Listening to the Gospel reading this morning from Mark 10
about the young man who went away sad after Jesus told him to sell everything
he had and give to the poor inspired some reflection on the difficulties we have
understanding scripture and formulating a cohesive theology from it. A couple of things I learned in three years
of seminary training are that there is a difference between Bible study and
Theology study and that either, carelessly done, can easily lead to
questionable conclusions.
Study of the Bible, a compilation of writings of various
genres produced over a period of a thousand years or so and covering a much
longer time has to be done text by text.
In other words, if one desires to study a selection from the Gospel of
John, one must focus on the earliest possible version of that text, and that
text alone, in the original language, paying close attention to several
factors:
- Genre, form, and structure of the text.
- Literary context: What comes before and after and why?
- Historical and cultural context.
- Key words and phrases and their meanings at the time of writing.
- Translation difficulties and uncertainties.
- Writer and audience identification, purpose of the writer and meaning to the audience.
- And, for persons of faith, what the application today is.
(One who wants to undertake such a study shouldn't worry too
much about that original language thing because there are excellent
commentaries which thoroughly explore the translation issues and many versions
of the Bible which lay out various translation options.)
It is failure to follow such a Bible study regimen that
leads to theological errors such as applying Philippians 4:13, “I can do all
things through Him…,” to personal and self serving accomplishment, seeing St.
Paul’s 1 Corinthians 9 comparison of the spiritual life to that of an athlete
as an endorsement of success for ones football team, or understanding the
Leviticus sexual code as a good guide for behavior and punishment in the 21st
century. Sloppy Bible study tends to
lead to emphasis on the Great Commission at the expense of The Greatest
Commandments, or vice versa, focus on faith at the expense of works, or vice
versa, and focus on the bye and bye at the expense of the here and how, or vice
versa. It almost always misses the big
picture, the forest, due to excessive focus on the details, the trees, or
weeds.
Theology, on the other hand, still uses but de-emphasizes
the details of a particular text and, for Christians, seeks to identify broad
themes running through the whole of Scripture.
What can we learn from The Holy Bible about God, creation, the universe,
and humankind, about good and evil, about life and death and living and dying, about salvation and
condemnation? Are we to subscribe to a
theology of prosperity or one of poverty, chastity and obedience, to a theology
of just “me and Jesus,” or a theology of the Church as the Body of Christ, each
of us members of it, to a theology of social justice and liberation or a
theology of personal generosity and service?
Should our theology be one of “Focus on the Family,” or of focus on The
Family of God? Shall we depend on good
works, or on our personal faith, or on the faithfulness of God?
Without informed guidance and prayerful study, even with a serious
attempt to focus on the big picture, the forest, our theologies can easily be
skewed in wrong or overly simplistic directions
by possibly well-meaning but misguided smooth talkers making logical or
emotional appeals. There are plenty of
examples of that in recent history as outlined in Ross Douthat’s Bad Religion which I wrote about a few weeks ago.
Sometimes we mistakenly (Romans 12:2) look to societal
trends to help us understand and tinker with our theologies. But, with some scriptural support (1 Timothy
3:15) serious Christians often depend on the Church to
interpret or help interpret the scriptures and keep us on a sound theological
basis.
And, we sometimes find that the surprising answer from the
Church to a difficult either-or theological issue is not one or the other but both-and.
Here is a definition that links Christian theology and Bible
study and includes the role of The Church.
