What Kind of a Book is the Bible? . . .

IS THE BIBLE TO BE TAKEN LITERALLY?

If you were unfolding a letter from a loved one, you would no doubt think it strange for someone to say to you, “Are you going to take it literally?” You would probably say, at least to yourself, I am going to take the letter for what it says, the way I always take letters. The question as to whether you take letters literally would seem inappropriate.

So it is with the scriptures. They too are love letters. It is not a matter of taking them either literally or figuratively, but as letters from God, the way we would take any letter. The question as to whether we take the Bible literally or figuratively implies that it is unique literature, distinctly different from all other writings, and is therefore to be approached differently. This is an injurious fallacy.

The scriptures are for the most part the writings of ordinary people like ourselves, and they grew out of everyday situations, just like our notebooks, diaries, letters, and newspapers. There is no special “Holy Ghost language,” and we owe much to Adolf Deissmann, the German scholar, who discovered that the New Covenant scriptures were written in the common (koine) Greek of the time, the same kind of writing that he found in papyri for every century since Christ, which took the form of everything from a soldier’s letter to a housewife’s favorite soup recipe.

Surely we believe that the scriptures are of God, which makes them very different from all other writings. But God gave us the Bible through earthen vessels, and it is remarkable how those vessels were like the rest of us. The scriptures “happened” in a manner very similar to our own writings. A believing physician, for instance, wanted to send an account of “the story” to a Greek friend of his, a person of substantial influence. He probably had access to the gospel according to Mark, but this did not quite satisfy his purpose. Nor did numerous other accounts that he had at hand. So he researched the story for himself, “as one who has gone over the whole course of these events in detail” and thus gave us Luke-Acts. There is no indication that the Spirit revealed anything to the doctor, though we can believe that he did inspire him, or superintended his work, so that he would come up with the facts that God wanted him to have.

This is all so human, normal and natural. This would be much the same as any man today who would draw up a narrative of his own or somebody else’s life and send it along to a friend. And it would be rather foolish to ask the friend, “Are you going to take it literally or figuratively?” The question is simply meaningless in such a context. Since the scriptures are the same kind of literature, it is also meaningless in reference to them.

Paul wrote Philemon only when a runaway slave came into the picture. It is a letter, such as you or I would write, about that slave and his master. Since Paul knew them both, he wrote the letter. He wrote the Thessalonian correspondence only when Timothy brought him news as to how things were going in Thessalonica. And we can suppose that he would never have written 1 Corinthians if the Corinthians had not sent him a letter with a lot of questions.

This is why it is complete folly to contend that all these writings are the gospel. They are the apostolic teaching (didache), but hardly the gospel; for the gospel was already a reality and had been preached for almost a generation before any of these letters were written. If these letters had never been written, the gospel would still be no less the gospel, for the gospel is that Jesus is the Messiah and through him we have remission of sins. Those glorious facts created the church, and in due time, amidst all sorts of vicissitudes, the church (the apostles in particular, but others as well) produced the scriptures.

Since those scriptures grew out of the problems of the daily life of the church, and were couched in the language of the common folk, it is my contention that they should be read and interpreted like any other ordinary literature. There was what we now call classical Greek back in those days, such as the writings of Plato, but the scriptures were not written at that level. Until Deissmann did his work in the papyri manuscripts, discovering that the New Covenant scriptures were in “man of the street” language, it was presumed even by scholars that the scriptures were of some special Holy Ghost lingo.

It may not be quite right to say that the Bible does not, therefore, need to be interpreted. But we can say that there is no reason to interpret it any differently than we do other literature.

We get all entangled in the art of hermeneutics, which is the science of interpretation. Like all science it can become overly systematized and even irrelevant. And terribly boring! If one needs hermeneutical rules in interpreting a love letter from his wife, then maybe he needs such in interpreting the love letters from God. It is my personal conviction that we have made too much of hermeneutics, just as we have of commentaries. We do not have to run to rules and other books in understanding the Bible, certainly not as much as we think we do.

There are only two important questions to ask as we take the Bible in hand. What does it say? The question of its form and rendition is in the field of textual criticism and translation, which would include form criticism. Most of us are satisfied that in our various translations we do indeed have the true word of God, so we can leave textual and form criticism with the scholars who have given their lives to such work. Having a good English translation before us, we can determine what is said by a careful reading and rereading. When Newton was asked how he had learned so much about science, he said, “By applying my mind to it.” Any person with ordinary intelligence can determine what the Bible says by applying his mind to it. Just as he can and does understand the newspaper or a letter from his son.

