BE A SHERLOCK HOLMES WITH THE SCRIPTURES

I am not suggesting that you should approach the Bible with the cold deductive logic of a shrewd detective, but I am saying that there are things that a Sherlock Holmes can teach us about examining the Scriptures.

Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, fashioned his legendary detective after a real live person, a physician friend of his named Joseph Bell. Dr. Bell diagnosed the ills of his patients not unlike the meticulous method used in the many episodes of Sherlock Holmes, and he trained his student doctors as if they were destined to be detectives. “A cobbler, I see,” he would say to his students, as he scrutinized a patient, pointing to a worn spot inside the knee of the man’s trousers, where he had rested a lapstone, an instrument used only by cobblers.

The story that Doyle liked to tell on his old doctor friend included this conversation with one of his patients:

“Well, my man, you’ve served in the army?” “Aye, sir.”

“Not long discharged?” “No, sir.”

“A Highland regiment?” “Aye, sir.”

“Non-com officer?” “Aye, sir.”

“Stationed at Barbados?” “Aye, sir.”

The doctor explained to his students that the man was courteous but did not remove his hat, which is the practice in the army, and he had not been a civilian long enough to change his habit. He had an air of authority and was obviously Scottish. Since he complained of elephantiasis, which is West Indian and not British, he deduced that he had been in Barbados.

Dr. Bell explained to Doyle that the secret of good diagnosis is “the precise and intelligent recognition and appreciation of minor differences.” The doctor stressed that his students should use their eyes and ears and memory, which is good advise to Bible students as well. He also spoke of “an imagination capable of evolving a theory” and of “piecing together a broken chain or unraveling a tangled clue.”

Recognize and appreciate minor differences may be made a rule for Biblical interpretation, which is different from nitpicking. If the Holy Spirit makes distinctions, they must be important. The smallest detail may be crucial to our understanding. A woman of royalty who accepted the faith, for instance, explained that she could be a believer because 1 Cor. 1:26 says, “not many mighty, not many noble, are called.” She was thankful that it reads not many rather than not any!!

Paul begins Rom. 12 with a therefore, which is really not all that big a word (only three letters in Greek), but whenever a therefore appears in Scripture it is well to find out what it is there for. For eleven chapters he instructs us in rather deep theology, and then says therefore, which would surely catch the eye of Dr. Bell and Sherlock Holmes. The apostle unloads all that heavy stuff, and then says, Therefore this is how you ought to live. So he put a lot of punch behind such instruction as not being conformed to this world and loving without dissimulation.

The little adverb as makes therefore look gargantuan, but it is nonetheless weighty in Scripture. Take Rom. 15:7: “Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God.” School kids learn that as is an adverb of manner. In this manner (the way in which Christ received us) we are to receive one another. If Jesus did not receive me until I was free of all error and all my hangups and prejudices, then it is all right for us to receive others in that manner. But if he received me while I was yet weak and wrong, then I am to receive my sisters and brothers who are weak and wrong.

The wherefore (another three letter word in Greek) in that verse is another one of those minor differences that we are to appreciate, and it is to be distinguished from therefore. It means something like “on account of which,” or the cause or reason for something. Rom. 15:7 therefore reaches back to all Paul has said in the previous chapter on how believers can disagree and still be of one heart. “On account of these principles” or “for these reasons” you are to receive one another as Christ received you. That passage is filled with golden nuggets that will make us rich in unity and fellowship.

That little as also speaks to us in Rom. 6:19: “As ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.” The as really lays it on us. As we served sin back in the world we are now to serve righteousness. In Eph. 5:28 the little word appears again, showing a man he is to love his wife as he loves his own body.

Say what we will for Conan Doyle’s friend Dr. Bell, he was hardly a match for the fabulous Sherlock Holmes. There was hardly anyone who could observe like Sherlock, and this is a prime rule for effective Bible study as well as detective work. Sherlock was always saying to his sidekick, Dr. Watson, “Elementary, Watson, elementary!,” once he had unraveled a knotty mystery. What now appears to us as simple we were once blind to. It was there all the time, but we needed help in seeing it.

