hard to believe that consciously or not, they “interpret” everything they read before it has any meaning.

To say, then, that the Bible “means what it says” is simply to talk in circles. Of course it “means what it says” if you know what it “says.” But knowing what it “says” is the interpretive act. And since the interpreter is human and fallible, the possibility is always present that he may not have gotten “what it says” exactly right. The Bible “says” something different to one who approaches it after years of serious preparation and earnest prayer than it does to one who reads it in the most desultory fashion. It “speaks” with every possible degree of clarity and relevance, depending upon the preparation and receptivity brought to it by the reader.

Infallible Interpretation?

It has often been pointed out that of all Protestant groups we are probably most like the Roman Catholic folk whom we have wrestled so arduously over the years. We protest against their infallible interpreter, the pope. No man has a right, we say, to give his own, single interpretation of what the Bible says. This is dogmatic and authoritarian.

But we turn around and substitute an infallible interpretation to which all men must bow or be charged with insincerity or indifference. We believe sincerely that we have no popes among us, but our infallible interpretations are given to us by our name preachers and our brotherhood journals, and their power is almost absolute. Anyone within an area of journal influence who dares to think for himself, who arrives at an interpretation or understanding different from that of the party of that area, will find himself ostracized, excommunicated, boycotted, and out of business. If you think the charge is not true, or is exaggerated, there are many ministers who could furnish case histories. There is really no difference between the pressure exerted by an infallible interpretation, to which all men must submit or be called unsound, and the pressure exerted by an infallible interpreter.

We cannot ever really understand our intelligent and sincere religious neighbors until we realize that the problem of interpreting is complicated by many factors. The bringing of a right spirit is one of the most helpful things a man can do. Harry Emerson Fosdick once said that it is “not so much what life brings to us in her hands as what we bring to life in our spirits that makes the difference between people.” This is true of Bible reading also. In Numbers 14:24 we learn why Caleb had a different interpretation of his spying trip into Canaan. It was because he had “a different spirit.”

But when we find men whose spirit is obviously as dedicated and sincere as our own, and they still interpret differently, we are driven to conclude that there must be other factors which complicate interpretation. For example, a man who has a natural tendency towards asceticism may find it easy to understand that fasting is an irrevocable commandment of God for all Christians. He will cite Christ’s anticipation of our fasting in Matthew 6:16. He will point to the examples of Christ, Paul and Barnabas, the Antioch church, and others, as proof of the widespread practice of this discipline. Some of us who lack the ascetic tendency may try to argue that this was a “custom,” but that we do not have to observe it today. He will promptly challenge us to show how we prove one thing a custom, and another thing an eternal law, and charge us with “interpreting.” And that is precisely what we will have done, whether we deny it or not. Our interpretation may be better than his, but until we can confess graciously that both of us have brought our best interpretive skill to the passages in question, and differed, we can never really be a part of the whole human family.

Difficulty in Interpretation

Any college teacher of literature is singularly blessed with opportunities to learn about the interpretive act. Under a controlled classroom situation he is able to see how widely students of sincerity and intelligence may differ in their understanding of the written word. I frequently hand out short stories or poems to my students in those areas of study and call for the best interpretation they can give. Since their grades depend on doing well, they work hard. From my vantage point, I watch them concentrate studiously, laboring far harder than most church people ever labor over the reading of the Bible. But when they have finished, I find their grades ranging from A to F. Some who have worked hardest interpret in ways which I, as a more experienced reader, think are quite implausible or clearly not supported by textual evidence. Others, more fortunate in past training and experience and innate abilities, interpret in ways that seem to me good. It is clearly a matter of my interpretation against theirs, and I confess this quite frankly to them. But I then try to show that one interpretation may be much more plausible than another. I do not always succeed in making my point, and without question I am sometimes in the wrong. I give a grade, because it is a school and not the kingdom of God, but in the kingdom of God where the judgment is perfect and where mercy is above judgment, each one will be judged in terms of his capacity. It may well be that in God’s perfect judgment, the student who received an F from me would get an A for having done more with his severely limited talents than the better student did with his. Schools cannot operate this way, but we may all thank God daily that perfect wisdom shall one day judge our efforts as His creation.

