Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Bible Study Method

  • Why I Still Don’t Like Inerrancy

    Andrew Wilson has a post on The Gospel Coalition (Voices) blog titled Why I don’t Hate the Word Inerrancy. In a certain way I have to agree with his conclusion:

    But I don’t think the answer is to hate the word. If we were to abandon every word that had been tainted by poor use, we’d have to remove dozens of descriptors from our lexicon, beginning with “Christian”—only to find that the replacements we brought in were also sullied over time by clumsiness, groupthink, insensitivity, and arrogance. …

    Just so! It’s pretty difficult to hate a word when the word hasn’t really done anything bad. It just fell into the hands of cruel people who have tortured it a bit.

    But I still have to wonder about the value of the word in the first place. As a substitute for saying that God’s word is true, it draws much of its usage from the effort to narrow down the concept of what we mean by “true.” It ties truth to a collection of facts, to data, and not to the message. Properly interpreted, the message of the books of Kings in the Hebrew scriptures can be true without being accurate in every detail of the numbers. There are serious issues in the chonology of the divided kingdom, and resolving these is an interesting hobby, but it’s not really something that impacts the truth of the Bible message.

    I think inerrancy, as used—and in effect a word is the way it is used—tends to put our focus on the wrong aspect of any story. It makes our first question be “did this happen precisely as stated?” rather than “what message does God have for me in this story?” That’s unfortunate.

    I think there are worse problems for inerrancy than the ages and reigns of kings, but that provides a good starting point. Once we are past that, we need to look at how God communicates. How did God send us scripture? How did God cross the gap between infinity and our finite existence?

    This is one of those questions that plagues discussion of topics such as the meaning of Genesis. I believe that God communicates to us in our language, and that Genesis communicated God’s message about creation to people who believed in an earth that was flat (though round, like a dinner plate), with the waters under and the heavens above. They also believed that earth was the center of the universe and had no concept of the size of the universe. In that context, God spoke about God’s involvement in human lives.

    That means that the science of Genesis is doubtless in error, when looked at from our point of view. But it’s not in error by mistake. It’s in error intentionally. By God’s intention, not by the intention of the human authors who knew no better. It’s in error in the same way as my explanation of some technical topic might be if I presented it to a child.

    And lest you get the idea that I think we are on a pinnacle or knowledge, I expect that, if the world continues and we don’t set ourselves back to the stone age through our own stupidity, people a few hundred years from now may consider our view of what the universe is like to be hopelessly primitive. They’ll look for new ways to tell the story of God’s involvement.

    I don’t like the word “inerrancy” because it says that the Bible is going to mean what I think it needs to mean rather than saying that the Bible gives God’s message in the way that God wanted it to be presented.

    As I read it, God did very little to scratch our modern itches.

  • A Non-Pluralistic Text in a Pluralistic Age

    The Old Testament lectionary text for today was 1 Kings 18:20-39. This text again presents a case in which those who compile the lectionary avoid difficult texts in the way they cut the reading. Verse 39 ends with “the LORD, he is God,” while verse 40 (not read) tells us that Elijah killed all the prophets of Baal.

    There are several issues that the text brings out, including the violence. It’s not an easy text to preach to a modern or post-modern audience. In looking at the text I had thought of the issue of a prophet killing hundreds of his religious opponents. That’s not the sort of thing people think of prophets doing, though they should. Elijah is hardly the only prophet to engage in violent activity. (One of the best books I know on the topic of violence in the Old Testament was written by my Old Testament professor Alden Thompson, Who’s Afraid of the Old Testament God? I publish it, so I may be biased, but I picked it up as a second edition, and it’s now in it’s fifth, so I may not be far off in my bias!)

    My pastor at First UMC Pensacola, Scott Grantland, chose to take the bull by the horns (couldn’t resist the cliché considering Baal imagery) and included verse 40 in the reading, for which I congratulate him. He did discuss the violence of the passage in connection with the times and also the nature of prophets. Here he addressed a common problem, that people really have a sanitized view of the character and mission of prophets. Frankly, few of us would have liked them, and if they appeared now, we’d likely be working right along with the folks who wanted them killed. They just weren’t a comforting sort of people.

