Time for another rant. Apologies to all. Those who think I complain too much can stop reading after this period.
Still with me? Thanks for letting me have an outlet for my “Christian frustration.”
If I hear or read someone quote Paul out of context one more time, I’m going to lose my mind. I feel like I have read Paul’s list of “who will go to hell” far too many times in the last month or so. You all know the list. I don’t need to post it here. Just read Paul’s letters to Timothy, and you’ll find it.
First, let’s talk for a quick second about context. When someone says “read that verse in context,” they don’t necessarily mean “read the verse that are before it and after it.” Of course this is helpful and usually adds a lot to an interpretation of scripture, but it doesn’t end here. Context all means all things historical, cultural, geographical, related to genre, etc. All of this must be accounted for in order to arrive at a workable interpretation.
I know what you’re thinking (well, maybe I do): “But Jon, we can’t all be theologians or Bible scholars. We have to be able to pick up the Bible and read it at face value. We can’t all read the Bible so critically as you seem to want us to.”
Fair enough. But is this really reality? We all read a lot of things every day. I would venture to say that with everything we read, we are acutely aware of all things “context.” Sure, we may not necessarily have to think long and hard about the context, but that’s mostly because what we read was written very recently and from a context we all know very well.
In other words, you’re reading my blog right now. Some of you know me. You know where I live. You know why I write. You know from what worldview I write. You know my family background. You even know my audience (since I’m usually writing to US Christians). So you already are well-versed in context before you even read one word of my blog.
Why not be this well-versed with Biblical texts? Sure, it takes a little work, but it’s not impossible. There are even some Bibles out there that will give you a quick contextual analysis of a book or author to get the ball rolling.
My point is that we read critically and we take context into account whenever we read something… but not so much with the Bible. We seem to want the Bible to be a magical book that speaks directly into our personal lives whenever we pick it up. We can read six words at face value, and from there, we build doctrine. Honestly, that scares me.
Let’s work with an example. Someone I know recently quoted the following passage from Galatians (I’m being deliberately vague):
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned! Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.
This person wanted to make the point that “liberal Christians” such as Rob Bell, Brian McClaren, and others are presenting a different gospel than the “correct” gospel. Seems fair if you work backwards on this text and approach it with only a surface reading.
What I mean by “work backwards” is that this person, on his own, decided that the message of “liberal Christians” is contrary to the gospel. He then found Paul’s words very affirming to his own point of view, and retroactively made Paul agree with him. In other words, he takes his own bias and uses the text to express his bias.
Rob Bell could do the same thing. He could use Paul’s words to support the gospel he has taught at Mars Hill. He could easily say, “I have preached to you the ‘true’ gospel. If you hear another gospel from fundamentalists that is different than my own, it is not the ‘true’ gospel. Let them be eternally condemned.” Then he could slap down Paul’s words and seal the deal.
But we can’t work backwards with scripture. We can’t take our own point of view and make it the point of view of the authors.
If you take a minute to figure out what Paul is talking about to the Galatians, you see that he’s frustrated that some people would tell his precious Gentile believers that they must first become Jewish before they can be saved (i.e. get circumcised). In other words, some people were adding extra steps to the gospel of grace and faith in Jesus Christ. And Paul, rightly so, is pissed – so pissed he encourages those adding to the gospel to castrate themselves. Awesome!
Then Paul adds this bit about wanting to “please God” instead of “pleasing men (people).” Without belaboring this point, let me just say that he is addressing the Apostles. He has no desire to please them. He does what he thinks God wants him to do, not what the Jerusalem church wants. It gets even more interesting when you go back and forth from Acts to Galatians to see how both Luke and Paul present this discussion around circumcision. Fascinating stuff!
But we don’t get that without checking out the context just a little bit. I’m not saying we need to dive into the Greek or the heavy commentaries. We just need to get better acquainted with the places, people, cultures, lifestyles, worlds, etc. to whom the Bible writers wrote.
If we don’t do this, then we run the risk of making the Bible say what WE want it to say. If we don’t like a certain theological or doctrinal perspective, we can easily use Paul’s words to condemn it. But is that the right thing to do? Is that what Paul is doing? I don’t think so. Paul had a point to what he wrote. He had an audience. He was addressing a specific issue. But we want him to do the talking for us.
It just doesn’t work that way.
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Jon, you and I have very similar thoughts on this issue. You just said in 21 paragraphs (that’s an estimate) what I’ve been trying to say for 2 years. I’m excited to have dinner again soon. (Man-date?)
Comment by Ben (you know who) August 29, 2009 @ 5:16 pm