It's no secret that reasoning standards in our culture are dismally low. As Bill Maher notes, "You know why advertisers in this country love the 18 to 34 demographic? Because it’s the most gullible." (1). One result of this decline in reason is that no one seems to care about coherent arguments anymore. No longer do beliefs or arguments stand on their own merits, putting the ball in the court of one's oppnents. These days, it's far more common to judge a belief based on the level of acceptance, or even mere existence of others. "If this is true, why doesn't everyone believe it?" "If the evidence is so solid, why do people still disagree?" "If your interpretation is so clear, why are there so many others?"
This is especially the case when it comes to the clear teachings of Scripture. Of course, we know there are some things in Scripture that are hard to understand, because Scripture explicitly says that there "...are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures." (2 Peter 3:16). But even this carries with it the implication that there are other things which are not so hard to understand. Indeed, we must assume "there are some things which are hard to understand" must be one of the things which is not.
Nevertheless, the Perspicuity of Scripture is not a popular doctrine, owing primarily to the fact many people, and even entire groups, have their own interpretations. Thus, the mere existence of these interpretations is often touted as proof of their own validity!
Of course, those who use such arguments literally never apply them to their own beliefs. When Theistic Evolutionists doubt the clarify of Genesis, for example, they still hold very firmly to Theistic Evolution. Similarly, when Roman Catholics argue that Scripture is unintelligible without their traditions, they expect you to take their interpretations for granted when it's convenient to them. Perhaps the best example is the whole Matthew 7:1 debate. Apparently, that's a clear condemnation... of condemnations. Pseudo Christians interpret this verse as an excuse to judge people whom they judge to be too judgmental. Meanwhile, the sins that are actually being judged, supposedly, might not be sins at all, because Matthew 7:1 is the only place in Scripture that isn't an ink blot test. We don't know what the rest means.
This extreme level of hypocrisy shows this is not a consistent line of argument. It is a defence mechanism, and nothing more. It is intended as a fortress to fall back on when one's own beliefs fail to hold up to scrutiny. This kind of reasoning actually goes a long way to explaining why, in spite of the fact Scripture is perspicuous, there are those who take different views regardless.
In short, the problem is on the human end. One might compare this, as I have in the header image, to a class of 30 students. We'll use math as the subject. With few exceptions, most people consider math an objective topic. It's constant, it's almost universally recognised, it's foundational to many other topics, and it's even perspicuous: The stuff that is hard to understand is made clear by the stuff that isn't.
Now, truth be told, I am terrible at math. I can't do it quickly, I struggle with more complex math problems, and in high school, I was one mark away from passing (so passed on appeal). Suffice to say, I'm by no means a math wizard. But this doesn't mean there's a problem with math, or even the materials used to teach it. It means that in spite of the clarity of math, I struggle with it.
The same principle is true for even the most diligent of Bible students. While the Bible itself has said the same thing, and carried the same meaning, for 2,000 years, not everyone who studies it is going to do so with equal skill. We are always going to have those who get various things wrong.
For many of us, this is simply a case of poor study habits. As much as Christians regularly encourage each other to read our Bibles on a daily basis, even the most studious among us fail to uphold that Psalm 119 standard: "My eyes are awake through the night watches, That I may meditate on Your word." (v148). The unfortunate fact is, for many Christians, a few selected verses are all they really know.
And that actually highlights a bigger problem. We live in an era wherein a Bible verse is considered enough, yet when we read it in context, the interpretation changes dramatically. For example, many Christians will tell you Jeremiah 29:11 is their favorite verse. In the NIV, a particularly popular English version, it reads "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
Wow! God wants to prosper me? Fantastic! I have hope and a futu... aaaaaaand I was just involved in a fatal car crash. So here I am, standing in Heaven, and I ask God why, if He planned to prosper me and not harm me, did He allow me to die such a quick and brutal death? And His answer will be, of course, "you should have checked the context".
When we read Jeremiah 29:11, the first thing we should notice is it begins with the word "for". Now, if you were to write a label on a gift, you might write something like "For my darling wife". Generally speaking, however, you just don't begin a sentence with "for". Instead, this word typically continues a thought. In this case, Jeremiah 29:10 says "This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place." Ah, so now we see who God is promising to prosper and not to harm. It's not a direct promise to Christians living today. No, God is writing to the Babylonian exiles, promising that after 70 years, they would return to their land.
He doesn't stop there, either. "Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”" (v12-14). This further reinforces the fact that verse 11 only applies to the exiles. If you haven't been taken captive and banished to other nations, then God can't bring you back from them in 70 years.
