Getting the Message

A Plan for Interpreting and Applying the Bible

Daniel M. Doriani

• Publisher: P Publishing
• Year: 1996
• ISBN:
  9781629954233
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Studi biblici

Presents solid principles and clear examples of biblical interpretation. Doriani summarizes the main principles for interpretation in a single, easily remembered acronym: CAPTOR.

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Introduction

Is There an Interpreter in the House?

Anyone who loves God and believes that he has spoken with unique authority in the Bible has ample reason to learn the methods of effective Bible study. And yet, Bible study takes work, and we all have more than enough work to do, a reality that tests our motivation to learn how to interpret Scripture.

Sometimes God uses troubling situations to kindle our desire for a better understanding of his Word. Imagine that it is Sunday morning and your pastor is away. A guest speaker has read some texts in the Old Testament that feature polygamy, and the sermon begins.

My experiences in Africa and my study of Scripture have convinced me that it is time to reevaluate the church’s teaching on polygamy. Like many teachers, I held the traditional line and blustered my way through when students asked me how God could have allowed his leaders to be polygamists during the old covenant if polygamy is a sin. Then, when I began my work in Africa, the Lord granted me some success with village chiefs in Burkina Faso. When they confessed Christ and were baptized, I made them give up all but their chief wife and send the others and their children away. But, instead of preserving the dignity of marriage, it destroyed the former wives, who were reduced to begging and prostitution, and their children, who became orphans and outcasts. Some chiefs, seeing the shame it brought to their children, refused to become Christians, though they were drawn to Christ. Lesser men, with only one wife, became leaders of the church, but no one in the village respected them, and the church lost its standing. What’s more, the women there do not mind polygamy. One told me, “The day my husband took a second wife was the happiest of my life. Now I have someone to share the work, and she is a friend, like a sister.”

Then I began to study the question of polygamy. Abraham, Jacob, and David were all polygamists. The Lord rebuked all three men for their sins, but he never condemned them for polygamy. Genesis and Samuel even portray the second marriage of Jacob, to Rachel, and the fourth marriage of David, to Abigail, as positive, even romantic events. Furthermore, even though Jesus condemns oaths, divorce, and other Old Testament practices, he never forbids polygamy, and neither does any of the apostles.

Yes, polygamy has been rare in the history of the church, but that is primarily because the Catholic church hardly even approved of marriage. When the Reformation came and began to present a positive view of marriage, theologians quickly raised the possibility of polygamy. Martin Luther even urged the Lutheran political leader, Philip of Hesse, to take a second wife, since he could not live chastely with but one.

There are many reasons to reconsider the issue of polygamy today. Yes, monogamy is ideal, but we hardly live in an ideal world. What shall we say, for example, to Christian women who long to marry but cannot find a suitable mate because so many men are immature, immoral, unbelievers, or uninterested in women? Many men can support two or more wives, both financially and emotionally. Isn’t polygamy better for everyone than a life of loneliness for their potential second wives?¹

Sermons like that can keep people on the church steps for a long time while small bands of children whirl about in ever-more-disheveled clothes, and Sunday dinners threaten to burn. Though disturbing, the stories about Africa and Luther can seem persuasive. If no one can show biblically where the guest speaker was wrong, that inability can prove more troubling than the sermon itself.

Is it enough to say that the pastor will have an answer when he returns? Or should believers be able to formulate at least a rudimentary response on their own? After all, don’t we often hear speakers or read books that claim to disclose forgotten truths or elucidate passages misunderstood by the church for hundreds of years? Their views may sound interesting—almost persuasive. Yet something doesn’t seem right. But unless we own a massive library or can call the pastor right away, often we’re at a loss. And we can wonder, is it just that our old ideas die hard, or is there something wrong with the message we hear, something we can’t quite put our finger on? Though we may never go to seminary, shouldn’t we know how to distinguish between true and false teaching?

How often have you wished you could handle the Bible more confidently? Perhaps you have been confused when Bible teachers contradict each other, or when a sermon soars far beyond your simple thoughts on a text. Or you realize that the stock Sunday school material you have will not work for your class, but you have no idea how to prepare your own lesson.

Why are Christians unable to evaluate sermons, or to gain much from devotional reading, or to prepare lessons on their own? It is because they lack a method for studying the Bible. This book presents a straightforward method for effective Bible study. The goal of that study is not simply to understand the Bible better, but also to apply it to life.

Our Need for Training

In many fellowships, Bible study consists of reading a passage of Scripture and asking, “What does this passage say to me?” In other words, “When I read this text, what thoughts or feelings does it stir up in me?” Putting the question in that subjective form allows people to “find” almost any idea they like in a text. Christians are thus encouraged to seize upon a snippet of truth—a moralism or a proof text for a favorite doctrine—while ignoring everything else. When we observe this practice in others (it’s hard to catch ourselves at it), we notice that the Bible tends to “say” safe, trendy, or self-serving things.

Yes, believers should expect to hear God’s voice through their Bible study. Yes, all believers are priests (1 Peter 2:5, 9; Rev. 5:10) and have direct access to God and his Word without the intervention of priests or experts. Yes, God is the ultimate teacher of everyone who knows him (Jer. 31:33–34). His anointing leads us into the truth (1 John 2:27). But we abuse this privilege if we let our impressions drown out the prophets and apostles. Because we believe in the authority of the Bible, we need an objective method for determining, as best we can, what the Bible originally meant and what it means today.

