Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth

Photo by Gift Habeshaw

Photo by Gift Habeshaw

Several years ago, a friend of mine asked me what my PhD was in. When I told him that my degree was in New Testament Studies, he got a funny look on his face and then quipped, “Ha! One book!” He was simply incredulous that someone would have a doctorate in such a thing.

His reaction is certainly understandable. Persons outside of the field would not readily be aware of its complexity—what a biblical scholar must know and research concerning these ancient documents, which, among other things, have been fundamental to the development of Western Civilization.

In any case, it was my friend’s perception that the New Testament was “one book” that struck me. I would hazard to guess that for most people, Christian or otherwise, the entire Bible is perceived to be nothing more than a single book rather than a collection of various forms of ancient literature written over the course of a millennia.

There is certainly truth to the idea that the Bible is in some sense one book. The literary works it contains were deliberately collected, preserved, and arranged with at least the implicit understanding that, for all their diversity, these texts belong together to ultimately present a coherent message.

I also believe (along with the early church leaders and later Protestant Reformers) in the idea of the perspicuity—or clarity—of the Scriptures. This idea affirms that the Bible’s message is accessible to all—that it can be both understood and obeyed by the lay person.

Nevertheless, the Bible itself testifies to the fact that God has gifted the church with teachers who are especially equipped to help the people of God understand what the Scriptures say (1 Corinthians 12:28; Romans 12:6–7; Ephesians 4:11–12). Thus, while discerning the meaning of the Bible is something all Christians are called to do, there still must be the recognition that some are necessarily more prepared to perform this task than others.

Professional clergy are generally the immediate figures to whom lay Christians look for Bible teaching. But when it comes to biblical interpretation, it is biblical scholars who teach the clergy.

Biblical scholars receive extensive specialized training in order to understand, for example, the original languages of the Bible, the different types of literature found in it (each with their own rules of interpretation), the diverse social and historical circumstances from which these texts were written and that they describe, the range of (often competing) interpretations that have been offered to date on them, etc.

Accordingly, a healthy respect for biblical scholarship should mark all Christians serious about their faith.

Some of you may be thinking that respect for scholarship in any formal discipline, whether in the natural or social sciences or humanities goes without saying. Of course, I can imagine some others of you wondering why anyone one would invest that much time and energy into interpreting the Bible.

Still others, however, either do not find the academic study of the Bible to be relevant to the church, and/or do not seem to grasp the sort of intricacy involved in, as the old King James Version puts it, “rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). It is especially this last group whom I wish to address in this article.

Christians who would fall into this group typically stress the importance of studying the Bible, but they conceive of it in overly simplistic and naïve ways, as if the Bible were like a big jigsaw puzzle. Such persons might extract a passage from, let’s say, the book of Daniel, then a few verses from the Gospel of Matthew, a couple from Paul’s letters, and, finally, a chapter from the book of Revelation. These texts are then stitched together to construct a theology that would supposedly represent what the Bible says on a particular subject.

In this approach, virtually nothing of these texts’ respective historical or literary contexts receives adequate consideration. Whether, for example, Matthew or Revelation are reimagining elements from earlier texts like Daniel to speak to new historical situations experienced by each of their own original hearers is a question that mainly goes unasked. That most of the book of Revelation represents an ancient literary form we call “apocalyptic” and is therefore highly symbolic, containing multiple levels of metaphor, poses no special concerns for how it is read.

Unfortunately, this sort of superficial interpretive work has become quite popular to religious audiences, receiving sizable attention through reams of popular-level books written by self-proclaimed Bible experts and, in more recent times, on various internet platforms such as YouTube. Sometimes it is delivered from the pulpit in churches where pastors are not required to receive the level of formal training demanded by most major denominations. Sometimes it is taught in (usually unaccredited) fundamentalist Bible institutes and colleges.  

And sometimes this method is even defended by all the above, being piously justified as “letting Scripture interpret Scripture.” But since the Bible contains all the diversity to which I have referred, in the end this justification amounts to merely using some Scriptures in ways that do interpretive violence to other Scriptures. And the result is bad theology.  

Making matters worse, consumers of this bad theology are commonly unaware that a good portion of the interpretive claims they have embraced and which have become central to their understanding of the Christian faith would not be taken with any degree of seriousness in mainstream biblical scholarship, because of their insupportable basis.

Change is needed. With ever-increasing access to scholarly-informed biblical material, much of which is intended for popular lay audiences, there is little excuse for Christians to not grow in their knowledge of God’s Word through sound biblical interpretation. Let’s leave the nonsense behind. What do you say?

Christopher Zoccali