But it gets worse. We also see a flip side. "You may say, “The Lord has raised up prophets for us in Babylon,” but this is what the Lord says about the king who sits on David’s throne and all the people who remain in this city, your fellow citizens who did not go with you into exile— yes, this is what the Lord Almighty says: “I will send the sword, famine and plague against them and I will make them like figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten. I will pursue them with the sword, famine and plague and will make them abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth, a curse and an object of horror, of scorn and reproach, among all the nations where I drive them. For they have not listened to my words,” declares the Lord, “words that I sent to them again and again by my servants the prophets. And you exiles have not listened either,” declares the Lord." (v15-19).
Not surprisingly, few Christians are willing to wear that on a t-shirt. Who fancies being pursued by swords, plagues, and famines? God even says "And you exiles have not listened either", so to be truly consistent, those who apply Jeremiah 29:11 to themselves must admit they don't listen to God, their countrymen are doomed, and after 70 years, they're finally going back to their own land. When it comes to Scripture, you can't just take the things you like and leave the things you don't. Ironically, this is the very crime that caused God to inflict such wrath upon Israel in Jeremiah's time.
But in our culture, this is precisely the kind of shoddy Bible study we see on a regular basis. Why are there so many different interpretations of the Bible? Because there are so many people out there who will read what I just wrote and get angry with me for writing it. I shot the sacred cow with this mystical bullet called "context". Without context, we will struggle to come to the correct conclusions.
But sometimes, even with context, there will be disputes. Poor study habits are one thing, anti-study is another. One thing Scripture clearly warns us about is that untaught and unstable people twist Scripture, as we saw earlier with 2 Peter 3:16. It's a constant theme throughout Scripture: Read your Bible, or the devil will read it for you. Only he's not going to do it right. He's going to leave stuff out. He's going to add stuff in. He's even going to read it backwards. One way or another, he's going to masquerade as an angel of light, and his servants as ministers of righteousness (2 Corinthians 11:14-15).
The result is the same chaos that has plagued the Church from the beginning. First, we see two groups with whom Jesus regularly clashed before they finally nailed Him to a cross. The Sadducees are examples of those who removed from Scripture. Not that they did so literally. It is commonly believed that they rejected all Scripture except for the Torah. This, however, is an erroneous view. What they did reject, however, is a literal interpretation of certain Biblical concepts. Namely, "Sadducees say that there is no resurrection—and no angel or spirit; but the Pharisees confess both." (Acts 23:8). This in spite of the very clear existence of angels throughout the Torah (e.g. Genesis 3:24; Exodus 23:20; Numbers 20:16).
But humans are prone to allegorise the literal. Ezekiel even actively complains to God "Ah, Lord God! They say of me, ‘Does he not speak parables?’" (Ezekiel 20:49). Allegorising the literal is an act of removing from Scripture, not by doing so literally (though rest assured, there are groups who will do so), but by taking what is there as if it is not.
As alluded to, the other group Jesus frequently came to blows with were the Pharisees. These had the opposite problem. Or rather, in a sense, both groups had the same problems, but to opposite degrees. The Sadducees removed a lot from Scripture and substituted it with a little tradition, whereas the Pharisees removed a little from Scripture and substituted it with a lot of tradition.
We see this in the parallel accounts in Matthew 15 and Mark 7, where the Pharisees confront Jesus because His disciples transgressed the tradition of the elders by eating bread without washing their hands. Jesus, in turn, asks them why they transgress the command of God because of their tradition? He specifically notes "For God commanded, saying, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’ But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is a gift to God”— then he need not honor his father or mother.’ Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition." (Matthew 15:4-6).
Jesus' counsel to both of these groups is to read the Scriptures. Or, more accurately, He would constantly rebuke them by asking "have you not read?" Now, what is the implication of this question? The implication is that these things are fairly plain. If you had read the Scriptures, you would know what they say. But there's more to it than that, because of course Jesus knows that these people have, in fact, read the Scriptures. They did it for a living. They carried little fragments of it on their person. They even memorised large portions of it. The issue wasn't that these Pharisees, or these Sadducees, hadn't read the Scriptures, and it certainly wasn't the case that the Scriptures were to blame. Rather, the problem was reader error.
And do you think it's any different with us today? Do you think, in a world that treats the mere existence of one interpretation as a flaw in another, that we have moved past this? Certainly not. The world is as filled with people who refuse to study Scripture as it is with those who fail. We have such a large number of interpretations of Scripture, not because there is no clear or correct interpretation, but because people just don't want to know what it is.
Of course, those who don't want to know the truth of Scripture will find this article of no use. But Scripture does give sound advice to those who do want to know it: "And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love." (Ephesians 4:11-16).
What does this mean? Well, simply that my class of 30 students analogy is a lot more realistic than one might assume. When we are "children", we are "tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine". This comes from "the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting". But we grow together as a Church, and the result is eventually, we will all "come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God". I mean, it's all literally right there. It needs very little exposition. We can reach unity. We just need to be wise to the trickery and deceit that leads us away from it.
References
1. Maher, Bill - Real Time, HBO, April 23rd 2021 (link)
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