The Right Questions

I write to Christians, for the most part. We are "people of the book". That is, our sole authority on matters of faith and practice is the Bible. We are not the same "people of the book" as Islam. To Islam, the book itself is sacred. As we know, to disrespect the Qur'an is to disrespect their God. It is not, for us, that the Bible itself is a sacred book, but that when God speaks we are to listen.

Since we regard our Bible as important, it is a good thing to read with questions. What does it say? What does it mean? That sort of thing. One tendency we have, however, is to ask, "Why did He say that?" A common reason for that question is because we don't like or don't agree with what is said. Therefore, if we cannot find a satisfactory "Why did He say that?", we can disregard the content. And that is the wrong question. Or, perhaps, the wrong conclusion.

"What does it say?" is an excellent question. Finding the content the important first step. Sometimes that requires a bit of digging. What word is used? Why is that word used? What is the original language? That sort of thing. Good first question.

"What does it mean?" is an equally critical question. The concept is called "hermeneutics", the study and practice of interpretation. You need to have good principles if you're going to have good hermeneutics. Things like "Interpret the implicit from the explicit" would seem like a given, but many miss it. You certainly need to take into account the genre of the content. Poetry, for instance, uses poetic language. Expect it. Historic narrative does not necessarily offer commands as much as explains what happened. (For instance, expressing in an historical narrative that so-and-so lied does not mean that the Bible contains errors.) Wisdom literature gives advice. And so on. An important rule of hermeneutics is to have regard for the literal meaning. By "literal", of course, I include the concept of "as intended" or "as written" (remembering the genre of the text), but we have to understand the Bible as written as opposed to how we'd like to see it or as some ancient text no longer really working today. The Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics is a helpful guide in assisting us to answer "What does it mean?"

That third question, though, can quickly become problematic. "Why did He say that?" often delves purely into the realm of conjecture. Unless there are contextual clues (and, to be sure, there often are), the best you get are guesses and personal ideas. "Well, you see," they will tell you, "the reason Paul did not allow a woman to teach men is because women were not educated in those days." Pure conjecture requiring first that you disregard the textual evidence. The goal of this conjecture is to eliminate Paul's command here. We don't like it. Get rid of it. I recently heard this same approach on another of these kinds of passages. "Paul wrote, 'The women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church' (1 Cor 14:34-35). What was that all about??!!" Indeed, the outrage is evident. (Try today, for instance, to suggest in any way that Paul meant what he said and you will be met by voices, female and male, shouting you down. "These things cannot be!") "Why did He say that?" quickly becomes "If I am not given a satisfactory answer, I do not feel any need to follow it." And this happens a lot. Why did God give instructions on tattoos? Why did God order the deaths of the Amorites? Why did Paul forbid women in authority over men? Why did God give instructions to slave masters (rather than ban slavery)? And the implication always seems to be, "If you cannot give me an answer that satisfies me, I will disregard these as not genuine/applicable/real in some sense."

May I make a suggestion? If we believe that the Bible is God-breathed -- exhaled by God through the authors He ordained to present His timeless message to us -- then "I will disregard these as not genuine" is not an option. If we believe that the Bible is our sole authority in matters of practice and faith, then "I will disregard these as not applicable" is not an option. More to the point, if the Bible actually teaches that "it is shameful for a woman to speak in church" (as an example), we would be violating God's instructions to dismiss it as no longer applicable or not genuine. And "violating God's instructions" has a well-known name: sin.

We need to read the Bible for all it's worth. We need to know what it says. We need to know how to faithfully interpret it. We need to understand the text, the context, and the intent. We need this. We cannot afford to dismiss as irrelevant what God has stated. We need to figure out what God has stated and follow it wherever it leads. And if God is God (and He is), that will very likely and necessarily lead us to places that are not natural or comfortable for us. "Not natural or comfortable", however, are not reasons to disobey. Ask Abraham who was commanded to kill the son he received by promise from God. His actions in that event are called "faith", not "woodenly literal".