Or maybe we just needed to observe more closely. This is why we must remain patient with those who do not see what we now see. It is not so elementary after all, not to them at least, just as it wasn’t to Dr. Watson.

Once when Dr. Watson was asking Sherlock about his method of operation, the detective explained that it was a matter of observation, and he proceeded to tell Watson that he had been to the post office that morning and the purpose was to send a telegram. Watson was amazed and wanted an explanation as to how he knew. “It is simplicity itself, “ Sherlock insisted, pointing to a little reddish mould on Watson’s instep which he picked up entering the post office, the red clay being there due to construction work near the post office. But the telegram? Well, people go to a British post office only for three reasons, to post a letter, buy stamps, or send a telegram. He knew Watson had not written a letter since he had been with him and he knew he had sheets of stamps in his desk.

But Sherlock Holmes has had his competitors for top sleuthhound, fictional or otherwise. One was Zadig, a hero in Voltaire’s tale by that name. One day Zadig was walking in the woods when he was approached by officers and asked if he had seen the king’s prize horse that had broken free. Zadig asked if it were a horse with a faultless gallop, five feet high, small hoofs, a tail three and a half feet long, the studs of his bit made of fine 23 carat gold, its feet shod with silver shoes eleven pennyweights. Yes, of course, that was the royal horse, said the officers, and they wanted to know where he was.

When Zadig said he had not seen him nor heard anyone speak of him, he was arrested for stealing the king’s horse and imprisoned. Afterwards when the horse was found, the embarrassed judge withdrew the charge but fined Zadig for lying in court. But he was allowed to plead his cause. He told what he had observed as he walked along the road in the woods. The marks of a horse’s shoes were all of equal distance, so he knew that horse had a faultless gallop. The dust upon the trees, where the road was but seven feet wide, was here and there rubbed off on both sides, three and half feet from the middle of the road. The whisking of the tail rubbed off the dust, so he knew the tail was that long.

Where the trees along the road formed a canopy five feet above the ground, leaves had fallen to the ground, so he concluded the horse had brushed them and was therefore five feet tall. The horse had rubbed its studs against a touchstone, the properties of which he ascertained to be 23 carat gold, and by the marks his shoes made upon other stones Zadig concluded that they were silver of eleven pennyweights. Elementary!!

If we were that observant with the Bible, we would surely come up with all sorts of goodies that we are now missing. Sir Isaac Newton was a scientist, but like Zadig and Sherlock Holmes he discovered a great deal by carefully applying his mind to it, as he himself revealed his secret of discovery. We can all relate instances of a “find” in Scripture that we wonder why we were so long in seeing. Our famed Negro evangelist of yesteryear, Marshall Keeble, likened that experience to finding “poke chops” in the hog, which were there all along.

For many years I did not “see” the word manner in 1 Jo. 3:1, even though I knew the verse by heart. It has new meaning to me now that I see the apostle is not simply talking about the love that God has bestowed upon us, but the kind or degree of that love—“what manner of love the father has bestowed upon us.” I’ve known for a long time that 1 Jn. 6:10 does not make money the root of all evil, but the love of money, though a lot of people still haven’t observed the difference. Only recently, however, in reading through Mark did I realize that Jesus’ own mother, as well as his other relatives, actually thought that he had gone crazy (Mk. 3:21, 31). I just hadn’t looked at the road like old Zadig did.

To be a Sherlock Holmes with the Bible we must first of all be honest. The famous sleuth never approached a “whodunit” with his mind made up. We must want the truth and our purpose must never be to justify what we already believe. Our mind-set is to be a hunger for righteousness, for only then do we truly learn. Alexander Campbell called this “coming within an understanding distance.” Once this is our attitude it will transform our approach to the Bible and our lives as well.—the Editor