DOES THE BIBLE HAVE “THE STRIKE ZONE”?

I often think of what one of my old Harvard profs used to say about the issue in the church today being hermeneutics or interpretation. In recent decades, he would say, the question was the nature of the kerugma, but now it is How do we interpret the Scriptures? While New Testament scholars presently are concerned with such matters as unity and diversity in the New Testament, hermeneutics remains a basic issue, not only among scholars but in the church at large. I know of no people that have more of a problem with interpretation than my own Church of Christ people. We may not be aware of it, but many of our difficulties stem from what I believe to be a faulty hermeneutics.

This means that if we can get two questions resolved many of our difficulties would be minimized: (1) What kind of a book is the Bible? and (2) How is it to be interpreted? I do not propose in this piece to answer these question in any detail, but to examine a metaphor or two that we often use in handling the Scriptures. The Bible is sometimes likened to a Sears-Roebuck catalogue, or some such composition of details and specifics, suggesting that modern faith and the modern church are as uncomplicated as ordering a pair of pajamas from a mail-order house. The size, color, design, type of material, and price are all detailed. So it is with the church in following the New Testament. No problem. Why doesn’t everybody see it the way we do? We have no such differences when ordering from a Sears catalogue?

Sometimes we liken the Bible (the New Testament in particular) to a blueprint used by a builder in erecting a structure. All the details are scrupulously spelled out, the blueprint being almost like a photograph. The builder can be sued if he does not conform exactly to every specification (specs they call them). The church has a blueprint like that in the New Testament, we are told, so there is no excuse for not setting up the church precisely as it is in Scripture - in name, doctrine, worship, work, and organization. The New Testament provides all specs.

Or the New Testament is like a baseball rule-book. Should such a book disappear for a time and the game of baseball go out of existence, and then in some distant tomorrow, in a world that knows nothing of baseball, if someone should find the rule-book and follow it exactly, she would have precisely the same game of baseball that we have today. The same nine players on the field, same shape of playing field, same balls and strikes and homeruns and all the rest. Precisely! This is what it means to restore the New Testament church, we are told, for the New Testament is that kind of book, like a baseball rule-book.

Recently I received an interesting letter from one of our fine ministers in Louisiana, who gave me a variation of this metaphor in that he urged me to watch out for “the strike zone,” drawn quite obviously from America’s greatest pastime, made famous by the likes of Babe Ruth. The Babe certainly was aware of the strike zone, as are all pitchers and umpires, and this preacher thought I should be. The strike zone of the Bible, that is.

He told me of the umpire who explained how he called them. “I look at the strike zone,” he said assuringly, “and if it isn’t there its a ball!” This was the preacher’s way of settling the matter of instrumental music. He looks at the strike zone (the New Testament, we presume) and doesn’t find the instrument, so its a ball, which means it misses the mark and therefore is sinful.

In my response to this brother (thank God, he’s my brother, organic or inorganic!) I told him of reading of a doughty old umpire in the majors who responded gruffly to the catcher who kept anticipating his calls: “They ain’t nothin’ till I call ‘em,” he growled at the catcher. Quite true. In baseball a strike is what the umpire calls a strike! No doubt but what in the history of the game many a ball has been a strike and many a strike has been a ball. But “They ain’t nothin’” until the umpire calls them the way he sees them.

Preachers are sometimes like that umpire. They presume to preside over the strike zone, making sins out of their own opinions. Things are sinful when they call them sinful! That may do for baseball, but is that the way to handle the Scriptures? So often man minimizes what God calls a sin and maximizes what he calls a sin. If we follow such a metaphor as the strike zone, should not God be the umpire? Since God makes no call either way about instrumental music, in the New Testament at least, how can our friend in Louisiana be so sure that it is a sin? If he means that the instrument is sinful to him, that is a different matter. In the area of scruples where our conscience must reign as arbiter, we do make the calls --- but only for ourselves, not for our brother or sister. “Let each one be fully persuaded in his own mind” is our norm (Rom. 14:5). God calls that one!

I like metaphors and I am not saying that there is no place for these illustrations, even the one that views the New Testament or God’s will as “the strike zone.” But if these fellows don’t mind, I’d just as soon for God to call the strikes! Drunkenness is a sin, for it is not in the strike zone. But how about an occasional beer or a cocktail with the evening meal? Lying is a sin, for it is not in the strike zone, but how about an untruth? Murder is a sin, for it too misses the strike zone, but is every abortion a sin? Or withdrawing life supports?

I advised our Louisiana brother that he’d better watch where he uses his metaphor lest those to his right clobber him with it. How about the supporting-church enterprise that conducts Herald of Truth? Some are adamant in saying it misses the strike zone. Sunday schools? Plurality of cups for the Supper? Literature (study leaves our pioneers called them!)?

It is a fair question: Who has made us the umpire over the strike zone? - the Editor