The other question is What does it mean? This is of course interpretation, and this is obviously more difficult, in some cases at least. Even Peter complained that Paul wrote stuff that was hard to understand. We can determine well enough what the apostle is saying, except in those few instances where there is a textual problem, but deciding’ what he means is sometimes most difficult.

But to say that it is difficult is not to say that it is impossible. The scriptures can be understood. Even after a lifetime of study there will be truths yet to be discovered and depths yet to be reached. This is because the source is God. But we can nonetheless gain a substantial understanding of what the Bible is saying and what it means to us in our daily lives. Paul was writing to ordinary folk when he said: “I have already written a brief account of this, and by reading it you may perceive that I understand the secret of Christ” (Eph. 3:3). I have written. You can perceive. That is encouraging.

Far more important than a book of hermeneutics at your side is a heart that longs for God and a mind that is dedicated to the understanding of His word. If we would, like the psalmist, pray “Open thou mine eyes that I may see the wonders of thy word,” it would do more than any commentary would do. And there is the indication that the Spirit will help us in our study: “I pray that your inward eyes may be illumined, so that you may know what is the hope to which he calls you, what the wealth and glory of the share he offers you among his people in their heritage, and how vast the resources of his power open to us who trust in him.” (Eph. 1:18)

That very passage illustrates our point. If we believe that God is speaking to us in these words, then we can pray, as Paul did who wrote it, that the Spirit will enlighten our inner eyes so that we may understand. By applying heart as well as mind the truth will be ours. Let the commentaries wait while we peruse the entire epistle to see just how these words fit with the whole. And if we are praying for guidance in understanding then we make ourselves completely transparent before God, hiding nothing and wanting nothing except truth itself. Surely if we are led by the Spirit in our study, we have laid aside the party line. If our intention is to impose our own views upon the word, then we may as well forget the whole thing.

Is the Bible to be taken literally? or figuratively? There is no point to such questions. It is to be taken for what it says and means, like any other literature. When I tell my Ouida that she is really the cat’s meow, she doesn’t have to run for a textbook on hermeneutics or make a study of literary symbolism in order to understand what I am saying. Of course the Bible uses figures and symbols like all other literature, but all this is plain enough if we approach its pages with a little common sense. That after all is the one grand hermeneutical rule, if we must have hermeneutics - common sense!

Take our Lord’s words in Lk. 14, for instance. “When you are having a party for lunch or supper, do not invite your friends, your brothers or other relations, or your rich neighbors; they will only ask you back again and so you will be repaid. But when you give a party, ask the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And so find happiness. For they have no means of repaying you; but you will be repaid on the day when good men rise from the dead.”

What this says is simple enough. A child could learn it and retell it with but little study. But what does it mean? Common sense tells us that this would have only rare application if it applied just to the parties we give. And he was surely talking about the whole of life, not just party stuff. How would this apply to one of our sisters living alone in a high rise in an urban center? It would simply be impossible for her to arrange a dinner to which she’d invite the maimed and the blind off the streets. It would hardly be any easier for the rest of us, and what good would it do if we did manage such a thing now and again?

But Jesus is surely saying something very significant about doing the will of God on earth. Each of us is to pray, as we study this, that our lives will be full of parties for the unloved and neglected. God will lead us in different directions in fulfilling this. A teacher might be doing this when he puts an arm around the youngster that is having trouble getting with it. You might be doing this when you write a letter to an airline, commending a hard-working stewardess. Once when I did this, the airline president wrote back, assuring me that his little girl would hear of it. If you are impressed with the window dressing at the store alongside the bus stop, you will almost certainly add sunshine to someone’s life if you take the trouble to step inside and say so. These may be little parties that do not exactly change the world, but they are life and that is what Jesus is talking about. I always remember that letter I wrote to a dedicated teacher that took such an interest in our Philip just after he arrived from Germany and was having trouble adjusting. She told a colleague that it was the only letter of appreciation that she had ever received in twenty-five years of teaching. Shortly after that she died of cancer. I did what I understand Jesus to be saying. I had a party (went to a little trouble) for someone because of love and appreciation, not for what they might do for me in return. The whole of our lives is to be lived this way, for others.

Jesus says this is the way to be happy. In serving those that others ignore we are most like our Lord. We may not be repaid in this world, if that concerns us, but Jesus assures us that we’ll be rewarded in the next.

This is common sense interpretation of scripture, coupled with prayer, dedication and application. And it is not so much a matter of taking this or that passage literally or otherwise, but of taking it for what it means.—the Editor