What Kind of a Book is the Bible? …

“IT MEANS WHAT IT SAYS”

One thing we need to get straight about the Bible is that it is a book or many books — that needs to be interpreted. It is hardly the case that “the Bible interprets itself,” even though it is true that a close study of the whole helps us to understand a part and that one passage may throw light on another. The old shibboleth that “It means what it says” implies that while others may interpret the scriptures according to party preferences we do not. We just take it for what it says!

This only begs the question. To glibly claim that “It means what it says and says what it means” leaves the question of the real meaning of a passage still open. Just today Ouida and I were reading Eph. 6 together. When we came to verse 18, “Pray at all times in the Spirit,” she asked me what that means. Does it help any to say It means what it says? She would only need to counter with Yes, but what does it say?

Jesus once warned “Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod” (Mk. 8:15): What does this mean? One would do well to learn something about the use of leaven in scripture, and he needs some background information on the Pharisees and Herod. Still he might miss the deeper implications. The scriptures are like a deep well from which we might draw either shallowly or penetratingly, but never exhaustively. A passage like 1 Cor. 4:20, for example, is probably never completely fathomed: “the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power.” The best of minds have poured over the Sermon on the Mount all these centuries, or just the Beatitudes, only to concede that the profundity is unfathomable.

There is much of the Bible that quite obviously does not mean what it says, if by that one is referring to a crass literalism. “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and . throwit away,” says our Lord in Mt. 5:29. Not many of us go around oneeyed because we believe Jesus “said what he meant and meant what he said.” And how about such statements as “Men will come from east and west, and from north and south, and sit at table in the kingdom of God” (Lk. 13:29)? Does that mean what it says? Such passages illustrate that the Bible is a book that needs to be taught. Certainly one can make his way through Romans, Galatians, Hebrews, Revelation, and difficult portions of the Old Covenant scriptures and learn something, perhaps a great deal, on his own. But he does well to have a teacher, There is, after all, a reason why God placed teachers in the church. God’s community on earth has been studying the scriptures all through the ages, providing for us a great depository of information. It is foolish for us to be indifferent to this.

It amazes me how superficially some of our leaders handle difficult texts, with a kind of “It is clear as day to me; I can’t understand why it is a problem to anyone” attitude. An instance of this was in a Bible class I sat in on recently in one of our large congregations, taught by one of the elders. The question concerned the meaning of 1 Cor. 14:22: “Thus, tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers.” The problem is that if tongues are for unbelievers why would Paul say in the next verse that if an unbeliever comes into the assembly and finds you speaking in tongues he will suppose that you are mad? If the tongues are for him, then he would be convicted, wouldn’t he, instead of not understanding? He goes on to say that prophesy will have such an effect, convicting him. So it looks as if what Paul really means is that tongues are for believers and prophesy (preaching the word) is for unbelievers, even though he says just the opposite.

I explained this to the brother, advising that he read the footnote in Phillips’ translation, where he explains that the context forces him to conclude either that Paul’s pen slipped or, more likely, a copyist reversed the words. This does solve the problem as to why Paul would say that tongues are for unbelievers and then say the unbeliever will think you mad when he hears them, while saying tongues are not for the believer when the whole section shows that they are. So Phillips is saying that Paul must have meant the very opposite, and that the words got screwed up somewhere along the line.

I did not necessarily want the brother to buy what Phillips says, but I did expect him to recognize the problem and to admit the difficulty. This business of “I can’t see why its a problem to anybody” in reference to crucial biblical difficulties is irresponsible and unreasonable. It is another way of abusing the scriptures, through oversimplification or simply by ignoring what is clearly a problem. People tire of our equating our understanding of the word of God with the word of God itself.

This is to say that we must distinguish between revelation and interpretation. Revelation is what God has given. us in scripture. Interpretation is what we conclude the scriptures to mean. One is divine, the other human. Revelation is authoritative because it is the disclosure of the mind of God. Interpretation becomes authoritative only when it commends itself to our conscience. This is what led Thomas Campbell to say in the Declaration and Address: “Although inferences and deductions from Scripture premises, when fairly inferred, may be truly called the doctrine of God’s holy word, yet they are not formally binding upon the consciences of Christians farther than they see the connection, and evidently see that they are so … Therefore no such deductions can be made terms of communion.”

You are not necessarily rejecting the authority of God’s word when you reject my interpretation of God’s word. Thousands of commentaries have been written on the scriptures, a fact that should suggest to us that the Bible is not so simple to understand after all, but not a one of them is authoritative in the sense that we have to accept its conclusions. I am morally obliged to accept only that interpretation that “sells” itself to me as truly reflective of what the scriptures mean.

Communication is communication, whether it comes from man or God. My mother-in-law recently said to me when I was frolicking with her, “You’re a monkey!” I took her to mean something like, “I love you when you cut up with me like that, but I’m not going to say it that way.” But I had to interpret if there was any communication. She did not mean just what she said. So it is with the Bible. If Jesus says of some character, “Go tell that fox …,” I have to interpret if it has any meaning to me. To face this simple fact makes some of our folk insecure, for they want to believe that “We can all understand the Bible alike” and it threatens them that someone else may honestly and responsibly see the scriptures differently from themselves.

There is some unevenness in all this, for we are often quite candid in recognizing legitimate differences in interpretation, while at other times we insist that we are not interpreting at all but “simply taking it for what it says.” We are charitable in those areas that might be dubbed “non-doctrinal,” but very” unyielding with those passages that make us different from others. 1 Thess. 4:4 is a good example. The King James has it: “That every one of, you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour.” For vessel the NEB has body: “Each one of you must learn to gain mastery of his body.” The RSV has wife, and one might even make it refer to the sex organs. But this does not especially frighten us. The most orthodox Church of Christ elder in teaching a class might well say, “What does this mean to you? How do you interpret it?” and go on to allow open and free discussion.

But he can’t be that way with “our passages,” those that we have long counted on to make us distinctively right. Here he allows for no interpretation, for it is all crystal clear, meaning “just what it says,” and anybody who is honest and wants the truth will see it the way we do, which of course is the only way to see it anyway. That Peter just might be the rock upon which Jesus founded the church (Mt. 16:18), that “buried” in Rom. 6:4 might be taken figuratively, that breaking bread in Acts 20:7 might be an ordinary meal rather than the Supper, that 1 Cor. 16:2 might refer to laying money aside at home rather than into a church treasury — these and many more like them have long since been decided, and there is no reason for further study. No “loyal” teacher among us would dare say, “What is your interpretation?” to such bedrock passages as these. To mildly question what we have always said on such “doctrinal” passages is like turning one’s back on his mother or rejecting apple pie or not standing for the alma mater at the high school reunion.

This does not mean that there are no certainties in the scriptures. When it comes to what really counts, the Message of the Bible, we can indeed be sure, and here we are not to equivocate. But we can be people of strong conviction, assured of their Lord and their salvation, without being absolutists. We can believe deeply that we are right without arrogantly assuming. that everyone else has to be wrong. —the Editor