We need training because we live in a world far removed from the world of the Bible—in time, in language, and in customs. We speak English, Spanish, or German. They spoke Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek. We live in a technological society, shaped by cars, refrigerators, telephones, videos, and computer networks, all ruled by elected officials, convertible currencies, and global markets. They lived in an agrarian society shaped by donkeys, wooden plows, clay pots, and dirt roads, all ruled by a Roman emperor and his armies.

Because of the differences between biblical times and our age, we need training in biblical language and customs. As for language, how many of us know precisely what the terms atonement, justification, redemption, and propitiation mean? As for customs, even casual readers of the Gospels can see that, contrary to the habits of “religious” people in his day, Jesus associated with outcasts, sinners, and people of other races; but readers miss Jesus’ violation of some other social customs. For example, in current Western culture, men and women converse freely in nearly every setting, and so we hardly notice it when the Gospels show Jesus talking to women.

In fact, when the disciples found Jesus talking to a Samaritan woman in John 4, the text says that they were surprised, not to find him talking to a despised Samaritan, but to find him talking to a woman (4:27). The disciples were shocked because the rabbis believed that teaching women was a waste of time. One rabbi even said, “It is better that the words of the Law should be burned, than that they should be given to a woman.”² In their opinion, all women were dangerously seductive. Unless we are aware of such attitudes, we cannot appreciate that Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman was bold and risked condemnation.

For reasons such as this, we need to know about Jewish life and religion to get the most from reading the Bible. In fact, the issue of cultural distance had already arisen by the time the New Testament was written. That is why Mark, Luke, and John, writing for gentile audiences, explained Aramaic terms and Jewish customs that arose in their gospel narratives. For example, Mark interrupted his story of a conflict over ritual cleanness between Jesus and the Pharisees to explain to his gentile readers that the Jews had traditions that called for ceremonial washings (Mark 7:1–5). He also explained Aramaic terms that came up during the crucifixion of Jesus (15:22, 34; for similar asides, see 5:41; 7:19; 9:6; 11:32; 15:16). John interprets even common Jewish terms such as rabbi, Messiah, and the name Cephas (John 1:38–42). Thus, strange customs and terms already impeded communication to people living perhaps a few hundred miles away and just a few decades after the events. How much more do we need instruction now, two thousand years later and in an alien culture, if we hope to understand the language and culture of the Bible!

Training the mind also helps us apply the Bible to new situations. For example, who stands in the position of the Samaritan woman in our society? In a different vein, Christians who work with medical technology have to wrestle with the morality of such things as artificial insemination or the use of “heroic measures” on the terminally ill. Every disciple has to decide how to use television and radio. Should we watch programs that have quality actors and writers, but regularly feature lewd language and immorality? May we watch such a program if the immorality is occasional and incidental? If it is chronic? In popular music, does vulgarity matter if we cannot make out the words? Or is the whole popular music industry corrupt and unworthy of our support?

The Bible never addresses these or many similar questions directly. In a way, it cannot, if it is to speak to all ages and cultures. If God had chosen to dictate instructions about computers or life-support systems to Peter or Ezekiel, they would have been nonsense to all but late–twentieth-century readers. Thus, single proof texts rarely answer questions that stem from new, contemporary situations. “Thou shalt not kill” does not solve every ethical quandary that comes up in a hospital. We need to search the whole Bible to find relevant principles, and training will help the search go faster.

So far, we have been saying that successful interpretation depends on sound methods of interpretation. Yet we must add that it also depends upon sound interpreters. The bulk of this book focuses on techniques used to interpret or “exegete” the Bible. But we must turn to the interpreters from time to time because the spirit they have as they exegete the Bible is just as important as the skills they possess.

State of the Heart: What About the Interpreter?

Serious inquirers must use proper methods, but the mastery of methods does not, by itself, guarantee that God will bless their labors. At its best, Bible study is an encounter with the personal God, not just with a text. Only when we join skillful methods to a receptive heart can we expect Bible study to bear fruit in the lives of individuals and the church.

Personal receptivity is vital because the proper goal of interpretation is application.³ As the apostle Paul says, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16–17). People prove they have understood a concept when they apply it to new situations, especially in their own lives. A disciple demonstrates an understanding of the principle of speaking the truth in love when he or she expresses a difficult truth without hurting anyone. On the other hand, if a man claims to understand the biblical teaching on marriage, yet drives his wife from their home, divorces her, and swiftly marries another woman, we have to question his understanding.⁴

So, we must say, “Beware of method alone!” Believers and unbelievers can both acquire valid techniques of interpretation. Many of them apply to any book, essay, or poem. Skeptics can understand the grammar and terminology of the Bible perfectly well. Investigators can temporarily enter the biblical world to gain information.⁵ But unless God grants a willingness to submit to biblical authority, they can read all day and profit nothing. Unless they are repenting of their sins, they will resist and refuse to apply God’s Word, even as they read it. As a result, they will use inappropriat...