Another factor complicating interpretation is that all of us tend to see what-ever we go to see. This has been proved so many times that it should be a surprise to no one any more. Permit me to give the most recent example I know about.

Some of my students were reading an O. Henry short story. It happened that my two best students had an identical experience with a passage which told of some transients in a cheap rooming area. The passage read: “They sing Home Sweet Home in ragtime; they carry their lares et penates in a bandbox; their vine is entwined about a picture hat; a rubber plant is their fig tree.” The students all missed the Biblical allusions, but were unaware of it. They did know, how-ever, that “lares et penates” was an unfamiliar expression. They looked it up. Since O. Henry had been talking about “unfurnished rooms,” and had mentioned this several times earlier, they were psychologically prepared to have “lares et penates” mean something akin this. So when they looked at the definition in the dictionary, my two best students saw “household goods” very clearly. They put this on their papers. Later, I had to force them to look again in class before they would believe that the definition really read, “household gods.” What a marvelous illustration of our faculty for seeing what we expect to see. They had not intended to be wrong; they were not malicious. Both wanted good grades, and customarily got them. But they were victimized by one of the oldest of interpretation problems.

The word baptizo in its English forms is defined in dictionaries as immersion, sprinkling, or pouring. We are quite certain that this is a poor definition, but it does us no good to accuse a man of sheer stubbornness because he has not yet been able to accept only the definition of a Greek lexicon The word “baptize” in English has to be interpreted, and we are properly eager that it be interpreted correctly. We have to help people overcome a language gap, a cultural gap, a geographic gap, and a historic gap. We have to tell them that to interpret “baptize” by its present English definition is to miss the proper meaning. We can hope that they see this, but if they try hard and do not, we might at least be as charitable as Campbell was in the Millennial Harbinger, Vol. 8, p. 411.

I cannot, therefore, make anyone duty the standard of Christian state or character, not even immersion . . . and in my heart regard all that have been sprinkled in infancy without their own knowledge and consent, as aliens from Christ . . . Should I find a Pedobaptist more intelligent in the Christian Scriptures, more spiritually-minded and more devoted to the Lord than a Baptist, or one immersed on a profession of the ancient faith, I could not hesitate a moment in giving the preference of my heart to him that loveth most. Did I act otherwise, I would be a pure sectarian, a Pharisee among Christians . . . And while I would not lead the most excellent professor in any sect to disparage the least of all the commandments of Jesus, I would say to my immersed brother as Paul said to his Jewish brother who gloried in a system which he did not adorn: ‘Sir, will not his un circumcision, or un-baptism, be counted to him for baptism? and will he not condemn you, who, though having the literal and true baptism, yet dost transgress or neglect the statutes of your King?’

It has puzzled some that Campbell could contend so brilliantly for immersion as the Scriptural mode of baptism, and yet extend such charity as this. He is obviously willing to view as a Christian brother a man whose baptism had not been administered in a way Campbell thought proper, provided the man was obviously sincere and spiritually-minded. The only explanation I can give for this is that Campbell understood the difficulties which lie in the path of interpretation. He dedicated his life to make the Bible as plain as he could, but he knew all the while that some people would never be able to see it as he did. The most unfortunate thing that ever happened to the Restoration Movement is that most of his heirs lost his capacity for understanding that training, opportunity, experience, health, and innate mental ability may vastly complicate the task of interpreting the word of God.

How Shall We Interpret This?

Actually, most of us recognize the problems of interpretation when we see them in what we call non-doctrinal passages. We know that in 1 Thessalonians 4:4 skeuos may mean body, vessel, or wife, but this does not alarm us because it is not concerned with some practice which makes us distinctive from all other religious groups. In such a passage we can even say in the classroom, “How shall we interpret this?” and no one is upset. But on our own distinctive understandings of required ritual and teaching, we are quite unwilling to admit that some of our proof texts are susceptible of another plausible interpretation for some people.