    But the key question was one that didn’t really occur to me. The question was simply how does one preach this text in a pluralistic age. None of what I say here should be read as a criticism of Scott. It is, however, a criticism of the age. Various of my teachers told me there were no bad questions. I disagree. I think that getting good questions is often the most important step in getting to good answers.

    Now Scott’s solution is actually quite good, in my view. I think we should always first try to point the message of scripture, especially difficult scripture, at ourselves. He suggested we should take the text as challenging our own tendency to worship idols in this day and age. That is a good personal message to get from the passage. But I don’t think that fully addresses the question.

    The simple fact is that no matter how you dress it up, this passage is not a pluralistic passage. It says one claimed deity is God and another is not. And if we follow the trajectory of scripture, I don’t see it tending any other way. I can find texts that guide me toward less violent solutions to problems than the one used by Elijah, and I can think of God’s revelation “in many and various ways,” revelation suited to our ability to hear. I don’t want to suggest that the Old Testament people were less able to hear God than we are. They simply had different things standing in their way.

    Further, the context in the world at large is not that much different. Pluralism was quite acceptable in the ancient world. The exclusive claims of the worship of Israel went against the grain probably as much as they do the modern world.

    In other words, I would suggest the text doesn’t allow one to wiggle out that much. Now a pastor needs to address such questions, because that is what people are thinking. But I don’t think the text allows a completely comfortable answer to the question.

    There are, in my view, three major options with regard to religious exclusivity: Exclusion, Inclusion, and Pluralism. The third of these is fairly common these days. The first is the norm in conservative Christianity. I take a middle path, or rather, one that tends to gobble up parts of the others. I believe there is one God and that Jesus is unique. It is because of God’s reaching out that we can be saved and the gap between us and an infinite God can be bridged. Jesus tells us that God is a gap crossing God.

    But there is only one of him. It is possible we may err about our description of God and yet be worshiping the one true God. It is possible that we might be accepted without our own knowledge. Those are major debates. I think the best answer is that God takes care of those things and that I trust that however God takes care of them will be just. Because I believe there is real evil in the world I am not a universalist. But I am hopeful. I can be hopeful because of Jesus Christ.

    However positively stated, that is not a pluralistic position. It’s inclusive. I think there will be many in the kingdom of heaven who will say, “When did we do anything for you?” But they will be there because our God is the God who sent his Son to bridge the gap.

    How does one preach a text that is not pluralistic in a pluralistic age? It has to remain not pluralistic. It has to challenge the age. But the challenge can be filled with grace, grace that gets beyond our works and our knowledge.

     

  • Revising my Hebrews Study Guide

    I keep thinking I’ll get more regular about updating this blog (or my other two), but things remain hectic around here. If you’ve been watching the announcements from my company, Energion Publications, you have seen some of what my wife and I, along with our team of authors and contractors are working on at the moment. (Note that this is more about my work than directly about Bible study. You can consider it a commercial break with a personal touch.)

    But just in case I might run out of things to do, I’m adding another task: revising my study guide for the book of Hebrews. I’ve been wanting to do this for some time, and the motivation came at the beginning of this year.

    My Sunday School class completed our study of the book of Ephesians and decided they’d like to do the book of Hebrews next. I had the choice between using the current guide again, or going ahead and doing the revisions I’ve felt were needed for a few years now. So I’ve been working on the revisions and trying some of them out on the class.

    I started the Participatory Study Series with this guide, working from my notes from previous times I had taught through this important book. Hebrews has a special place in the development of my personal theology. I actually started with Ezekiel, moved to Hebrews, and finished with Leviticus. But I keep coming back to all three. I’ve made the rounds several times since I published the guide. There’s a lot of meat involved in studying ideas like priesthood, sacrifice, faithfulness, grace, and many more that come from those. So I have a few thoughts to add.

    I also found myself dissatisfied with my outline and even more dissatisfied with my translation. The new guide will not include a translation. Considering other additions, it will simply make the book too big. I might publish it separately along with notes that are cut from the guide itself. As I write about these passages, I find myself using way more words than are likely to be useful in a study guide.

