Did You Know That Wasn’t True? Exegesis and Hermeneutics

I wonder how many readers I lost by adding those last three words to the title?  I would leave them off, but I don’t want to be one of those “Shock and Awe” title-givers that misleads the reader.

I’m reading the book, “How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth.” The lack of the apostrophe in “Its” is purposely intended as a wordplay, so no worries.

That said, it is a great intro into good Bible study.  They bring light to the fact that in overcorrecting for those ivory tower seminary types that sit around and only talk about ideas (Acts 17:21,) many people have totally written off the “experts,” and even have a hidden agenda that seminary is a hindrance to good Bible reading.  I’ve seen this attitude point blank.

The book talks much of exegesis and hermeneutics.  Exegesis is the first step in good Bible reading and study.  It is precisely, “What did the text mean to the original audience?” Hermeneutics is, “What does this mean now for us?”   What did it mean and what does it mean, respectively.  The only safe control for applying the scripture to today, Hermeneutics, is good Exegesis. (Fee and Stuart 29)  All cults come about by the application of poor Hermeneutics, because they didn’t have the control of good exegesis.

Many people steamroll the Bible and take any verse out of context as if it applies to them.  The first example that comes to mind is one of the most often misquoted favorite verses or life verses.  Jeremiah 29:11 says, “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.” (NIV)

Many use this as if it were God’s personal promise to them.  It’s not necessarily wrong to find hope in this, but it’s not God’s promise to you.  It’s his promise to the exiled Israel in Babylon, 2,500 some years ago.  The “you” is plural.  The problem comes when you hope in this verse and then it’s not fulfilled.  God didn’t promise this to you, so he doesn’t have to fulfill it, but if you believe he did make this promise, and then doesn’t come through, then you’ll have a problem in your basic beliefs about him.  Thus a “small” misunderstanding of scripture becomes a major worldview/Godview problem that weakens your faith, all because of a misapplication of scripture.

You see, the verse right before this verse is “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place.” (Jer 29:10) So, Israel is captive in Babylon.  Some day Israel will be restored, but all of the hearers of that prophecy will be dead by the time it comes to pass.  Israel’s lineage will continue.  Israel will be blessed someday.  God says in this prophecy, “I will keep working through her to bring about my purposes… but you won’t see it.  You’ll die a slave in Babylon.  That’s what the verse meant to the original hearers.  IT was a collective hope for their people, but not an individual hope for their own prosperity.  That’s just one example of misapplying scripture without proper concern for who the audience actually was –improper exegesis.

What’s written above is very important, but not the original reason I decided to write a post today.  I’m writing because I was blown away by something I read in the first chapters.  The authors mention the importance of using good sources, and not secondary sources quoting from other secondary sources.  Below is a story that contradicts something that I’d heard many times and took to be true, simply because secondary sources have kept the lie running for 1,000 years.

“For example, in Mark 10:24 (Matt 19:23; Luke 18:24,) at the conclusion of the story of the rich young man, Jesus says, ‘How hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!’ He then adds: ‘It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.’ Your will sometimes hear it said that there was a gate in Jerusalem known as the ‘Needle’s Eye,’ which camels could go through only by kneeling, and with great difficulty.  The point of this ‘interpretation’ is that a camel could in fact go through the ‘Needle’s Eye.’ The trouble with this ‘exegesis,’ however, is that it is simply not true.  There never was such a gate in Jerusalem at any time in its history.  The earliest known ‘evidence’ for this idea is found in the eleventh century in a commentary by a Greek churchman named Theophylact, who had the same difficulty with the text that we do.  After all, it is impossible for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, and that was precisely Jesus’ point.  It is impossible for one who trusts in riches to enter the kingdom.  It takes a miracle for a rich person to get saved, which is quite the point of what follows: “All things are possible with God.” (Fee and Stuart 25)

So, I encourage all of us to do better exegesis! And now the next time your hear that camel nonsense, you can gently correct the speaker.

Fee, Gordon D., and Douglas Stuart. How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth. 3^rd ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003.

How do we Respond to Offense?

Much modern Christian “wisdom” tells us to bring up our conflicts with every small offender for the sake of unity. We basically encourage people to be offended, as long as we don’t conceal it.

We approach this from the wrong direction. It’s a compromise of morality. We think, “Well, they’re going to hold on to their pride and sense of entitlement no matter what, so at least it’s the lesser of two evils to get it out in the open rather than let it explode in the pressure cooker of bottled up emotions.”

What does the Word say?

“Good sense make one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense. ” Proverbs 19:11

Let us seek to overlook offenses.