The problem may be syntactical. The words themselves may be clear enough, but we may be unsure about the relationship between them, and the obscurity may cause differences in understanding. When the New English Bible translates Gal. 4:6 “To prove that you are sons,” and Phillips translates “It is because you are really His son,” neither is being hard-headed. There is a difficulty in syntax which causes these radically differing translations.

The problem may lie in the inadequacy of some English words. The Greeks had four words for love: eros, philia, storge, and agape. One had to do with physical love, one with friendship, one with family affection, and one with what I can best call “deep and abiding concern, regardless of whether the beloved is worthy or even likeable.” We have only one word in English, and we use it to say that we love, music, a friend, bike riding, or Nanette the poodle.

People who read the greatest commandment will need to know this if they are to interpret it properly. Ministers often spend hours explaining just how Christian love is different from some of the emotions included in the English word today. It would be absurd to say to one, “Well, it says to love, and it means what it says. Why bother people with these interpretations?” No one can really appreciate the single most important, and most amazing, imperative in Christianity until someone has helped him interpret the word “love” in an enriched way. Consider the following:

The Interpreter’s Bible gives four possible interpretations for Gal. 6:16. Which one should we insist upon?

Take a secret ballot among your Christian friends on what the “idle word” (KJV) or “thoughtless word (NEB) or “careless word” (PHILLIPS) of Matt. 12:36 means.

How does one interpret the passages dealing with the sin against the Holy Spirit? What is the unpardonable sin? Who is the “man of sin” in 2 Thessalonians? If every member of a loyal Church of Christ were to write his own individual commentary on the New Testament, how divergent would interpretations be? If there were unanimity on a few points, would it be due to the unquestioned clarity of the Bible of every reader, or to the constant reiteration of a particular interpretation by the preachers of the congregation?

How have you understood Gal. 5:12 in the KJV? Turn to Moffatt, Goodspeed, Weymouth, the New English Bible, and see how differently you had “interpreted” it from the way it is clearly to be understood in those versions.

In Romans 1:29 “debate” is listed as a wicked thing. How do we “interpret” this in the KJV so as to justify our own public religious discussions? Can we see how a man who had been told that we do not interpret the Bible might think that we do it, after all, when it suits our purposes?

When Paul says that women should not wear gold or pearls, shall we understand this to mean an eternal commandment? Or do we interpret it to mean that it was wrong then, but all right now? Do we quarrel with those who interpret it to mean that women should still not wear these things? Can we understand how a man who took Paul literally here, when we do not, might wonder how we could be so insistent that the word “burial” be taken literally in Romans 6:4?

Enough of these. The Bible is full of them, and we ought never again to write glibly of how easy it would be for all men to see as we do, if they were only honest. We like to talk of the vitality of early Christianity, but we easily forget (or we have not learned) that its vitality was equaled by its lack of uniformity in opinion. There were rival apostolic traditions, stemming from Paul and from the Palestinian emphasis. There were problems of interpretation growing from Jewish and Gnostic theories of doctrine and practice. One could go into a city, especially in Asia Minor, and find in the church the mystic and the millenarian, the martyr and the conformist, the legalist and the libertarian. The disunity in opinion was staggering, but Christianity survived because there were enough men always who understood that there may be unity in diversity so long as men are committed with heart and soul to the same Lord.

The time-worn Church of Christ shibboleth, “it means what it says” is a real anachronism in the twentieth century, and does our great cause no good. Once we admit the truth, that we interpret to the best of our ability, then we can accept it that our religious neighbor interprets to the best of his. From that point, we can have rational and friendly discussion of differences, with mutual profit. So long as we say glibly that there is no problem at all in understanding as we do, provided people will just be honest, we will continue to alienate the wisest and best of men from our program.