    The other factor that is leading me to revise this guide is the changes I have made in the nature of the series itself, based on suggestions and input from the authors of the continuing volumes. When I initially published it, To the Hebrews: A Participatory Study Guide was only the fourth book Energion had in print. I made it a series because I planned to publish a guide on Revelation, and possibly my general notes on Bible study.

    Then Geoffrey Lentz suggested that he write a study guide to the Gospel According to Luke. Geoffrey is a former student (from his youth group days), and is now Dr. Geoffrey Lentz and pastor of First United Methodist Church of Port Saint Jo, Florida. But Geoffrey had some ideas to improve the method I was teaching. That resulted in our co-authored book Learning and Living Scripture.

    From there Dr. Bob Cornwall (Ephesians) and Dr. Bruce Epperly (Philippians) each wrote a study guide and each contributed to the shape that the series is now taking.

    As a result, I feel the need to improve the original guide so it can catch up with its successors. Besides removing the translation and updating the outline this will include:

    1. Improving the reading lists. Unlike the other guides, I will still have my three reading lists: Reading, Extra Reading, Advanced.
    2. Adding a discussion of each lesson, rather than just having exercises and pointing to sources.
    3. Making the exercises more generic, so that people can use different sources more easily.
    4. Including opening and closing prayers for those who like to have a printed group prayer for study. I will be using a Psalm as the prayer to open and close each session.

    I will be writing a few notes as I have time, but this is keeping me fairly busy. I am certainly enjoying my time spent with this important book.

     

     

  • Reading the New Testament in Stereotypes

    It was a small Bible study in a church I had joined recently, and we were reading from the gospels. I was kind of trying to keep quiet and get to know people before I made too many comments. But after our gospel reading, people started to discuss it, or mostly to discuss the people in it.

    The disciples were pretty stupid. How could they possibly have missed the message so many times? The Pharisees were hypocrites, who obviously knew perfectly well that Jesus was right about everything and should have just given in immediately. Others didn’t do much better.

    “Would we really do that much better?” I asked. I wasn’t quite sure how to make my point. Frankly, given the situation, I doubted (and still doubt) that we would “get” what Jesus was up to any more quickly. As for the Pharisees, I am much more like them than probably any other group in history other than my own. I’m talking about studying the Bible, trying to apply it, falling to the very human tendency to criticize and apply what we learn in scripture to everyone else before we apply it to ourselves. Yes, it’s true. I teach that we should endeavor to apply everything we learn to our own lives first and then share and witness more than correct, and condemn not at all. But the hypocrite in me sometimes has me doing what I would not.

    Oh wretched man that I am, or, well, human man that I am, and that’s wretched enough and great enough for any of us.

    I’d like to suggest that we try to read the New Testament (and the whole Bible) in more sympathetic (or empathetic) categories. To see ourselves in the failings of those who are described in its pages, and in turn to see ourselves in Christ in the victories and successes.

    In the meantime, if you want to know what got me started this morning, read this post by Scot McKnight about the Pharisees. He provides a good deal of historical information that might help you get a bit more empathetic on the subject, and in turn may help you read the Bible in a more participatory* way.

    *I use “participatory” here in the same sense as in the Participatory Study Series, which is participating in the story of scripture, seeing yourself as part of it, and learning to extend it.

  • Another Note on Hebrews Outlines

    Dave Black commented on my outline, linked in my previous post, thus:

    1:28 PM Henry Neufeld, who has published a work on the epistle to the Hebrews, enters the discussion about the book’s outline/discourse structure. You can check out his soon-to-be-revised outline here. I love it! The only comment I might make concerns the title given to Heb. 6:1: “Press on to maturity.” Here’s why.

    I think he is absolutely right and this change will find its way into my revised outline.

    One might justifiably ask me in what way I’m dissatisfied with the outline. My problem with my current outline is that I don’t think it provides adequate links between the various sections of Hebrews, nor does it adequately focus on the key passage at the core. In fact,  I believe the passage in question provides the focus for the book, however much we may try to avoid the verses that follow, particularly 4-6 or consider the verses immediately after that overly obscure.

    Hebrews does not follow a straight line in its structure. It’s more like a cord woven of threads of different colors, with different themes coming to the fore at different times. I’m hoping that by wording my outline properly, these connections will become more clear. With the outline display I use, one can choose how many levels to view, so one should be able to view the structure almost as though one was zooming in and out.

