“I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything has is accomplished” (Matthew 5:16).
“Your word, O Lord, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens” (Psalm 119:89).
“Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away” (Mark 13:31).
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).
There are many ways to interpret the Bible. If you are like I am, then the way of interpretation is to read the words as they are written and take them at face value, unless there is a clear reason to read them symbolically or allegorically. For the most part, the Bible is written in a straightforward manner, and should be interpreted in that way.
Having said that, though, is it prudent to always read the Bible only in the context of the time in which it was written, or should we allow the present times to also shape our interpretation? In other words, should the Bible be re-examined periodically in light of our own understanding and knowledge?
- The Bible is living and active.
The writer of Hebrews tells us in 4:12 that “The Bible is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”
A few months ago, I read an editorial in the Tyler Courier-Telegraph, the local newspaper for Tyler, Texas. The editorial refuted any claims that the U.S. Constitution was a living document. By “living document,” one usually understands the phrase to mean a document that was written several decades or centuries ago should or should not be interpreted today in light of present knowledge and experience. The Tyler editorial denied the Constitution was a living document, and should be interpreted strictly with the understanding the original writers had when they penned it.
The problem with that kind of thinking is it fails to take into account that the Constitution was written by a small band of relatively wealthy white men, living in an East Coast agrarian nation made up primarily of Northwestern Europeans—United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, France. The ideas of women or people of color being equal to them was not in their mindset. Today, our country spans the continent, and we are a global power. The communication of James Madison’s day has been replaced with the internet and 24-hour cable news. America’s population has become a vast mixture of people from all over the globe, bringing their own cultures and mores to their new home. Does the Constitution of 1787 really fully speak to the America of the 21st century? Isn’t there room to interpret the Constitution with fresh eyes, and keener understanding?
The question of the Bible as a living document, however, has already been answered by the Bible itself. The Bible is living and active. Part of the reason for this is simple. The Bible is a book of relationships—between God and us, us and God, people and people. The reason the Bible is still relevant in our world today is that God never changes and, sadly, people as a whole never change. The words of the Ten Commandments are still relevant because people still have a tendency to be greedy, to lie when it suits us, to covet, to steal and to kill if need be. The relevancy of the Bible is here because we are the same people today as we were when Adam and Eve first walked the Garden.
The Bible is also living and active, more importantly, because the Bible was written by God through His Holy Spirit. “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). “Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy has never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:20-21). “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you” (John 14:26). These verses speak to the true authorship of the Bible—God through the Holy Spirit using men to write His words to a world desperately in need of a Savior.
Because the Author of the Bible is still very much alive and active, and because the Holy Spirit’s role in the Bible is to lead us into an accurate interpretation, we know that the Bible is very real and very relevant in our world today.
Imagine reading the works of William Shakespeare and being able to turn to him and ask him what a passage means? That’s the beauty of understanding the Bible. Because it was written through the work of the Holy Spirit, we have only to prayerfully seek His guidance as we read and seek to understand what the Bible is telling us today.
- The world is a different place today.
Even though God and we remain basically the same, we nevertheless live in a different place than when the apostles were writing the last few books of the Bible. When John wrote the Revelation, transportation was powered by muscle, writing was done on papyrus or animal skins. World travel was virtually non-existent, and there was a whole new world that no one had ever heard of, much less considered. The economic system of the day was agrarian and was slave-labor intensive.
When we read the words, “Slaves, obey your masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart” (Ephesians 6:5) and other passages relating to the slave-master relationship, I doubt there are very, very few people who think that the Bible advocates slavery; and since the Bible speaks of slavery, we need to return to a slavery system, since that was God’s way of doing things.
Such a position is absurd. The abolitionist movement was formed when Christian people, prayerfully reading their Bibles, came to the realization that God created us all in His image, and that slavery is an evil that must not be allowed in our world. It took a while for the realization to sink in. In fact, I heard people as early as the 1980’s justifying racist attitudes by quoting passages of the Bible out of context and reading heavily between the lines.
Today, when we read the Bible’s teaching about master-slave relationships, we understand them to apply to today’s workforce, with the role of the master becoming that of management and that of the slave as the laborers. In our present system, the Christian should read these passages as instructing them in how to be a better person and a better worker.
