Correctly Handling The Word Of Truth

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. (II Timothy 2:15) 

            I think the first time I realized how badly people mangle Scripture was in high school, when a classmate told me his father was a pastor and that the Red Sea in Exodus was angry people. Far more recently, a group of scholars came together and carefully went through at least part of the Bible to determine what in the gospels was certainly said by Jesus, probably was said by Jesus, might have been said by Jesus, probably wasn’t said by Jesus, and was almost certainly not said by Jesus. Apparently, it was determined by the experts that the only thing Jesus definitely said in what is commonly called the Lord’s Prayer was “Father.” 

            Another recent problem is Post-modern philosophy, which rejects the concept of intended meanings. What something means is solely what the reader takes it to mean. Of course, if a Post-modern speaker says, “I abhor violence,” they would not respond favorably to your saying, “Oh, you just committed murder?” Their statements are clear and comprehensible to anyone with an IQ greater than two, but they are free to interpret any text or statement any way they choose. It’s challenging to drive on their one-way roads.

            An excellent book on correctly handling the word of truth, or any other text, is How To Read The Bible For All It’s Worth by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart, and much of what I’m about to say comes from that resource. In order to properly understand Scripture, for example, one needs to know something about the historical context. Who wrote it? Where? When? Why? What were his circumstances? To whom was it written? What do we need to know about the answers to these questions in order to understand what was written? 

            The second consideration in understanding Scripture is the type of writing involved. The Bible is made up of sixty-six documents. It’s not like reading a history book. It’s like reading a history book, a legal contact, a chapbook of poetry, letters and prophecy (which might be considered a sort of combination of poetry and history.) What one expects in a legal contract is not the same as one expects in poetry. Only after one understand what was being said at the time, to the people for whom it was written can we properly apply it to our own lives. 

            As an example, years ago a Sunday School teacher told me that when Jesus spoke of it being easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get to heaven, he was referring to a special gate constructed in the walls of towns that were small enough that a camel could not get through it loaded with cargo. Everything had to be removed and then the camel could, apparently, crawl through the gate – possibly on its knees. This means that if a rich person removed all his riches, he could crawl his way to salvation. The reality is that no such gates existed. The rich man can’t get into heaven by unload all his wealth and crawling. The rich man can only get into heaven by the blood of Christ – the same way as the poor man does. 

            Here’s another example. In Leviticus 11:13-19, we find God’s law concerning what kinds of birds the Jews were not permitted to eat. The last bird in the list was “the bat.” Some people look at that as proof that the Bible is scientifically in error. Everyone knows that bats are mammals and birds are not. Yes, since the Eighteenth Century, when Carl Linnaeus published his taxonomy, bats were not considered birds. I’m not sure when the change took place, but at some point, birds have feathers and bats have fur became the way of distinguishing them. It appears, however, that in Biblical times, “bird” referred to something that was not an insect and yet flew. It wasn’t that they didn’t recognize the difference between feather and fur. It was that their classification system was more functionally based. If it flew and it wasn’t a bug, it was a bird. Understood in the way they would have understood it, without temporal snobbery, it makes sense.  

            Two last examples of improper handling of the word of truth. There are those who maintain that the Word of God must be read in the King James (1611) version. Once upon a time, it was maintained by some that the Word of God must be read in Latin. In both cases, everything else was considered to be an interpretation from the original. Here’s the problem. The King James (1611) version and the Latin version are both translations from the original. The original texts were written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.

          When I was in college, a classmate informed me that King James ordered that texts be inserted into the Bible condemning witchcraft, that the original did not. The problem with that is that modern translations of the text are not made from King James’ document. They are made from documents dating back much farther, and, again, written in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic.

          While anyone can study Scripture and learn from it, the more you know about the historical context and the more you understand the textual context, the better your understanding will be.