    Will I be successful? I have no idea. Hebrews is a special piece of scripture to me, and I find that no matter how many times I read it, or how many different ways I look at it, it keeps speaking. Maybe it’s inspired or something! 🙂

  • An Exegetical Outline of Hebrews

    Via Dave Black I found Brian Small’s link to Nathan Brown’s outline of Hebrews.

    Here’s what Dave had to say:

    6:48 PMBrian Small has just linked to An Exegetical Outline of Hebrews. The author naturally shies away from Pauline authorship even though new arguments are being made for that position today (or at least for the “Paulinity” of the letter), and I feel constrained to point out that his very first outline division leaves much to be desired. He tells us that the opening paragraph of the letter is 1:1-3 — which to me is a complete impossibility, since verses 1-4 are a single sentence in Greek and form their own distinct discourse unit. (I have treated this paragraph in some detail here.) These “thorns in the cushion” (as Thackeray, himself an unhappy editor, once called them) are perhaps not deadly, but they do make one pause. However, perhaps I am being overly critical. Read it for yourself and make up your own mind.

    Is Dave too picky here? I don’t think so. I think dividing your outline in the middle of a Greek sentence may impact how you read the rest. I always learned Hebrews 1:1-3 as a unit when I was reading in English. In fact, I was required to memorize that when I was in elementary school. I didn’t realize the tight connection between the opening and the remainder of the first chapter (and the argument of the book) until I first read this in Greek.

    I also take some issue with the list of methods of persuasion, though this is more of a nuance than a direct disagreement:

    1. Taking OT statements concerning the Messiah and applying them to Jesus Christ. (from page 1 of the intro to the outline)

    This is more picky than Dave is being, but I don’t see any hint of an attempt to persuade people to believe in Jesus as the Messiah in the use of OT passages. In general, the use of OT passages falls under Nathan’s points 2 & 3, i.e. the author takes the readers from a place of simply believing that Jesus is the Messiah to a place of action and endurance by relating Jesus to the OT stories.

    But I’m probably too picky.

    Since I’m in the process of revising my own Hebrews study guide, including my own outline, with which I am dissatisfied, I’m going to be going over this outline (and a number of others) rather carefully in the next few weeks. (In case you view the text of my translation with the outline, be aware that I am even more dissatisfied with the translation, which I made nearly 20 years ago.)

     

  • Of United Methodists and Beth Moore

    From time to time various Methodists get very worked up about the idea that members of United Methodist congregations are using Beth Moore studies in their study groups and Sunday School classes. Via Facebook I encountered an older post regarding Methodists and Beth Moore. That article is actually quite restrained and gentle by comparison to some of the discussion I’ve heard. The author makes some good points, but I think, perhaps, not enough good points.

    My first thought is that if you are a United Methodist pastor or church leader and your worst problem is that your members are spending too much time listening to Beth Moore, you should spend some serious time thanking the Lord for your blessings.

    It’s not that I agree with everything Beth Moore says. In fact, I likely disagree with a good percentage. I really haven’t bothered to make a list. She’s probably more literal than I am, and we doubtless disagree on matters of biblical criticism. Besides, I don’t particularly like watching videos in a study group or class. I’d rather get together to actually study or listen to someone who is present. So my point is not to be an apologist or a critic — of Beth Moore, that is.

    What I’m wondering is why so many people in the church, and particularly the United Methodist Church (since I’m a member), think they can or should control what people hear.

    Oh, I know the arguments. We have a responsibility to teach good theology. We have a duty to teach sound biblical knowledge. We are Methodists (or whatever), after all, and that should mean something!

    Should it really? I find denominations useful, sort of. They could be a great means of getting us to work together for missions that are bigger than local church congregations. Ideally, they can provide some sort of accountability. I happen to like the United Methodist doctrinal distinctives, which is why I joined a Methodist congregation.