You Owe God 8 Billion Dollars!

Have you ever done the math in in Matthew 18:23-35? I did once, and it blew me away.  It took the story to another level for me, and I was able to understand it on a much grander scale.

The short Jordan paraphrase of the story goes like this:

A man owes the king 10,000 talents and cannot pay.  The king orders the man’s wife and family sold, but the man pleads for forgiveness, and the king grants it.  The debtor later goes out, sees a man that owes him just 100 denari, and begins to choke him and demand payment.  This man also pleads forgiveness, but the man that was recently forgiven the larger debt doesn’t grant it, and instead throws him into prison until he can pay it.  The king is informed, and he fetches the first man again, the unforgiving debtor, and challenges him.  “And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?”  He then hands this man over to the “jailers,” or the literal Greek “torturers/tormentors,” (wow, there’s an image) till he can pay.  The same will be of us if we do not forgive our brothers from the heart.

For the full story click here

I originally saw just the surface meaning of this.  One dude owed a lot, and was shown mercy.  He later showed no mercy to one that owed him little, so the King threw him in jail for not responding in kind with others.  God shows us forgiveness, we ought to show others.

Two simple things drastically deepened my understanding of this:

1. The Greek word for jailers is “torturers,” or “tormentors.” (βασανισταῖς which is the dative case of βασανιστής)

2. I did the math.  I will represent it here.

First guy owes 10,000 talents.  One talent equals 20 years labor for the average laborer (according to the notes at the bottom of the Biblical text.)  To use a pretty standard figure, I’ll choose $20.00/hour which with a 40 hour week at 50 weeks per year (two weeks vacation,) works out conveniently to $40,000 per year.

His total? In today’s money, he owes 8 billion dollars.  Or, $8,000,000,000.00

The other guy that owes 100 denarii? A denarius was one day’s wage for a laborer. So, he owed 100 days at $20/hour, using today’s figure of 8 hour days, he would owe $16,000 dollars. If you divide 8 billion by 16 thousand, you get 500,000.  i.e. The first man owed 500,000 times more than the second man.  Or, he owed $500,000.00 for every dollar that the second man owed him.

I always thought this boiled down to one guy owing $100,000 and the other owing a petty $2,000.  I had no idea that the first guy owed more than 5,000 lifetimes of full time labor, and the second only 100 days.

Notice how this makes such a difference in the eternal significance of this passage. This doesn’t have to do with just right and wrong, but with salvation itself. “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (-Jesus, in Matthew 6:14-15)

We have sinned against God (the king) around 500,000 times more than others have sinned against us.  Yet, he has graciously forgiven us.  If we hold on to anger against those who have done us wrong, and don’t forgive them, even in they are incredibly annoying, we won’t just go to jail for a bit till we’ve learned our lesson; we’ll have to spend 5,000 lifetimes – i.e. eternity – with tormentors (hell.)  What a crock to not forgive others when God has forgiven us of a debt half a million times larger!  If you spit in the face of his mercy, and do not show it to others, you will not be forgiven!  This isn’t very popular in our cheap-grace evangelicalism.  Take it up with the Author of life if you have a problem.
-Jordan

A Walk Through Jeremiah 6-7

I enjoy reading a bit of Jeremiah for a wake-up call against sin.  We’re so desensitized to sin since we see it so often in our society, and even more often in ourselves. I wanted to share a few verses I’d underlined along with a few thoughts.

“The word of the LORD is to them an object of scorn;” v 10. – sinful Jerusalem, they wouldn’t nor couldn’t hear rebuke, because even the word of God was an object of scorn to them.

“Therefore I am full of the wrath of the LORD;
I am weary of holding it in.” – 6:11a -Jeremiah was truly full of God’s wrath and judgment.  He got weary of holding it in, so he didn’t.  He wrote a whole book rebuking sinful Jerusalem.

“For from the least to the greatest of them,
everyone is greedy for unjust gain;
and from prophet to priest,
everyone deals falsely.” -6:13 – This is just plain true. It’s why we need Christ. No matter our level of righteousness, we’re still “filthy rags.”

“For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever.” 7:5-7 -This shows the difference between forgiveness and repentance.  God will forgive them if they walk away from their former ways.  Repentance is what leads to salvation, (2 Cor 7:10) and requires a walking away from former sins. See John 8:1-11 for more. “Go and sin no more.”

“…I spoke to you persistently you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer…” 7:13 – This is us.

But this command I gave them: “Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you,’ why? ‘That it may be well with you.’” 7:23 italics added.

I find Jeremiah to be a breath of fresh air.