INTERPRETING THE SCRIPTURES

Allowing God to speak to us through the Bible is not a simple matter. While we believe the scriptures reveal to us the mind of God, we must bear in mind that we are, after all, referring to words upon a page, and that there is only a limited sense in which we can think of the mind of God reduced to paper and ink. But insofar as the glory of God can be communicated in the words of a book, we believe the Bible does this. But still we are looking into a glass darkly, and it will only be when we see Him face-to-face that we will know as He now knows us.

Indeed, the Bible provides us with more understanding than any of us ever completely gain. What we do gain depends on our ability to interpret, and again we must insist that the task is not simple. The oft-heard comment “Take the Bible for what it says” or “It means what it says and says what it means” only begs the question as to what interpretation is all about. The question remains, What does the Bible really say? Certainly it means what it says, but what does it say?

Rules of interpretation are probably a good thing, but I find them boring. I intend this essay to be a heart-to-heart talk about how to get more out of Bible reading.

It is well to realize that we are talking about a dangerous book. Even Peter complained that some in his day, ignorant and unstable folk, twisted Paul’s letters “to their own destruction.” But the problem was not wholly the people’s ignorance or instability, for the apostle concedes that there are things in Paul’s letters hard to understand.

But the Bible is not dangerous only because it is difficult, but because it is so easily taken too lightly. “Religion” is not dangerous, for in its many forms it can be taken superficially. But the claims of God upon the human heart is serious business, and that is what the Bible is all about. The Bible is not an ethic or any kind of treatise on how to be good. Moralizing has no particular urgency about it. But the question as to what the reader of the Bible is going to do about Jesus is as weighty as eternity itself.

This is why the Bible must be approached in a different way from any other book. If calling on a king or a president is considered a substantial experience, then surely one cannot open the book of God and enter its pages with anything but deep reverence. Like old Moses who removed his sandals amidst holy ground, the believer looks upon the reading of the Bible as if it were communion with God Himself. He is asking himself, What is God saying to me in these pages?

Really now, can a man do anything more important than that? And what pleases God more than for one to love His word? There is only one man in the Bible that is called “a man after God’s own heart,” and a careful study of David’s life will reveal that God so praised him because he had such a beautiful and sincere love for the word of God, despite all his faults. “Oh, how I love thy law; it is my meditation all the day,” the psalmist could cry. “Thy word is more to be desired than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb,” says David.

If I made a list of rules for interpretation, that would be the essence of them all: to love the Bible like people love gold, and to long for it as one might long for the drippings of the honeycomb. If one loves God’s word and sincerely desires to understand it, this means more than a thousand commentaries. He who sincerely wants to know will pray for understanding, and God will hear and give him light that effort alone cannot attain.

Our people generally have not been taught in prayerful Bible study. We are reluctant to seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit. That man after God’s own heart would pray, “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things from thy word.” That is a good “rule” for understanding. Let us open the scriptures in prayer to God that His Spirit will strip our mind of any hindrances, and that he will enlighten our hearts that we might grasp what God wants us to know. If the Spirit “opens their eyes,” as with David, then this becomes a vital part of really understanding.

Robert Burns, the Scottish bard, depicts this spirit of unstudied and simple reverence toward the Bible in his The Cotter’s Saturday Night. He describes the cotter making his weary way home after a hard day’s work, only to be greeted by his humble family and simple fare, “the halesome parritch, chief o’Scotia’s food, the soupe their only hawkie does afford.” Supper over, the father gathers the family around him, and with his bonnet laid aside he takes in hand the big Bible that was once his father’s pride, and with patriarchal grace declares, “Let us worship God.”

The poet describes their singing as “artless notes in simple guise,” but still “they tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim.” Then “the priest-like father reads the sacred page, how Abraham was the friend of God on high.” Or it may have been the Christian volume on “how guiltless blood for guilty man was shed.”

Then kneeling down, to heaven’s eternal King

The saint, the father, and the husband prays:

Hope ‘springs exulting on triumphant wing,’

That thus they all shall meet in future days:

There ever bask in uncreated rays,

No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear.

True, the like of the cotter may have only a King James version, and he may not know of such things as a commentary or Bible dictionary. But he gets the point as to what religion is about, and he wants to know and he wants his family to know. That is when Bible reading makes sense.

The poet Burns knew that those with “all the pomp of method and of art” had more technical understanding of religion than the cotter, and so he referred to their “Devotion’s every grace, except the heart.” He saw that the honest and good heart is not only the nerve center of vital religion but also the backbone of a nation.

From scenes like these ole Scotia’s grandeur springs,

That makes her loved at home, revered abroad;

Princes and lords are but the breath of Kings,

‘An honest man’s the noblest work of God.’

God looks to the man with a broken spirit, to him who hungers and thirsts for righteousness. Such a one will be filled, such a one will have the knowledge that matters most, irrespective of his understanding of Greek or Hebrew terms.

We all know, of course, that the student of the scriptures should have all the help he can get, and that technical studies should be encouraged. But without the honest and good heart all such application means little.

Interpreting the Bible is something like interpreting great music. The violinist doesn’t “do Mozart” simply by playing the right notes. A musician may have a great deal of technical information about Mozart, even to the degree of lecturing on the finer points of his compositions. But it may be the fellow from “down home,” who has but a superficial grasp of the musicology of Mozart, who is able to get inside the heart of the composer and make his music come to life.

Technical stuff about the Bible can be terribly boring and unedifying, and it is unlikely that God ever intended that His word be taught in such a way. Such a part of scripture as, say, Ephesians, can be approached in view of its major themes and ideas, and especially in reference to the point that the apostle had in mind, or one can get bogged down in such technical questions as for whom the letter was intended and such theological problems as predestination and foreordination: Even college classes in Ephesians will often accentuate the form and neglect the substance.

What glories there are in Ephesians, even in the early verses. We are told of God’s plan for the ages, to make everything one in Jesus. We are told of the promised Holy Spirit, which is given as a guarantee that God will someday redeem our bodies. We are told of the resources of power that we have in the Spirit, including “having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you.” We are told of the nature of the church, that it is “the fulness of him who fills all in all,” which teaches us that we are to be Christ’s life in this world.

What a tragedy it is when we move among great riches and are satisfied to gather stones. It is little better when we go from verse to verse, laboriously wringing from each line even more than was originally intended, with no effort made to relate what is written to the ongoing problems in people’s lives, “Jim, how does a verse like this apply to your problems down at the shop?” or “Mary, what does this passage mean to you?” are questions too seldom asked.

The Bible is not made up of theological essays or philosophical treatises to be poured over by literary geniuses. It is mostly a collection of letters, history, and devotional materials, written amidst the storms of life, intended to inform, inspire, and encourage. For this reason we should look for the main ideas, the overarching purpose of the writing, and its message to our hearts and to our generation.

No doubt but what the ghost of Mozart could appear and complain of many musicians, “He played my notes but not my music.” One can get bogged down in the letter while missing the spirit. We can get inside “the spirit of scripture” by panting for God as the hart pants for the water-brook, to use David again.

I am convinced that any reasonable person with an honest and good heart. with several translations of the Bible before him, can cultivate a beautiful understanding of the scriptures. And the one necessary thing is for him to open the book with reverence and with prayer for guidance, always asking himself: what is God saying to me in this passage? —the Editor

We are all tarred with the same brush, and are children of one and the same Creator, and as such the divine powers within us are infinite. To slight a single human being is to slight those divine powers, and thus to harm not only that being but with him the whole world. —Ghandi

We do not want the men of another color for our brothers-in-law, but we do want them for our brothers. - Booker T. Washington