    Trouble is, I found out rather quickly that very few Methodists were aware of their doctrinal positions, if it’s proper to call these positions “theirs” if they don’t know what they are. Before I joined my first United Methodist congregation I asked for something that would tell me what Methodists believed, officially and clearly. The pastor gave me a copy of the United Methodist Discipline, clearly with serious misgivings. I loved it. Well, the first 100 pages or so. The rest is well nigh useless, and I’m convinced that most gospel work done by Methodists results from someone ignoring the rules.

    After reading that first part of the Discipline, I decided I could get on board with this new church, and so I joined. Then I discovered that Methodists weren’t really acquainted with their own history. The orientation to the church, in which one speaker explained that John Wesley had been influenced by Karl Marx (perhaps with the intervention of Dr. Who, though he made no mention of it), was biblically, doctrinally, and historically ignorant.

    The pastor invited me to teach a series on Sunday nights about the doctrine of Christian Perfection. I was interested to note that there are two full statements of this doctrine in the Discipline, and chose to start from that point. As I flashed up my overhead transparencies, I was disappointed to discover that nobody was interested in the fact that there were two statements (really a bit more complicated than that), because they hadn’t been aware that there was even one. I found that growing up Seventh-day Adventist, I had learned more about John Wesley and Wesleyan theology than I would find around the Methodist church.

    This was not a matter of personal pride. I had these things drilled into me as a child. I really couldn’t have avoided knowing them if I wanted to. Further, I’d be unlikely to complain about the problem, except for a related tendency I found as time went on.

    That related tendency was the idea that we needed to make sure to teach Methodists only Methodist doctrine, thus protecting them from all that other stuff that was flooding the world. If we could just keep them listening to only Methodist teachers, everything would be OK. Unfortunately, I suspect that most crazy ideas have a Methodist champion somewhere.

    Now there are a number of non-Methodist doctrines I would love to protect Methodists from. I wouldn’t mind protecting everyone else as well. The whole Left Behind series and related “prophecy” material would be a start. I don’t like it and I don’t even like to have to take the time to respond to it. It’s that bad. In my opinion, of course.

    But people are going to hear that point of view of the book of Revelation and other apocalyptic literature, and I’m going to have to respond. And despite any tendency to wish it would go away, I know I’m wrong to do so. The right response is to do better teaching on other views. If we get people studying for themselves and help them to learn to study well, they will find the flaws in these various trends on their own.

    Or they might come up with the arguments that would make me realize I’ve been wrong. Regarding the whole futurist/dispensational view of prophecy, I doubt they will, but they could. The point is that they should have the opportunity to do so.

    What’s more, with modern media and the internet, it’s ridiculous to think that you will protect your congregation from hearing things you’d rather they not hear. Telling people they can’t study certain things or hear certain speakers is likely to have the opposite effect.

    And then there’s the question of whether you really have anything better to teach at all. I’ve heard this type of complaint from people who couldn’t construct a sound biblical argument in a room full of commentaries (even if they ignored the commentaries!). They simply wouldn’t know. But they can tell whether a teacher’s denominational credentials are in order.

    I recall one church that had a young adult class that was growing and getting popular. There were young adults who didn’t even attend church who were coming to the class and enjoying the discussions. The church leadership, clearly dismayed at the success of this class, decided they needed to bring it under control. They were reading and discussing unapproved books. So they found a teacher who would follow the party line, and thus managed to reduce the membership of the class to zero in a mere four weeks.

    Another Methodist church wanted Methodist materials, but in their absence was prepared to gut some Southern Baptist materials, removing reference to such dangerous doctrines as salvation, so people would, at least, not hear the gospel message from a Baptist perspective, even if no Methodist perspective was to be offered instead.

    I’ve mentioned growing up in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In the church I encountered censorship rather regularly. In order to keep apart from the world it was important to read SDA materials and to stick with the SDA agenda. I was watched when teaching to make sure I wasn’t leading people astray. I kind of expected that kind of censorship due to the nature of the denomination. Since other churches were leading people straight to the Mark of the Beast, we obviously shouldn’t be listening to anything they said, lest we too go whoring after the beast and his image.

    I’ve heard both liberals and conservatives claim that all censorship is done by the other camp, but my observation is that both have a tendency to decide that they’re correct. That’s actually not a bad thing. Surely if one thinks one is wrong one will change one’s view. The problem is that certain people decide that they have to impose their rightness on others. Not persuade, impose. And that’s going to fail.

