In high school, when I said something others considered ridiculous, one of my friends would tell me to go jump in the lake. I knew he meant disagreement with what I said and not a command because there was no lake near the school and I could tell from his tone, that he wasn’t suggesting something I wanted to do. The time, the place, his tone, and what was said before, changed the meaning of his command. And it helped tremendously to know that in my culture, ‘Go jump in the lake.’ was a facetious expression or idiom meaning my remark was completely wrong.
Imagine what it would be like to receive that same instruction from him in a postmarked letter with no other explanation. Because the external circumstances would be missing, I wouldn’t know what to think. And so it is with letters, that the writer must be extremely clear to deliver the context along with his remarks so that the correct meaning is inferred.
Herein lies the problem with modern interpretation of the letters of the Bible. In most cases, we are missing the time, the place, cultural awareness of idioms, and what was said before. And sometimes, even the tone of the writer is uncertain when he talks about different subjects in the same communication.
Could it be that most disagreements about disputed passages in the Biblical letters stem from our lack of knowing the context surrounding each letter that the common man of that day would have known? When I read some modern commentaries with vocabulary words used only in colleges and universities, I remind myself that they aren’t communicating to the common man for whom the letters were written. Rather, they are trying to impress their colleagues in the halls of academia. Nowhere is this more obvious in the history of Christianity, than in the writings of Catholic clergy in Latin, a language dead to uneducated men and women.
So is there any way to infer the correct message from these ancient letters? Can we simply rely on translators to get everything right? Unfortunately, the answer to the second question is no, but for the first one, there is hope.
This hope isn’t in personal interpretation from the Holy Spirit. I cringe when someone declares that the Holy Spirit has given them their interpretation because I suspect it is wrong. Why do I feel this way? It is because they usually use a modern context for their understanding and the letters of the Bible are ancient documents written in much different circumstances.
When I am confronted with a disputed passage, the first thing I do is read everything that is said before it on the same topic. In other words, I am learning what was said before the disputed passage. Sometimes, this is enough to resolve the controversy. For example, some Christians think that Galatians 5:4, “Ye are fallen from grace,” means that believers can lose their salvation. Yet perusing the verses before this one reveals the Apostle Paul is referring to returning to Old Testament Jewish practices, such as their dietary laws, which the Gospel of Grace has nullified.
But other times, the verses before a disputed passage won’t be enough to get the right meaning. Then I strive to get the time and place correct. You can hardly be wrong about the time if you say a New Testament letter was written in the first century A.D. And the place where a letter was written is often overshadowed by where it was sent because knowing the intended audience aids our interpretation more. In the first century, Christian churches were composed of mostly illiterate people so letters intended for them would have surface meanings, in other words, plain speaking. This understanding allows us to discard underlying hidden meanings often proposed by cults.
Likewise, there were basically two kinds of audiences in the first century Roman world, one that was primarily Jewish, and the other primarily Gentile. Gentiles were taught that Caesar was God and Jews knew he wasn’t. So, the letter to the Hebrews, for example, makes much more sense if you allow that it was written primarily to believing Jews. What would they think when the author said, “His [God’s] Son is the radiance of his glory…” (Heb 1:3a). Would anybody in the audience think the author was referring to Caesar’s son? Not likely, so neither should we.
What about idioms? For this, we must turn to archaeology. One of its most important discoveries was in 1895, when construction in Middle Egypt unearthed a garbage dump of ancient papyrus texts dating from three hundred years before to three hundred years after Christ. Many secular writings have been discovered which clarify some idiomatic expressions in common use during the life of Jesus and his apostles. Examples of New Testament letters have also been found confirming their origin in the first century A.D. With these discoveries, some disputed passages have been resolved. For example, Romans 12:20 and its companion Old Testament passage, Proverbs 25:21-22, doesn’t mean that heaping coals of fire on your enemy’s head is shaming him. Rather, it means that by feeding him, you will be giving him a warm start for the cold morning. In this example, the tone of the passage is also a guide. It would be inconsistent to give your enemy food and drink and then in the next breath, try to make him feel bad or burn him with fire. Couple this with the Jewish law of making a peace covenant with your enemy by having a meal with him and you will correctly understand this verse.
Regrettably, some passages defy our ability to be dogmatic in our interpretation because we still don’t know the full context around them. And so, we should be gracious to other Christians who see them in a different light than we do. In this regard, it is helpful to realize that ninety-five percent of the New Testament is not disputed by Christians of different denominations and those verses which are disputed are not a part of the gospel message. All true believers agree on the meaning of the gospel, that we are declared sinless by God because we accept the atoning death and resurrection of Christ for us. Don’t let disagreements about small issues cause you to think the gospel message is a product of interpretation. It isn’t.