Today’s world stresses science over the beliefs that were held in the ancient western world. When we read a passage such as, “When the spirit saw Jesus it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth” (Mark 9:20), our first thought is that the young man probably had a Grand Mal seizure, not a demon. The idea of demon possession has largely been replaced with the idea of physical and mental illnesses, and we now have medications and treatments for many of the things that we attributed to paranormal activities. Even if such is the case, the fact that Jesus was able to heal so many so completely still requires the recognition of healing miracles. And I hesitate to completely dismiss the idea of demonic possession in all cases. Nonetheless, in today’s world, we have a tendency to attribute the illnesses of the Old and New Testaments to something else other than demon possession.
(May I say here that there is no real conflict between faith and science? The Bible shows the Who of nature; science seeks to answer the “how” of nature. A reading of Genesis 1 emphasizes that God is the Creator—notice the number of times God is referred to—and the “days” of the chapter fit well with the overall concept of the evolutionary process. If we hold to the belief that with God all things are possible, then we should be able to concede He is just as capable of creating a world in an evolutionary manner as He is to do so instantaneously.)
Also, the Bible gave approval to polygamy. Jacob, David and Solomon were men married to more than one woman at the same time, and Paul’s instructions to pastors and deacons is that they be men with only one wife. The fact Paul needed to make that statement suggests that polygamy was still practiced in the Roman Empire at the time of his writing. There are very few serious students of the Bible and followers of Christ who would now indicate that those who are not deacons or pastors of churches should be allowed to have more than one wife at a time simply because the Bible allowed it.
The role of women in society is changing, and this change is creating friction within the church family. There are those who insist on relegating women as silent members of the flock, because that is what the Bible teaches. Men are to be the leaders, period.
But there are also those who say such an idea is crazy. In the days when the New Testament books were being penned, a woman’s role in society was severely restricted, not like in today’s world. Today, more women have college educations than men; women have proven themselves more than capable in the business world and in the world of politics, and refusing to utilize the resources women can bring to the church is being extremely short-sighted. Such people point out that the Phoebe mentioned in Romans is described with the Greek word often interpreted as “deacon” in the rest of the New Testament. Paul references women prophesying in his first letter to the Corinthians.
Times change, and we need to understand that the Bible’s message, while unchanging in its meaning and intent, can be adapted to the world in which we live.
- Is it a sin today if it was a sin in the Bible?
Please do not read this and think I am saying that society changes Scripture. Far from it. The power of the Bible over society must always be supreme. It would be a mistake to assume that the Bible is shaped to meet today’s morals and today’s ways of living. A few years ago, a woman about 20 years younger than I was speaking with me. I mentioned to her that the Bible is clear about sexuality; specifically, the Bible teaches that sex outside of marriage is wrong. She told me that her generation doesn’t interpret Scripture that way (she was a professing Christian, by the way).
I understand that our society’s views on sexuality and premarital sex has greatly changed from when I was growing up. I understand that what was once looked upon with shame is now considered normal behavior. That may all be true, but it does not change the fact that the Bible denounces sex outside of marriage as a sin.
The bottom line is that what the Bible declares as a sin in almost every case is a sin in any society and any period of time in which one is reading the Bible. But there may be exceptions even to this.
One of the hot button issues in today’s Christian world is homosexuality. The Bible is very clear that homosexuality is a sin. And yet, good science today seems to indicate that homosexuality is not a lifestyle choice, but a genetic predisposition. If people are predisposed toward one way or the other regarding our sexual preferences, then it seems inconsistent with God that something that is not within our will should be labelled a sin. If that is the case, then we need to re-examine what the Bible means when it does label homosexuality as a sin.
Conclusion
We go back to the truth that the Bible is living and active, and we recognize that how we interpret Scripture can be altered in light of our greater insight into God’s will and society’s changes. Again, never letting the word of God be changed to fit society, we nevertheless owe it to ourselves and to God to be open to letting Scripture speak to us in the present and continue to guide us as we relate to the world in which we live. We are not washed here and there like ships without a rudder, but we must be people always willing to change ourselves to better serve God in our modern world.
“Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews, I became like a Jew to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do this all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings” (1 Corinthians 9:19-23).
Paul knows where he stands in relationship to God, but he is willing to adapt himself to the time and place in order to continue to spread the gospel. We will do well to follow his example.
© 2017 Glynn Beaty