    So my suggestion to a pastor who hears that a group in his church is using Beth Moore studies is to first rejoice that they care enough to study. Then if you object to some of the content you should first make sure you know what it is and what is being taught, and then teach what you believe is right. Do it vigorously, make it relevant, and show your love of scripture as you do so. One thing that came out clearly in the post I linked and in the comments is that people appreciate Beth Moore’s love of scripture. I know from experience that if you are teaching from your heart and you have paid the price in study and prayer time, people are going to listen when you teach.

    Do you, as a pastor, exhibit that same love? Can your congregation tell that you’re seriously studying, doing your best to understand, and sharing what you have learned? Do they detect that you have spent time on your knees when your preach or teach? Or is your only real response to point them to a list of Methodist (or other denominational) doctrines?

    There is a group in the Methodist church, as there was in the Adventist church in my youth (and friends tell me still is), and I suspect in every church, who consider “but it’s not Methodist!” a good argument. But there are less and less of these people. You need a better argument.

    I believe that there are plenty of people in the United Methodist Church (I wonder why I keep typing “untied” for “united” and having to correct myself) who love scripture and love to learn more. There are plenty more who are hungry to hear and want to learn how to study. You’re not going to draw them away from one source without providing another.

    But even more importantly, if they hear the scriptures taught in different ways, from different perspectives, by people who truly love to study God’s word, they’re going to be enriched by it. Even if they come to the conclusion that some of it is wrong.

    Especially if they come to the conclusion that some of it is wrong.

  • Dave Black: 13 Things Greek Teachers Won’t Tell You

    Dave lists 13 things Greek teachers won’t tell you, but I must say that most of mine did. And Dave does admit that many Greek teachers do say these things.

    But do students listen? Do people in the pews and those who read books get the message?

    My experience is that many do not. Not infrequently someone will tell me that they trust my interpretation of a particular Scripture because I read Greek, or because I was reading it from the Greek New Testament. The same applies to Hebrew. There is a great deal of respect that is given to someone who knows their biblical languages. But as Dave points out in both items #1 and #2, Greek is one tool. It doesn’t mean you’re right.

    This reminds me of a conversation I had with a member of a Bible study group. He informed me that understanding the book of Revelation was really quite simple, because the author of the book he was reading on Revelation said it was quite simple. Not only that, but the author promised to present it simply so that anyone could understand. I told him that the problem was that I had a whole shelf of books on Revelation that claimed that they had the key and that it was really quite straightforward. No two of those books agree. In general, they don’t even agree broadly. Then there are the other books written by people who are more honest and admit Revelation is not that easy. And they disagree some more.

    Which leads me to point out that whatever interpretation you hear argued by someone who reads Greek or Hebrew, there are many other people who also read Greek or Hebrew who disagree. Skill in biblical languages relates to knowledge of the Bible as possession of a toolkit relates to repair of a car. Just because you have a good toolkit doesn’t mean the car is fixed. On the other hand, without the toolkit, things may be difficult!

    I’d also like to underline point #5. Greek words (and words in general) don’t have just one meaning. So when someone says, “What the Greek really means …” you’re probably about to get misinformed. Even those who might follow that intro with a carefully nuanced expression of the meaning of the word in that particular context ought to restrain themselves and choose a different way of getting the idea across.

    And then there are the people who use Greek or Hebrew to back up mundane points equally well expressed in English. I’m referring to things like, “Jesus said to build your house on a rock. Now the Greek word here means ‘house’ or ‘a place to live.’” Um, yes. That’s why the translators translated it “house.” But the speaker now sounds so much more educated or sometimes more spiritual.

    Then there are those preachers who have clearly been using their Strong’s concordance, but for the benefit of my blood pressure, I won’t go there.

    To #10, Greek is good for more than word studies, I can but say “Amen!”

    To #11, Greek can make you lose your faith, I’d add, “So can theology.” As someone who left the church approximately at the same time I left the seminary, only to return, though in a different denomination, about 12 years later, I can testify to this.

    There are folks who think this is all the fault of liberal seminaries presenting pure and innocent young students with dangerous critical theories. But for me it was more a matter of losing my experience of faith while becoming deeply involved with the minutiae of doctrine.

    In seminary I was studying the Bible many hours every day. With my concentration in biblical languages, my Bible study became almost constant. My attendance at church dropped off. In fact, I became so critical of sermons that I really couldn’t comfortably attend church. None of the stupid people who were preaching  could do a good enough job to suit me. So I just neglected the gatherings of the saints. At the same time my witness died out. I was no longer sharing. If I discussed with anyone, it was about the latest esoteric thing I had read. Christ and him crucified was forgotten.

    If you behave as I did, you can lose your faith whether you are in a liberal, moderate, or conservative seminary, or even in school studying another subject.

     

  • Convoluted Reasoning on Women Writing Commentaries

    John Piper is asked in a podcast whether a man can read a commentary written by a woman, with a follow-up as to whether one could then quote the commentary from the pulpit (HT: Jesus Creed).

    I find his reasoning here very convoluted. There is a much better logical basis for reading 1 Timothy 2:12 as applying to a particular time and place. Those who argue that such reasoning weakens the force of Scripture should consider whether Piper’s reasoning could not be used to avoid almost any Scripture.

    The fact is that we all pick and choose, and we all should pick and choose. The question is whether we will use good discernment in doing so.

  • Of Contexts, Communities, and Individuals

    Stop Taking Jeremiah 29:11 Out of Context is the headline in RELEVANT magazine. Thomas Turner is writing vigorously about the apparently shameful misuse of this passage of scripture. He points out that it’s used on graduation cards and often quoted in words of encouragement to individuals. He summarizes:

    Sure, it might make a person feel better, but this verse as we often prescribe it is being taken completely out of context. It doesn’t mean what people think it means. It’s time to back up and see what the author of Jeremiah is actually saying.

    Really? Totally out of context? Read his article first, and you may see just how much of what we say about the passage is very close to the same thing. Yet I’m coming to a different conclusion on the usage of the text on a graduation card or as a matter of encouragement.

    Jeremiah is not talking to each of us personally. Jeremiah is speaking to Israel. Quite true! Further, Jeremiah is talking about our high school graduations, or our difficulties in finding a job or a spouse. Just so. Jeremiah is not talking about those things. But the fact is that scripture does not generally talk to us quite that directly.

    I’m a great fan of context. One has to be in order to study scripture. But I’m not a fan of the excessive or indiscriminate application of rules. Almost any rule can be misapplied or stretched. A compact, memorable rule is very much like Jeremiah 29:11—when you use it, you will tend to bypass a great deal of logic and background.

    Take, for example, the etymological fallacy. This is a very real and quite pernicious fallacy. I encounter it regularly in reading. Someone lays out the root(s) of a word, and derives a meaning from them. “‘Church’ in Greek is ekklesia,” says the confident but careless preacher, “and that comes from ek, ‘out of’ and klesia which comes from the word for ‘called’, so the church is the ‘called out ones’.”

    But there are some uses for etymology. One is for fun, where a speaker might help us remember a point by pointing out etymology. Provided one doesn’t claim that the etymology has the last word about the meaning of the passage, there’s no problem with this. It’s fun. It helps one remember things. In addition, it can help one with spelling. And did I mention that it’s fun?

    The second is when studying obscure words which one has available in only a limited number of contexts. It’s easy to announce that a word’s meaning is determined by usage, and that we discover that meaning by observing it in various contexts. But some words might occur only once, or even just a very few times in the literature we have available. What then? Well, etymology can provide pointers. I observed this in studying Ugaritic. My knowledge of Hebrew regularly suggested possibilities for words I encountered in Ugaritic, then context would help narrow down my choices. As a student, of course, I had recourse to the available literature on the topic to check my work.

    Ugaritic, in turn, suggested some possible options for understanding rare words in Hebrew. At which point the etymological fallacy would often come into play again. Ugaritic could be helpful, but it could also send the unwary off into flights of fancy.

    I take that detour to point out that we can apply rules, even good rules, improperly. Rules themselves require context. That’s true of the use of context as well. I learned before I was in High School (most of which I skipped anyhow) that one should always take texts in context. But there was a fallacy hidden in there too. The type of context I learned about was the literary context, i.e. discovering what the author said before and after, and placing the text into that context.

    That’s good. We want to do that. We’ve already pointed out how Jeremiah isn’t talking about us personally. He’s looking at a community. Not only that, he’s looking at a specific community, Israel. He’s looking at that community at a specific time and in specific circumstances. What he says will be fulfilled in specific ways to those people.

    And with that last sentence I blast my way right out of literary context and start looking at historical context. (Jeremiah lays out the historical circumstances of his statement in the context. I’m talking about the broader history of the fulfilment of his statement.) Now we realize that there is much more to context than just the literary context. Notice here that we also get away from a “one meaning” fallacy, the idea that a text means only one, limited thing. (And that rule could be badly misapplied as well!)

    And this context can lead us to a canonical context. How do the words of Jeremiah tie in with scripture as a whole? (I will pass over the issue of whose scripture. I write as a Christian, reading as a Christian.) The exile, regarding which Jeremiah writes, becomes a historical watershed for Israel, and comes to define, along with the exodus, must of the Christian understanding of redemption. There’s a reason so many prophecies of 2nd Isaiah (40-55) are later applied to Jesus, even though in context, they have more immediate applicability. The entire event—exile and restoration—takes on new meaning in this theological context.

    We might argue that this is improper usage. If Jeremiah didn’t mean it or Isaiah didn’t mean it (an assumption on our part), then how can we use it in that way? First, if we don’t accept a theological context, we’re pretty much out of business as a community with a shared theology, i.e. a shared understanding of God. Second, we do this kind of reshaping of events and stories all the time with other literature. While I believe what the author intended needs to be an anchor, a guide, even a limitation, preventing flights of fancy with the text, words do take on a power of their own in a community. (I would suggest the example of how Melchizedek is used in Hebrews, but this post would grow to long if I discussed that further.)

    I’m not, however, suggested that we can just grab the text and do what we want with it because there are such things as canonical and even theological contexts. As with literary context, we have to look at what these contexts actually are and make sure that we haven’t just yelled “context” and declared victory, whichever side we’re on.

    How does the theological context apply?

    Well, first, we have the issue of individual versus community application. The church in America tends to be very individualistic. It’s fashionable in certain circles, to lay heavy emphasis on the community in order to counter that trend. I’m in those circles. I think we need to revive the idea of community in the church. It’s not about me, it’s about the body of Christ as a whole.

    But there’s a tension in scripture and in theology on this very point. The church is a community, but the community is made up of individuals. So you have things that apply to individuals somehow. As I study Hebrews with my Sunday School class right now it’s interesting to see the tension between remembering the leaders (13:7), and everyone having boldness going before God, between the examples of faith, all individuals (11), and the great cloud of witnesses (12:1ff).

    When someone today says to remember the leaders of my church, I can point out that I can move down the street and find other leaders. That’s actually a sad thing, that disunity in the church, yet it’s true, and unless you’re prepared to argue that every church’s leaders are truly following God, then there is room for me, as an individual to make a choice. In fact, I must make a choice.

    So there is a tension here as well. It’s good to realize that Jeremiah 29:11 was first spoken to a specific community and that there was a specific fulfilment of this text to that community. That is important. As Thomas Turner points out, it’s a promise of the kingdom of God as well, and that’s important too.

    But for the individual looking at a major life choice, the most important thing to get out of this verse may well be that God has a plan for him or her at that moment. The choice of the right college, the right job, or the right spouse may be the most important kingdom thing right then for that individual who is a member of the community of believers.

    And in that very community that we want to celebrate, for which God has great plans, this text has come to mean more than just the good of the big group in the by and by. It has come to mean that, as “Abraham’s seed” I can now hear God speaking to me (Galatians 3:29), and that this individual application may be precisely what I need to hear.

    We often act as though God has to pay more attention to the big things (like the triumph of the Kingdom at the end) than to the little things (where will I go to college?). But God doesn’t have limited attention so that he needs to prioritize. He can give full attention to both issues, along with billions more.

    Just like those boiled down, compact rules of hermeneutics, the community has boiled down Jeremiah 29:11 and presented it as a compact promise. It’s a usage I find entirely appropriate.